A meeting, physical, intimate, psychic, potent that built like a storm, ripped through her like a climax.
Her head fell back. She lifted her arms, palms up, fingers spread.
“Here, a weapon forged against the dark. Fired by faith and light. On the Dark Witch’s sacrificial ground, three by three by three will stand against the evil born in the black. Blood and death follow. Bring horse, hawk, hound together, and say the name. Ring bell, open book, light candle, say the name. Into fire white, all light, blinding bright, cast the stone and close the door. Blood and death follow. Be it demon, be it mortal, be it witch, blood and death follow.”
Her eyes, which had gone black, rolled back white. Fin managed to catch her before she fell, simply folded like a puppet with its strings nipped.
Even as he swept her up, she pressed a hand to his shoulder.
“I’m all right. Just dizzy for a minute.”
“You’ll sit right here.” He laid her on the little sofa in front of the fire, then going to her stock, scanned until he found what he wanted.
He didn’t bother to put the kettle on, but made tea with a snap of his fingers, poured six drops of the tonic into it, then brought it to her.
“Drink and don’t argue,” he ordered. “It’s your own potion.”
“I was there, all the light and power rising up, and the brew stirring in the cauldron, thickening, bubbling. Then I was watching myself, and you, and hearing the words I spoke without speaking them. I’ve had flashes of what’s to come before—all of us have—but nothing so strong or overtaking as that. I’m all right now, I promise you.”
Or nearly, she thought and drank the laced tea.
“It’s only when it left me, it was like being emptied out entirely for just a moment.”
“Your eyes went black as the dark of the moon, and your voice echoed as if from a mountaintop.”
“I wasn’t myself.”
“You weren’t, no. What came in you, Branna?”
“I don’t know. But the strength and the light of it was consuming. And, Fin, it was beautiful beyond the telling. It’s all that we are, but so brilliantly magnified, a thousand suns all around and inside at once. It’s the only way I know to tell you.”
She drank more tea, felt herself begin to settle again. “I want to write it down, everything I said. It wouldn’t do to forget.”
“I won’t be forgetting it, not a word.”
She smiled. “Best to write it down in any case. A weapon forged—it must have worked then.”
“The poison’s black and thick as pitch.”
“We have to seal it, keep it in the dark, and charm the bottle to hold it.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“No, no, we conjured it together, and there’s something to that, I think. So we should do the rest together as well. I’m altogether fine, Fin, I promise you.”
She set the tea aside, got to her feet to prove her words. “It should be done quickly. I wouldn’t want the poison to turn and have to go through the whole business again.”
He kept an eye on her until he was fully satisfied.
After they sealed the spell, she took two squat bottles, both opaque and black, from the cabinet under her work counter.
“Two?”
“We made enough, as I thought it wise to have a second. If something should happen to the first—before or during—we’ll have another.”
“Smart and, as always, practical.” When she started to get out a funnel, he shook his head. “I don’t think this is something we do that way. I understand, again, your practicality, but I think, for this, we stay with power.”
“You may be right. One for you, then, one for me. It should be quickly done, then stopped tight, again sealed.” She touched one of the bottles. “Yours.” Then the other. “Mine.” And walked back to stand with him by the cauldron. “Pot to bottle, leaving no trace on the air, no drop on the floor.”
