Ranth’s heat pressed at my back.
“Hey, give me some space.” Keeping one hand on the wall, I waved at him with the other. My hand was still inches from his chest. I couldn’t feel his energy like a normal human—but I also couldn’t see it like a demon’s. He was more like a ghost or a spirit, but those never had a corporeal form, and there was no question that Ranth was one hundred percent in this room with me. He’d stepped back, but he was distracting as foxgloves.
My heart skipped a beat as Ori ran from the kitchen to the stairs. I activated the lock, and the doorway shimmered watery silver.
Papers shuffling pulled me out of the spell. Ranth was rifling through a sheaf of handwritten research spells from my desk.
Rage bubbled. “Please stop. Those are personal. Put them back.”
His lips pressed together, but he continued to page through them.
I couldn’t let go of the wall yet. Ori was almost at the door.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Oriana’s bright energy blossomed as she stopped in the hall. “Sorrel? Where are you?” Ori looked at the door and ceiling as if there wasn’t anything to see. That was the plan. But she could hear me.
“You’ll have to drop the electronics, bae. The ward won’t open if you’re plugged in.”
Ori dropped her cell, watch, and laptop bag into a pile. Ignoring the continued shuffle of paper, I pressed both hands to the door frame. Chuckles behind me grated on my focus.
The shimmer turned from blue to green as I yanked the wards open, and Ori half fell through the door, shoving the duffel bag at me. I slammed the door behind her, and shestaggered to the bed, her eyes wide, taking in Ranth. He rubbed his jaw as he stared back at her.
“Holy shit,” she said.
The air in the room expanded and contracted.
For ten seconds, it was like being inside a bouncy ball. I clawed at the wall to stop my fall. Ranth was thrown on the bed, and Ori was on the floor.
“Sorry, wasn’t thinking,” Ori replied sheepishly, leaning on the bed to pull herself off the floor while I righted the black frame of my favorite painting, Waterhouse’sThe Magic Circle.
The swearing ward Mom had put on the house had trained me to keep to the positives. When a non-allowed swear word was uttered inside the house, it would physically buffet the air. I was strong enough now to dispel it, but the memory was more important than the constriction. Mom had schooled me to swear in plant names, so only positive energy could come from negative thoughts.
Ranth was still reading my notes. “What part ofstopdidn’t you understand?” I asked, grabbing my pages out of his hand, then laying them on my silver-leafed night table.
“You don’t actually use those, do you?” He nodded at the pile of spellwork sheets.
“Why? Forget it. I don’t want to hear your twisted perspective, whatever it is.”
Ori unzipped the duffel. “Is this who the clothing’s for? I don’t think the T-shirt is going to fit.” She surveyed down Ranth’s bare chest to his towel-cloaked waist.
The bigger problem was she could apparently see Ranth. That was a whole new level of “what now?” If Ranth was surprised Ori could see him, he wasn’t showing it.
He stepped around me. “I’m Ranth,” he said, extending a hand. Ori reached out to shake it.
“Don’t!” I pushed down her arm before he touched her. They both looked at me like I was high on sage.
“He’s not what you think.” I nodded at Ranth.
“Guessing you’ll explain?” She waved her hand at the purple towel around Ranth’s waist. Ranth looked down at his belly button as if it had moved.
I turned to Ranth. “How can she see you? I couldn’t see you at Brenda’s.”
“Your bodily fluids released me from the gold. It didn’t happen before because Brenda wasn’t a wizard. The spell you attempted altered perception because of your unique gifts, so I am now able to project.” He pushed a strand of inky black hair behind an ear.
I gritted my teeth against the “attempted” but studied him, quietly running through the things I’d thrown at him. Maybe it had been the combination of the herbs? Sometimes I used rosemary for clarity, and it was sensitive to spirit manifestations. But it wasn’t as if there was a rule book for wizards trapped in cursed bracelets.
Ori handed Ranth camouflage track pants, an oversized peony pink T-shirt with a vampire kitten on it, and some massive neon blue sandals. “Sorry, it was the best I could do on short notice.”
