“I suggest you don’t do that,” said a husky voice with an accent. My breath froze in my chest. Was it reading my mind? I sang to block my conscious thoughts while assembling curse-removal herbs.
“Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool? Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full. Oranges and lemons say the bells of St. Clement’s. Give me five farthings…”
I jammed a rowan stick between the gold bracelet and my skin, changing from nursery rhymes to spell words—though the words were never as important as the intention.
“Magic mend the path of this broken soul. With the power of wood and plant, that which is not of this world, I release you.”
Dabbing sage oil at my throat and the wrist points around the stick for extra protection, I concentrated on the image of the bracelet breaking. The heat of the water lifted the essence of the herb oils from my skin, swirling it into a green steamy haze.
“I am clean. I am whole. I am sound. I am light. I am one. I am beyond touch. I am clean. I am whole. I am sound. I am light. I am one. I am beyond touch.”
When I got to the end of the cycle, the purple smoke had pretty well dissipated.
Had it worked? I tugged at the bracelet. But it didn’t break.
Flipping Foxgloves.
There was only one way to go.
I cracked open the shower door, releasing the herbal steam.
Terror clawed its way from my stomach to my throat.
A naked man was leaning on the counter, wrapping one of my lavender towels around his waist. Steam beaded on his rippling bronze torso. Around my age and pretty much a thirst trap. Terrifyingly handsome. Was this thing a product of my imagination? His smug smile turned my blood into bubbling lava.
I swiped dripping gray braids out of my face and threw the remaining sage oil into the vicinity of the man’s head. “I banish thee!”
The steam thinned. A bracelet like the one on my wrist slid down the interloper’s forearm as he wiped the rivulets of oil from an angular jaw.
He sniffed his fingers. “Bardaqush? Curious theurgy, but your concoctions will not work on me.” His voice was amber-smooth, but his archaic terms didn’t faze me. Theurgy was the art of persuading a supernatural power from doing something, which is exactly what I was attempting. I called it banishment, but an apple was an apple. He knew what I was doing, and that was concerning in itself.
I was seeing a whole new flowery side to potentially taking a life—if he had one to take. Pulling energy into my fists, I focused it internally, twining it into silvery balls. Then with everything I had, I whipped them at him.
My fluffy orbs smacked the mirror and ricocheted back at me as he flashed a maddening grin. I ducked, and the ballspoofedinto the shower glass.
Blood rushed in my ears as I recalled the steps of banishment. If he was a spirit, or an interloper on this plane, the energy balls should have pulled apart his form and dissipated it.
But they went right through him.
This was not good.
I swiped water out of my eyes. “What are you? And how do I make you go away?”
He ran a hand down his chest, like he, too, was amazed by how washboard his abs were. “Now that’s rather complicated, and I’m a little mystified myself. The more compelling question is who or whatyouare.” His full dark-brown eyebrows raised. He plucked a second towel from the bar and held it out.
He could hold towels.
He had to be really here.
I ripped it out of his hand and backed up against the door, but he didn’t try to stop me. His presence was bizarrely physical, and from my experience, that took a lot of power unless my energy was feeding an illusion, and he really wasn’t there.
I rubbed the towel over my hair, and the bracelet slid down my arm. “I assume you came from the chain, Mr. Genie or Spirit, or whatever the hellebore you are. Why don’t you go back in the chain, and we can continue this discussion under water?” Maybe if I got his bracelet off, mine would come off too.
“You’re misguided. What you intended wouldn’t have worked with the lovely Brenda either. When the Essifer poppedin, he helped you out. The only way to release that chain now is to end your life.”
“How about we end yours instead?” I grabbed his arm near the bracelet. A wave of amber light buffeted around me, and the air tasted sweet, like honeyed apricots and exotic spices mixed with lush greenery and some primal sandy freshness. Immersed in his energy, I floated in the golden cloud, my mind wandering down the trail of sensations.
“That would be ill-advised.” His tanned fingers lifted my hand away, as if I were a child touching forbidden fruit. When he let go, I staggered back against the door.
