“Wait...”
“I’m burning up? Like, I could actually go up in flames?” Her voice shrank.
Silence again.
Brax’s voice was blunt. “You wouldn’t sound this calm if there weren’t some loophole, something we could do. What is it?”
“Ah, yes. This part. I don’t know entirely what it means, but I have ideas. ‘Should the Chalice be drunk before blood burned away, should it be drunk as blood be cooled, destruction shall come upon the drinker and all his endeavors. Or her endeavors.”
“So, if Marietta drinks before I’m dead, and she figures I’m going to be dead by morning,she’lldie? Be destroyed, and her endeavors, too?”
“Yes. But say that she waits, if you’re cured, presumably the blood in the cup will reflect that. Should she drink that ‘cooled’ blood, that will undo her as well.”
“I’m cooler when Brax touches me. He helped my—”
“Shhh!” Brax gave her a frantic shake of his head.
“My temperature go down some.” Penny rolled her eyes. “Like I’m going to tell some nice, strange spellbook guy on the phone about nummy Brax-pops.” “
“Ah. I’m glad you’ve arranged some sort of relief that helps you both.”
Penny nodded, then pouted. “But it goes back up when he’s not holding me.”
“Holding you?”
“He was almost frozen to death. He had black lines under his skin.”
“Frozen blood,” Brax supplies, shuddering at the memory. “I’m a bit warmed up now, although nowhere near a normal human temperature. Not even approaching room temp at the moment.” He realized.
“Which is wonderful...” Penny sighed and shimmied all over him, rubbing belly and breasts against him in a sinuous arc that would have been seductive—if she weren’t simultaneously holding her phone and trying to suck on his earlobe at the same time.
“Did you say frozen blood?” Mr. Minegold’s voice was halting and soft, as if afraid to be hopeful.
“Yes, and as I’m sure you know, it hurts like a bitch. Think you’ll never be properly warm again, that you’ll die like that, freezing inside, pins and needles jabbing through every vein, and you know it won’t even end for you, you’ll just keep suffering.”
Penny spun around him, facing him as she landed on the balls of her feet. Her body pressed against him with purpose, to heal him, heat him. Her arms twined around his neck, and there was something warm in her eyes as they held his.
Loving? Is that a loving gaze?Brax returned it, slowly letting his hand come up to join hers on the phone, heads meeting, lips brushing—
“Listen to this!” Minegold’s voice was suddenly sharp. “This is from Madge, who owns the magic shop?”
“I know her,” Brax grumbled. It wasn’t the same sort of magic shop as the back room sort in New Orleans. Madgehad given him the hairy eyeball, and he’d steered clear of her establishment ever since. “Have you got every magical person in this village in a group chat?”
“Not all, no. Now, pay attention. ‘To quell the mighty one, a sacrifice whose blood has been spilled—’”
“Where did these spell-dudes go to school?” Penny whined. “Where’s the Cliff Notes version!? Where’s the summary?”
“Shhh! I’ll summarize at the end. ‘Let the sacrifices imbibe the blood of the beings who are spawned in the lower depths, frozen in the Chalice’s desolation.’”
“Say what?” Brax demanded.
“What?” Penny parroted.
“One of those spawned in the lower depths, a demon! Vampire! You’re one of the sacrifices. You must imbibe, must drink, the blood of a demon who has suffered from the desolation. The freak ice storm!”
Penny let out a wail, hand flung high, and phone flinging from it, landing with a thump on the floor.“How am I supposed to get frozen demon blood?”
Brax spoke patiently, “He means me. You’re the burnt sacrifice, and I’m the frozen one. You drink my blood. Hah. That’s backwards.”
