“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
“Mia…”
“Your left eye is twitching. It does that when you’re hiding something.” Mia turned to face her fully. “I’ve known you since freshman orientation. I held your hair back when you got food poisoning from that dining hall sushi. I was there when your grandmother died. Don’t stand there and lie to my face.”
Ava’s prepared speech dissolved. She stood in Victor’s penthouse, morning light catching the dust motes in the air, and couldn’t find a single word that wasn’t a betrayal.
“If I tell you the truth,” she said finally, “you won’t help me.”
“Then maybe I shouldn’t help you.”
“My parents will lose their souls.”
“And if I do help you? What do you lose?”
Neither of them spoke. Somewhere in the building, an elevator dinged. A distant sound, ordinary, belonging to a world where best friends didn’t ask each other to participate in demonic rituals.
“I can live with the consequences,” Ava said. “I can’t live with letting my family pay for something they didn’t do.”
Mia stared at her. Her hand dropped from the door handle.
“If something goes wrong…”
“It won’t.”
“If something goes wrong,” Mia repeated, “I’m calling Victor. I don’t care what you say. I’m calling him and telling him everything.”
“Okay.”
“And after this is done, you’re going to explain everything. No more secrets. No more lies.”
“Okay.”
Mia’s shoulders dropped. The fight drained out of her, replaced by something that looked like resignation. Or maybe defeat.
“Show me what I’m supposed to read.”
They clearedVictor’s living room floor.
Ava drew the symbols from memory: chalk lines forming a circle, smaller circles at cardinal points, sigils she didn’t fully understand but knew were necessary. The geometry refused to hold still. The angles seemed to shift when she wasn’t looking directly at them, like the chalk itself was trying to escape.
Mia stood outside the main circle, holding the paper where Ava had written the witness words. Her hands were shaking slightly.
“This looks like something from a horror movie.” Her voice was thin. “The kind where everyone dies at the end.”
“It’s just geometry. The shapes focus the intention.”
“The intention to do what?”
Ava didn’t answer. She knelt in the center of the circle, feeling the chalk lines pulse beneath her knees. The jade pendant lay cold against her chest, colder than it should be, like it knew what was coming.
She touched it once. An apology to her grandmother for what she was about to do. A promise that it was worth it.
“When I start speaking, count to ten, then read everything on the paper. Don’t stop until you finish, no matter what happens.”
“No matter what happens.” Mia’s voice rose. “What’s going to happen?”
