Whether you are each other’s salvation or each other’s doom rests on the flip of a coin.
It didn’t reassure me. Lady Luck had never favored me, and I hated the idea of being anyone else’s doom. Especially after Laurelie. I shook my head. “Then I will run like I always do. I’m not risking anyone else’s life.”
It is too late to run. Running will not save your Keeper. The poison is upon him, too.
The horror took its time settling upon me. I did not quite believe it, yet. Running had always worked. I’d been running for years, and it hadn’t quite caught up.
I looked at Kessian. My voice didn’t come so I ended up mouthing the words,I’m sorry.
He shook his head. He had a determined look, like none of this particularly surprised him. Not calm, but far more accepting than me.
A tremulous quiet followed. The wind died down. The canopy ceased to hiss. The forest seemed to teeter uncertainly upon the edge of what to say.
The one who kept the strid before holds more answers than I. Speak with him, your father’s father, and cleanse the poison, or it will take root in the soil wherever you set foot.
Chapter 14
The forest released us once the wraith weakened from its pursuit and dissolved into morning mist.
In dawn’s peach glow, we returned to Lunaris. While Rowan rooted under the hood for the cause of her engine troubles, Briar and I worked together to re-enchant the broken wards.
They would be stronger with the magic of two witches behind them, but not strong enough. If the wraith was a part of me, no ward that permitted me passage wouldn’t grant it the same.
We volleyed back and forth about the revelations of the night. Somehow, the strid had been poisoned, and Kessian had become Keeper, and we would either save or kill each other, and talking to my dead grandfather, who’d been the Keeper before—which was news to me—would help us solve the whole tangled mess.
Or Kessian and I would both die in the attempt.
Lovely.
“It would have been nice to know we needed to speak to your grandad a week ago,” Kessian said. His leg was still bothering him after the fall last night, so he sat in the passenger side with the window rolled down, leaning against its edge.
“Actually, I might know someone who can help with that,” I said while inscribing a rune on Lunaris’s wing mirror. “A necromancer I once met in Belgrave.”
Kessian grimaced. “We’re not going to dig up Edwin, are we?”
“Er, I hope it won’t come to that. I was thinking more like a spirit summoning.”
“That could work,” Briar piped up, coming around to our side, dusting charcoal from his hands and flicking down his sleeves. It had been a shock when he’d rolled them up, one arm and most of the second covered in runes from countless flesh tithes. I wasn’t one to judge, but I’d rarely seen people use them. He continued, “Spirits are notoriously difficult to get straight answers out of, but it’s worth a try.”
“I’ll give the necromancer a call after we cast these wards.”
“Ready when you are,” Briar said.
Magic surged between us as I pressed my palm over the rune on the wing mirror, the enchantment running between Briar and I like we were two filaments in a bulb. A golden carapace of wards encased Lunaris entirely, then faded to invisibility.
“That’ll do,” Rowan remarked. “I suppose you won’t be lingering long enough for lunch?”
I exchanged a worried look with Kessian. The wraith had already found us here. It wasn’t a good idea to tarry any longer. “I think it’s best we get a wriggle on. But thank you. For everything, not just the lunch offer.”
“Not a bother,” Rowan said.
Briar, looking a little too wise for someone with tutu sequins still stuck in his hair, said, “You know who to call if you need any more help with your strid, but I suspect you have what you need in each other already.”
They waved and turned to go, leaving me to wonder what he meant by that exactly, when I noticed his cane leaning against Lunaris’s bumper.
I snatched it up and jogged after them. “Wait, you forgot this.”
Briar turned and feigned surprise. “Ah, silly of me, but you keep it. You never know when it might come in handy. I can have another made.” Eyes glimmering, he turned to Rowan. “Dear husband, carry me, please.”
