“For ambience, obviously.” I stick my tongue out and down another handful of fries.
I’ve been extra hungry since coming into my powers. It’s as if my body is burning extra calories to sustain all the magic simmering inside me.
“It seems like this is a pretty simple protection spell,” I go on. “I’m not certain it’ll undo my ancestor’s, but I figure it can’t hurt, right?” I give a tiny shrug.
Both girls eyes me skeptically.
After another couple of fries, I dust off my hands and gesture to the floor.
“Let’s do this thing.”
I set up the candles in a circle and use salt to thinly line it—just as the spell said to do. It’s a crude circle if you ask me, but hey, we’ll see what happens. In the middle, I toss one of Valen’s T-shirts.
“Ow,” I grunt, ripping out a few of my hairs to sprinkle onto the fabric.
I’m hoping thehair of a witchinstruction was literal.
“You need something personal of Valen’s?” Celine asks, eyeing up the shirt.
“Yeah,” I reply, tossing down his toothbrush for good measure.
“I might have something,” she muses.
“Of Valen’s?” Confusion fills me, along with a possessive feeling—I don’t like someone else having something of his. Even knowing Celine is my best friend, it’s like a primal side of me is staking claim at a threat.
“I forgot about it until now,” she says. “Let me grab it.”
She rushes next door to her apartment and is back a few minutes later. She hands me something wrapped in a bundle of fabric.
I slowly unwrap the object, and I’m surprised to find a necklace. It’s gold, but notourgold. Immediately, I know this is something not of this realm—something far too heavenly for earth. It has to be something he brought with him as an angel.
“It’s beautiful,” I murmur. It’s too beautiful, too precious. “He had this with him?”
She nods. “I … saw him holding it a few times, so I grabbed it when I escaped, but in the chaos, I completely forgot about it. I feel terrible. He’s probably thought that it was lost to him forever.”
“He’s never said anything about it to me,” I say softly.
I lay the necklace in my growing pile of items in the circle.
“Luna, I need you.” I motion her over to me. “I need some of your blood.”
“My blood? Why mine?” She eyes me skeptically.
“It said I needed blood of a vampire, and you’re a vampire, so you’re my lucky volunteer.”
She gives a small shrug. “Happy to help.” She bitesinto her own hand and holds the bleeding flesh over my pile. “How much?”
“That should be enough.”
Already her hand is knitting itself closed. It’s still odd to me—that supernaturals are real and things like accelerated healing exist.
“Now what?” Celine asks.
“Now, we sit, and I say the spell.”
At least I think that’s all there is to it. I should’ve consulted Jade first, since she obviously has way more knowledge than I do, but I knew she would say I wasn’t ready.
Besides, what’s the worst that can happen?
