Everything is light. I can see shapes move all around me and not just in my peripheral vision. It’s as if we’re floating. I’m aware of the three of us, individually and together.
Like we are a rune all our own.
Everything is golden. Everything is bright.
Everything feels carbonated, and I begin to feel giddy.
Soon enough, it’s as if everything is spinning. I can feel Savi’s words deep in my bones like an ache, but it’s like we’re dancing anyway. Even though I’m fully aware that somewhere back on a mountain in Ashland, we’re sitting still.
The more we move—or don’t move—the more everything spins and folds in on itself, collapsing deeper into that aching glow of spells on bone.
Until, at last, everything goes beautifully dark.
22.
Wolf Moon, waxing gibbous
I wake up on some kind of fancy chaise, feeling more well rested and content than I have in ... maybe ever. Who knew sorcery agreed with me like this?
I sit up and see we’re still in the same spell room. Winter is on a similar-looking chaise across from me, rubbing at her eyes like she’s a bit less awake than I am.
“That was quick,” I say to Savi, who is standing by one of her windows, frowning out at something I can’t see from my chaise. “I don’t know why I feel so ...”
“Refreshed,” Winter contributes, around a yawn. “I don’t think I dreamed a single thing. It was glorious.”
“The good news is that the wards I created took hold, and they did it fairly quickly,” Savi tells us. She turns back from her window, and I’m briefly distracted by all theflowing thingsshe’s wearing that make her look like a sorceress of old in some video game. “The bad news, I’m afraid, is thatquicklyin spell terms was still longer than expected.”
I stretch my arms up over my head. “How long?”
“We started the spell work on Friday afternoon,” Savi says, managing to sound both apologetic and matter-of-fact at once. “It is now Sunday afternoon.”
“Oh shit,” Winter says, jumping up from her chaise. “Two days? Ariel is going to—”
“Ty,” I breathe, my heart kicking in. He’ll freak. He must already be—
“About that,” Savi says. She waves at the window she’s standing at, then indicates that the two of us should come closer.
Winter and I crowd in, staring at the scene unfolding before us.
It takes me a minute, but I recognize those woods.
“This is here,” I say. “This is your land.”
Half the pack is assembled outside Savi’s wards. They keep throwing themselves at the wards, checking for weaknesses. There is also a selection of terrified-looking mages with them, clearly doing their best to use magic to break in.
There is also what appears to be a whole battalion of vampires. They keep shifting in and out of their various smoky forms, fangs out, also testing the wards.
“How long have they been out there?” Winter asks, her eyes wide as she stares out.
“Oh, you know.” Savi sounds airy. “A minute.” She shrugs when I lift a brow at her. “Anyway, you’re both awake now. Might as well face your personal armies before they wreck the wards I havepainstakinglyerected over the course ofmanyyears.”
“This is not the time to play disappearing games,” is all I say, in a low voice, hoping Savi can see how serious I am. “Vinca is no joke, and she’s all anyone’s thinking about right now.”
I remember the Connor of it all as I say that, but then, he turned out to be a minion too, didn’t he? So it’s all the same dance around the same death goddess that I grew up hearing about—the way humans tell ghost stories about Bloody Mary while looking in mirrors.
No one thought those prophecies would actually come true. That a mess of planets would align to bring on the Reveal and put Vinca back into play. That she would do her very best to rise on Halloween.
That she’s apparently not imprisoned in the watery deep, as planned. That there are ribs involved and she’s currently lurking inside someone, waiting to bust out again.
