Kade cleared his throat lightly. “I think you’re forgetting someone.”
I turned around and placed two hands on Kade’s muscular chest. “You, My King, need to get a couple hours of sleep.” His alertness would fade soon enough. He couldn’t survive on coffee forever. “We have a crystal hunt to go on when you wake.”
After a long pause, where he scrutinized me closely, he finally nodded. “Two hours. Not a minute longer.”
I smiled. “Okay.”
After Kade retreated out of sight, I sat down next to Rowan and Nikoli. “Okay, first thing. Can we do a temporary spell to hide us and this conversation?”
Rowan let out a chuckle. “You don’t have to worry about it. This library is covered in fae magic. I’m not sure why, but long before we used this room, someone was hiding it from sight.”
I echoed her chuckle, even though I knew exactly why this room was spelled. The Red Queen and Daddy Dearest. Pushing my parents back into the box of things I was never dealing with, I focused on the task.
“Alright, since our conversation should be private here, explain this magic to me. Why can’t we find this other crystal? Can we just read the book? It’s supposed to contain all the information we need to find and control the energy, right?”
Nikoli pulled the dark magic book out of the spelled cloth. The moment it was free, I felt its low hum of energy and those slivers of heavy, shadowy magic. It was muted, so whatever Baladar had done to the book was still working, but there was no doubting the strength of this sliver of crystal, or the dark information it contained.
Nikoli placed it between us all, careful not to touch the stone or open the pages.
“None of the magic born have opened the book, because we have no idea what is inside. We also have no idea what will happen if we read the words. This stone is pure dark magic. The only problem is, according to Baladar, the only way to learn how to trace or connect to the dark mecca is to read the spell inside. Only…”
“We don’t want to turn evil…” I said, and he nodded.
“We don’t want to turn evil, so none of us are willing to open the pages or connect to the stone. Who knows what might happen if we did.”
Rowan was silent, staring in deep thought at the stone. “What if it were more … familiar to us? What if we turned the black stone into something we knew, so we could connect with it briefly and read this spell … trace it to its other half?”
Nikoli and I shared a look of confusion, and Rowan grinned like Violet often did. Like she knew something we didn’t. “Mecca powder,” she breathed. “If we coat this stone in mecca powder, it will mingle with the dark magic, temporarily bringing it closer to our purple mecca. That should limit the effect of the words inside, giving us enough time to see what information it’s hiding.”
I wasn’t a magic born, so it didn’t make sense to me, but it sounded like a decent idea. The mecca powder had certainly done some incredible things the times I’d seen it at work. “What are the odds it could backfire and make all of my magic born go dark?” I asked seriously.
Rowan’s shoulders drooped forward a little. “High. That’s why only one of us should do it. Just in case.”
Damn.
Nikoli nodded. “Baladar is too valuable to lose, Violet is too fragile after her time as prisoner with the Winter Court. Queen Arianna and KingKade are way too important to risk … so, I’ll do it.”
“I can do it,” Rowan offered. Her beautiful pixie features were smooth. She didn’t seem too worried.
“You’re our only fae knowledge base. And you are valuable to the Summer Court. We definitely don’t want to upset them by turning their magic born dark.” He shook his head. “No, it has to be me.”
He was confident and sure, unwilling to risk anyone else on this task. I was touched.
“Nikoli, you are a treasured friend and magic born. Thank you,” I told him, and he simply nodded.
I stood. “Alright, get ready for the spell. We’ll do it in two hours when Kade is awake to make sure the energy can be controlled. We will all have our magic necklaces by then, so the dark fae will have no idea where we are.”
It was a plan … a sort of scary one, but the best we could hope for. Part of me was worried about Nikoli. We couldn’t afford to lose any of the magic born … Violet especially. But this was war, and there was no way for me to keep my loved ones safe. We just had to hope for the best, and try to wipe those fae out before they got us.
Two hours later, we were all gathered in the basement, the place where I had defeated Selene—twice. The large room would be able to handle a reasonable amount of magical blowback. We couldn’t use the library; Rowan said that whatever magic hid it from prying eyes might interfere in our spell.
We all wore the necklaces. They were simple-looking: a plain brown leather string with a white crystal shard hanging from it. But the moment I touched it, I knew it was anything but simple. An energy bubble had been placed over me.
“So you can’t see my energy at all?” I asked Violet for the third time. Ever since my winter magic had been unlocked, I had been like a shining beacon to her.
“Nothing. I don’t even pick up a human level of energy. It’s like you have ceased to exist … in energy anyway.”
“Will it affect my magic?” I added.
