Sixteen
“Anything?” Caelan asked.
We’d gathered in the same place we came in.
“Nada,” Evie confessed.
Ari was looking a little green around the gills. “Nothing. Though I puked in the bushes.” She grimaced. “Are wolves like dogs, I wonder? Do you think one of them would eat that?”
Evie gagged. “Ari!”
The fae lifted a slender shoulder. “I’m just saying. No idea if fae vomit is magical.”
Caelan sighed. “I’d forgotten how calm my life is now that you live thousands of miles away.”
Evie laughed. “Don’t lie, Caelan. You miss the chaos.”
The Lord grinned. “Yeah. Maybe a little. Not enough to do this every night, though.”
I lifted my shoulders in a shrug. “Nada here, too. What about you?”
Caelan held up a small white stone. I leaned forward. No. Not a stone. The Lord held a bone.
“What is that?” Evie asked for all of us.
“A human finger bone,” Caelan confirmed. “It smells like the woman in this clearing, so I assume it belonged to her.”
“Part of her sacrifice,” I said, but something else occurred to me. “Oh gods. You don’t think that belongs to…”
My voice trailed off.
Caelan blanched and dropped the bone. “Shit.” He wiped his fingers on the side of his pants. “Ethan is going to smell that. Fuck.”
Ari lurched over to him. “Hold out your hands.”
Caelan obeyed. Cool magic washed over the clearing, cleansing the scent of death and decay away from the area. “There.”
Ari bent and plucked the bone from the ground. “We’ll take it with us.”
Caelan stared at it in horror. “That’s Sarah’s, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “I think so. Creepy it may be, but this might be good for us.”
Caelan gave me a befuddled look. “How could one of Sarah’s bones found in the woods be good for us?”
“Because Mom’s hold has slipped just a hair.” I’d have to confirm, but Mom had to have some pieces of Sarah’s body to keep a tight leash on the resurrected human. If she lost a piece, we’d just gained a foothold to wrest control of her spell.
Caelan’s attention snapped to the left. He put a finger up to his lips. We stopped moving and talking immediately. His eyes widened.
“Go!” he hissed.
Ari lunged and grabbed me and Evie by the wrists. The earth fell out from under us a second later.
“Too close,” Evie moaned. She lay face down on the ground.
“Your mother is evil,” Ari said. She had a hand over her face. “Vodka is el diablo.”
Evie let out a pained laugh. “She was already rich and then she made that. Cliona probably has a vault of money she jumps into like Scrooge McDuck.”
