“Yeah, I’ve got it all,” Rainier said absently as he read from an old piece of paper. “Stephen got the last ingredient we needed.”
“Whose Stephen?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood with banal conversation.
“He’s a shifter,” Levi explained. “A lone wolf, who’s happy like that. He travels around to other packs and towns, doing odd jobs and trading. I offered him a place here, but he prefers the open road. He’s an honorary pack member, though, and one ofthe only people outside Hidden Grove who knows of our location and size.”
“Interesting,” I said. “What was the last ingredient?”
Rainier glanced up from the paper and gave me a sheepish smile. “Uh, kinda complicated. You’ll see in a minute.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Glancing around, I tried to figure out exactly what was going to happen. Rainier had two small stones roughly the size of ping pong balls sitting before him. One looked like white quartz, and the other was reddish, like a ruby with golden impurities running through it. Next to the stones was a small knife, and a wooden bowl filled with a few powders of different colors. Around us, he’d poured a salt ring.
“Okay,” Rainier said at last, pulling a small, plastic baggie from his jacket pocket. “This is one of the last things we need.”
The baggie held two shriveled and desiccated mushrooms. They were a strange white, gray, and blue color. An uneasy feeling swirled in my stomach.
“Uh, is that what I think it is?” I asked a little incredulously.
Rainier shrugged. “Psilocybin is a powerful magical compound.”
“Magic mushrooms?” Levi asked, gaping at his friend as though he’d lost his mind. “Seriously?”
“Hey, man,” Rainier said. “You two wanted magic, and you’re getting magic. Beggars can’t be choosers, right? This is what Stephen got for me. Thankfully, he’s a bit of a psychonaut and had some already, otherwise, we’d have had to wait a while.”
Rainier tossed some of the dried mushrooms into the wooden bowl with the other ingredients.
“What else is in there?” I asked, already dreading the answer.
Rainier used a small spoon to begin crushing the ingredients together into a fine powder.
“There are a few other psychoactive compounds that grow nearby. Jimsonweed and morning glory seeds, for one. There aresome other things on this list, but I have no idea why they’re in there. Dried spruce needles, juniper berries, stuff like that. And cinnamon. I think that’s to make this more flammable.”
I swallowed hard as I watched him work, praying he was getting this right. Once he was done making the powder, he poured the contents into a tiny metal pot and handed Levi the paper.
“On the bottom is a small paragraph,” Rainier explained. “I need you to begin repeating those words. It’s an incantation that—I guess—creates some sort of magical bubble around us and will help open June’s mind to any residual souls residing within her.”
“I don’t even know these words,” Levi said. “It looks like gibberish.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Rainier said, as he picked up the knife. “Just start saying them. The language is ancient. All that matters is that the words are said out loud.”
Levi sighed and began to recite the words. He was right, they did sound like gibberish. I barely heard them, though, since all my concentration was focused on the blade in Rainier’s palm. He beckoned me to give him my hand.
With only a minimal amount of hesitation, I extended my arm, and he took my wrist gently in his fingers and rested the tip of the blade against the heavy pad at the base of my palm.
“This is going to sting a bit,” he said, grimacing apologetically.
“Do it,” I said, giving him a nod.
Rainier dragged the blade across my flesh, creating an inch-long cut. I hissed from the pain as my blood dripped into the small pot with the other ingredients.
Rainier handed me a handkerchief as he put the pot on the outer embers of the fire. “Put that on your hand to stop the bleeding.”
I had the disconcerting feeling of being in a soundproofed room. Levi’s voice grew strangely distant and quieter, almost like I was being lulled to sleep. I blinked and shook my head.
“Here,” Rainier said, handing me the two stones. “Hold the white in your left and the red in your right.”
I curled my fingers around the stones, my body heat warming them. “What now?” I said, my heart beating rapidly.
Rainier lifted the pot, which was smoking slightly, then used the tip of the knife to pick up one of the glowing embers and held it at the lip of the container.
