Page 70 of The Witch They Fear

"You okay?" Nellie is in the doorway. Worried.

I twist and jump, not realizing she followed me out. "Yeah." My voice is raw. "I'm okay."

Aamon nods as I go back inside. Sit down. Pick up the chair I knocked over. Odette is watching me with an expression that's equal parts concern and professional interest—the witch in her cataloguing what just happened on the porch.

If she didn’t know I was a safety hazard for her daughter before, she definitely does now.

"So what do I do?" I say. Because if I don't focus on the next step, I'm going to lose control again. "How do I stop it?"

Odette nods. She was ready for this question. Reaches into a drawer and pulls out a piece of chalk—except it's not regular chalk. It's dark, almost black, flecked with something that catches the lamplight like mica. It smells faintly of ash and rosemary and something metallic underneath.

"Ward chalk," she says. "I ground it last night from a recipe in the grimoire—charcoal, iron shavings, dried sage, and a few things I'm not going to name because you don't need to know and you'd sleep better without knowing." She sets it on the table between us, then slides a piece of paper across—the counter-rune drawn out in her precise handwriting. It's similar to the summoning anchor but inverted, the angular lines reversed, like a reflection in water. "You draw this on the inside of your door. Directly opposite where theirs is carved on the outside. Same height, same position. Your rune against theirs—your magic cancelling their access."

Then she reaches back into the drawer and pulls out a candle.

It's not decorative. It's thick, rough-hewn, the color of old bone, and the wax has things embedded in it—dark flecks, dried herbs, what looks like iron filings. The wick is black. It smells like smoke and something sharper underneath, something that makes the back of my throat tighten.

"This is the second part," Odette says. "And it's the part that matters most. Once the counter-rune is drawn, you light this candle. Then you hold your palm over the flame and channel your magic through it—down through the heat, into the chalk lines. The candle is the bridge between your power and the ward. Your magic activates it. The flame seals it."

"Hold my palm over a flame," I repeat. Flatly.

"The flame won't burn you. Not if your control is steady." She holds my gaze. "Your magic and the candle's enchantment create a loop—your power feeds the flame, the flame feeds the ward, the ward feeds back into you. As long as the circuit holds, the fire is yours. It answers to you. It won't hurt you."

"And if my magic spikes?"

"Then the flame burns real and hot and you pull your hand back and start over." She says it plainly. No sugarcoating.

Great. So the one thing standing between me and a vampire walking into my cottage while I sleep is my ability to hold my magic steady over an open flame. My magic. Steady. Isn’t that a fucking oxymoron.

Control has never been my strong suit. But it just became the only thing that matters.

Learn this or lose the door. Make or break. No third option this time.

Dammit.

"Why fire?" Nellie asks.

"Because fire is the ward's teeth." Odette leans forward. "The counter-rune blocks the passage. The candle guards it. If anyone other than you—or someone you've explicitly invited—tries to cross that threshold while the ward is active, the flame answers. It fills the doorway. Wall to wall, floor to ceiling." She pauses. "Fire is one of the few things that can kill a vampire, girls. Whoever carved that anchor into your door isn't going to walk through a wall of fire to get to you. Not unless they want to die trying."

The room is very quiet.

"Every night," I say.

"Every single night. Draw the rune. Light the candle. Hold your palm over the flame and channel until the ward catches. You'll feel it when it locks—the fire will turn blue for a second and then settle. After that, you can pull your hand back and the ward holds until sunrise."

"And if I miss a night?"

"The counter-rune goes dormant and the anchor is live again. And if your magic spikes hard enough during activation—" She holds my gaze. "It could shatter the ward entirely. Or worse, it could pulse back through the anchor and alert whoever placed it that you know about them."

Aw, shit.

Control. Everything comes back to control. My safety depends on the one thing I'm worst at.

I pick up the chalk. Then the candle. The chalk is heavier than it looks, warm against my fingers. The candle smells like smoke and intention. Together they feel like a dare.

A sick and twisted dare that my biggest enemy cooked up just to embarrass me.

"There's one more thing," Odette says. Her expression shifts again—the twitch disappearing, something urgent replacing it. "The residual signature in the anchor. The blood that was used to carve it. I was able to isolate a trace."