Page 87

Mutely, Blair handed Clement a black hair tie that had bit into the skin of his other wrist, and Clement clutched it in his hand, his eyes falling closed again.

Blair cleared his throat pointedly. “Why are we doing this?”

Clement opened one eye to fix him with a withering stare before snapping it shut again. “Be quiet until I’m finished.”

After another minute, Clement set the hair tie down beside the velvet pillow. “I’m trying to separate your energy from the witch’s for the forgetting spell. It would behoove you to remain silent while I do so. If I do it wrong and your energy remains mixed up with hers, the spell may affect you as well, in which case you would forget you had ever met Iris and Gabriel. I think we can both agree,” he continued, taking in Blair’s horrified expression, “that would be an unfortunate complication.”

“And…” Blair swallowed. “This forgetting spell is our only option?” He thought of the coven his parents hired to erase certain memories of their associates and wished there was time to contact them for help. At least they were familiar with this kind of magic. Clement didn’t seem overly confident.

“Unless you can think of a better one.”

Blair shook his head, wishing now that he could rewind all the way back to the moment he’d first encountered Anna, so he could refuse her offer outright.

He had no idea what the history was between this witch and Gabriel. Had Gabriel wronged her in some way, and now she was back to seek revenge? If that were the case, why not confront him directly? Why choose Blair as the intermediary?

In any case, Blair was fairly certain that his refusal of her business proposal wouldn’t have kept her at bay forever, but it might have slowed her progress.

Clement continued to trail the pads of his fingers along the ring, touching the hair tie every now and then to help him distinguish between different threads of energy. “There is a third energy here. Did this ring once belong to another?”

Blair nodded. “My sister.”

Clement seemed to notice the way Blair’s voice caught on the word sister. “What happened to her?” Though tinged with curiosity, his voice had taken on a gentler tone.

“She was killed. A long time ago.”

“I’m sorry. Truly.” Clement rubbed at a spot of tarnished silver. “Her energy is faint. It shouldn’t be difficult to separate from the others.”

He worked in silence for a few more minutes, while Blair leaned back in his chair, lost in thought. “So, you and Gabriel used to practice witchcraft together?” Blair asked as Clement jotted down some notes in the leather-bound book that rested on his knee.

“Yes. Gabriel and I were quite the troublemakers in our day. Revolutionaries, you might say.” He gave a sly grin. “But we always covered up our tracks.”

“How so?”

Clement made a flourish with his pen before setting it down on the table. “Ever hear of the 1911 New York State Capitol fire?”

Blair frowned. “No.”

“Ah. Well, then, I’ll just say that Gabriel and I were most certainly not responsible. Still, it was devastating. Destroyed nearly all of the state’s records on witchcraft.”

“I see.”

“Yes, well. Eventually, we turned our efforts to more noble pursuits. Actually, Gabriel had already abandoned the craft years before that particular incident.”

Blair toyed with the tassel at the edge of the velvet pillow. “But he can still do magic.”

Clement nodded. “Though his power has dwindled, the innate ability Gabriel possesses isn’t easy to banish entirely.” There was a note of admiration in his tone. “There.” He slid his thumb along the smooth edge of the ring. “I believe I’ve successfully separated your energies.”

“You believe?” Blair asked, anxiety awakening a flutter of wings in his stomach.

Clement fixed him with a crooked grin. “There is one way to be sure. Unfortunately, by then it would be too late.”

Blair shivered. “How does the forgetting spell work?”

Using a clean handkerchief to pluck Lucy’s ring off the pillow, Clement carefully deposited it into a small pouch. “Are you familiar with the concept of energy wielding?”

Blair shook his head, a lump in his throat as he watched Clement tuck the pouch into the pocket of his leather jacket. Blair had grown far too attached to the ring, even more so after discovering Lucy’s true identity. It had been physically painful to be separated from it for so long, to be uncertain if he’d ever see it again. Even the witch’s possession of his ring hadn’t lessened its value to him.

“Well, most witches need to physically connect with an object that contains the energy of the soul they wish to cast their spell upon. For instance, a witch might use a locator spell to find a given person by touching an object that person uses frequently. That kind of magic only works within a certain range, you understand.”