Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Okay,” Zara said, spreading the books across the coffee table with the systematic precision of someone who’d been planning this for days. The easy warmth from movie night had evaporated from the night before, replaced by the familiar tension of detachment. “Let’s start with the basics.”
Ramona sat on the couch, sipping her coffee with her laptop balanced on her knees, trying to summon the enthusiasm from the night before that she didn’t currently feel. “What do you need?”
“This grimoire.” Zara held up a leather-bound book with water-stained pages. “It’s the most complete description of the severance ritual I’ve found. But it’s written in ecclesiastical Lysienne with some very archaic grammatical structures, and I’m not confident in my translation.”
Ramona took the book reluctantly. The moment her fingers touched the leather, something in her chest constricted. She knew this grimoire. She’d used it in her dissertation. Had spent weeks parsing a single chapter, unraveling the linguistic Lysienne choices the author had made.
She opened it to the marked page. The familiar script swam before her eyes.
“If you wish to break the bond,” Ramona translated automatically. Then stopped. “Actually, it’s more specific than that. Not just ‘wish.’ It’s more like ‘desire earnestly.’ The verb choice matters.”
“Why?” Zara was leaning forward, attentive.
“Because it sets the tone for the whole ritual. The author is establishing that this isn’t casual magic. You have to want it badly enough that—” Ramona stopped herself again. “Never mind. The basic translation works fine.”
“No, keep going.” Zara pulled out her notebook. “What does the verb choice tell us?”
“It tells us that…” Ramona’s finger traced the text. “It tells us that half-hearted attempts will fail. The magic responds to desire, to intention. If you’re ambivalent, the ritual won’t work.”
“So both parties have to actively want the bond broken. Just as we suspected.”
“Not just want. They have to desire it earnestly. Yearn for it.” Ramona looked up. “The word choice seems very specific about that.”
They held eye contact for a moment too long. The tether hummed between them.
“Right,” Zara said finally. “That’s… good to know.”
They kept reading. Or rather, Zara read and asked questions, and Ramona answered them in the shortest possible way before finding an excuse to check her phone.
After the fifth interruption — this time while Ramona read an article about whether Taurus was compatible with Scorpio in professional relationships — Zara closed her grimoire with deliberate patience.
“Are you actually researching, or are you just pretending while reading about zodiac signs?” Zara narrowed her eyes, which, for a demon, was a bit more menacing than Zara had looked before.
Ramona’s face heated. “I was taking a mental break.”
“You’ve taken six mental breaks in the last hour.”
“Research is exhausting.” Ramona shrugged, clearing her throat.
“Not when you’re barely doing it.” Zara’s voice was sharp now. “You read one sentence of Lysienne and then immediately reach for a distraction. Every time.”
“That’s not—”
“It is.” Zara stood up, frustrated. “You were fine explaining horror movie tropes for two hours last night. You lit up talking about why characters make bad decisions. But the second I ask you to engage with your actual expertise, you shut down.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“Because that didn’t matter!” The words burst out sharper than Ramona intended, her emotions rising with heat in her cheeks and a roaring in her ears.
“Because I can be wrong and no one cares. No one gets hurt. But this…” She gestured at the grimoire.
“If I get this wrong, if I mistranslate something or miss a nuance, the ritual fails. Best case, we’re stuck together for another four weeks.
Worst case, one of us gets seriously hurt.
And it’ll be my fault. Again.” Her heart was pounding in her chest. “It’s fucking always my fault. ”
Zara stared at her. “You already think you’re going to fail?”
“I know I’m going to fail. That’s what I do. I fail at magic.” Ramona clenched her jaw, shaking her head. “I can read about it. I can explain it. But I can’t do it. And the second something matters, the second there are actual stakes, I fuck it up.”
“That’s not true.” Zara’s tone was gentle, like an outreached hand.
“Isn’t it?” Ramona stood up, needing space.
Her hands felt tingly in a panicked kind of way, and she shook them as she blinked quickly, willing herself not to cry.
“My coven and my career and my marriage ended because I proved everyone right. That I’m a failure.
That I’m too dangerous to trust with real magic. ”
“Ramona—”
“So yeah, maybe I am avoiding this. Because at least when the ritual fails, no one was really expecting otherwise.”
The silence that followed was heavy.
Zara sat back down slowly. She let out a heavy, long sigh. “Come here.”
“I don’t—”
“Please.”
Ramona sat. Not close, but close enough that the tether eased slightly.
“I need to tell you something,” Zara said. “And I need you to actually hear it.”
Ramona waited.
“You’re terrified of failing,” Zara began. “I understand that. But you’re so focused on not failing that you’re guaranteeing it. You’re creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“That’s not—”
“Let me finish.” Zara’s voice was gentle but firm. “Last night, you explained horror movie logic to me for two hours. You were patient. You were thorough. You broke down complex narrative structures into understandable pieces. And you loved doing it.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It’s exactly the same thing. It’s teaching. It’s expertise. It’s taking something you understand deeply and helping someone else understand it, too.” Zara leaned forward. “The only difference is that you’ve decided horror movies are safe and medieval grimoires are dangerous.”
Ramona said nothing.
“But here’s the thing — you’re already doing the hard part. You translated that perfectly. You explained the verb choice and why it matters. That’s not failing, Ramona. That’s succeeding.”
“One translation doesn’t—”
“Not one translation. It’s every single time I’ve asked you a question, you’ve known the answer. Every time you’ve looked at a text, you’ve understood it. The knowledge is still there. You haven’t lost it.” Zara’s hand found hers. “You’ve just convinced yourself that you have.”
Ramona’s eyes were burning. “What if I can’t do this? What if I try — really try — and we still fail?”
“Then we fail.” Zara squeezed her hand. “But at least we’ll have tried together. At least you’ll know it wasn’t because you didn’t show up for yourself.”
They sat there for a long moment, hands joined, the grimoire open between them.
“I’m really scared,” Ramona whispered.
“I know.” Zara’s thumb traced circles on her palm. “But you don’t have to be alone in it. That’s what this”—she gestured at the tether between them—“means. We’re in this together. Your fear. My certainty. All of it.”
“That’s not exactly reassuring.”
“No. But it’s true.” Zara picked up the grimoire again. “So. Are you going to help me understand this text? Or are you going to read another article about whether Jupiter is affecting your love life?”
Despite everything, Ramona almost smiled. “It was one article.”
“It was three.”
“Okay, it was three.” Ramona took the grimoire. “But in my defense, that astrological timing might actually matter for ritual work.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Zara said, rolling her eyes.
She looked down at the text. The words were still there, still familiar. And for the first time in days, it didn’t hurt quite as much to read it.
“Okay,” Ramona said, too exhausted to argue. “Let’s do this properly.”
They started early every day all week. Coffee first, then books.
This time, when Zara asked about a phrasing construction, Ramona didn’t immediately deflect. She pulled the grimoire closer, studied the text, explained the grammatical structure and what it meant for the spell’s execution.
They worked through the morning, taking breaks when Ramona needed them but always coming back to the books. Slowly, Ramona felt something in her chest start to loosen. Not the grief — that was still there, sharp and present. But the resistance. The fear that touching her old work would destroy her.
She was still here. Still Ramona. Still capable of reading a medieval grimoire and understanding what she saw.
With two days left until the new moon, they’d compiled a complete list of materials, a detailed breakdown of the incantation with notes on pronunciation and intent, and a step-by-step plan for the ritual itself.
“This is good work,” Zara said, reviewing their notes. “Really good work.”
Ramona looked at the pages spread across the table — her handwriting mixed with Zara’s, arcane phrases annotated with explanations, cross-references to three different grimoires.
It was good work. The kind of thorough, detailed analysis she used to do before everything fell apart.
“Thank you,” Ramona said quietly. “For pushing me. For not letting me hide.”
“Thank you for trusting me enough to try.” Zara met her eyes. “I know this wasn’t easy.”
“No. But it was…” Ramona struggled to find the word. “It was good. To remember that I can still do this.”
“You never stopped being able to do this. You just stopped believing you could.”
They sat there for a moment, surrounded by evidence of their collaboration. The tether hummed between them — warm, steady, something that felt less like a burden and more like…
Ramona didn’t let herself finish that thought. “We should start gathering materials,” she said instead. “The new moon is in two days.”
“Agreed.” Zara stood up, stretching. “I’ll research where to find magically active hawthorn trees. You handle the moonstone and blessed salt?”
“Deal,” Ramona said with a nod. She gathered a grimoire, her fingertips tracing over the imprinted leather of the cover.
She glanced up to find Zara watching her with an expression that made her breath catch in her chest.
“What?” Ramona asked.
“Nothing.” Zara’s smile was soft. “Just… it’s good to see you like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like yourself.”
“Do all demons act so high-and-mighty, or is that just your particular brand of arrogance?” Ramona asked, twisting her mouth to hide a mischievous grin, deflecting quickly from the softness of the moment.
Zara raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow. “You dare to test the leash of my patience, Mortal?” She lowered her chin, her eyes taking on a distinct predator gleam. “I’ve taken souls for far less impertinence.”
Two weeks ago, Ramona would have been scared of such a look. She’d have turned into a soft-bellied prey animal at the first sign of danger. Now? Now that predatory gleam made something still twist low in her stomach, but it was far from fear.
Now that the ritual felt real, felt soon and not far off, Ramona couldn’t help but feel conflicted.
Yes, of course she wanted the accidentally summoned demon she was tethered to against her will to return to Hell.
And yet… another part of her was slowly cracking open, a part that she thought she’d long sealed off.
But if there was even a hint of hesitation, the ritual would fail. And she would not be failing this time.
The bedroom was too small. The bed far too close. She couldn’t help the way she woke up from filthy dreams, but she could help the fact that being this close, this alone, with Zara felt dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with that predatory glint in the demon’s eye.
“How do you feel about a little shopping trip?” Ramona asked, reaching for a large pair of sunglasses.