Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The living room was full of the familiar sounds of a Tuesday evening: the TV playing Love Potion, which had somehow become required viewing in their apartment; Kashvi’s commentary about the contestants’ terrible magical technique; Cammie’s laugh; the smell of popcorn.
“She’s going to pick Kellen,” Felix said, gesturing at the screen with a handful of popcorn. “It’s so obvious.”
“She should pick Devin,” Kashvi countered. “Kellen can’t even cast a basic attraction charm without messing it up.”
“That’s what makes him endearing,” Felix argued.
“That’s what makes him incompetent.”
Zara, sitting on the floor beside Ramona, was completely absorbed in the show.
She’d gotten into Love Potion with an intensity that surprised everyone — analyzing the contestants’ strategies, critiquing their spell choices, predicting outcomes with the precision she usually reserved for Hell’s bureaucratic procedures.
“She’s not going to pick either of them,” Zara said without looking away from the screen. “She’s going to eliminate both and bring back Trevor from week three.”
“No way,” Felix said.
“Watch.” Zara made a note on her HellBerry. She was keeping a spreadsheet. An actual spreadsheet tracking contestant compatibility and strategic moves.
It was adorable. Ramona tried to focus on her translation instead of watching Zara watch reality TV with the intensity of someone planning a corporate takeover.
She sat cross-legged on the floor, a grimoire open in her lap, notebook beside her filled with translations.
Another severance variation. This one from a fifteenth-century text that used different verb conjugations — subjunctive instead of imperative, which might make the magic more of a request than a command.
It probably wouldn’t make a difference. But she had to try.
Through grace, to dissolve. Interesting. The whole incantation was framed as asking permission rather than demanding action.
She made a note. Underlined it twice.
The tether hummed between her and Zara — warm, steady, present. Like it had been for weeks now. Like it might be forever if they couldn’t figure this out.
The thought didn’t terrify her quite as much as it used to.
The fox had been gone most of the day. Ramona could still feel him — a distant presence, like an echo of an echo.
The connection they’d formed when she invited him inside wasn’t like the tether.
It was quieter. More like knowing someone was in the next room rather than feeling their emotions directly.
But she knew he was okay. Knew he was out there somewhere, doing whatever mysterious fox things he did when he wasn’t sleeping at the foot of her bed.
As if summoned by the thought, he strolled down the hall from Ramona’s room, where she’d left the window cracked for him.
“Oh, there he is!” Posey said from her spot on the couch, looking up from the scarf she was knitting. “Hello, friend. Did you have a nice adventure?”
The fox didn’t settle in his usual spot near Ramona’s feet. He paced instead — back and forth, restless, his tail low and twitching. His amber eyes kept darting to Ramona, then away, then back.
“Hey,” Ramona said, looking up from her grimoire. “Where’ve you been?”
The fox made a sound — not quite a whine, not quite a bark. Insistent. Urgent.
“What?” Ramona asked, as though she expected the fox would just come right out and tell her.
On the TV, the contestant was about to make her choice. Zara leaned forward slightly, completely absorbed.
The fox moved closer, pushing his head against Ramona’s hand. Not affectionately — demandingly. Like he was trying to tell her something and getting frustrated that she wasn’t understanding.
“Okay, okay.” Ramona set down her pen and reached out to pet his head properly. “What’s—”
The moment her hand touched his fur, the world dissolved.
She was standing in the clearing.
The convergence point. Two hours away, deep in the woods near Thornwood, where she and Zara had tried the severance ritual a week ago.
But it was wrong.
The snow that had been pristine and white was now stained — gray in some places, black in others, like ink had been spilled across the ground. The pristine circle of ancient oaks looked sickly, their bark darker than it should be, their branches bare and reaching up like skeletal fingers.
And in the center, where they’d cast the ritual—
The ground was moving.
Not physically. But magically. Ramona could see it the way she’d seen the tether that first night — a visible manifestation of something that shouldn’t be visible. Dark energy, pulsing outward from the center in slow waves. Like a heartbeat. Like something alive and growing.
The air smelled wrong. Sulfur and burnt sugar and something older, something that made her skin crawl with instinctive revulsion.
This was corruption.
Demonic corruption.
She tried to move, to get closer, but she couldn’t. She was seeing this through the fox’s eyes — his memory, replaying for her. Showing her what he’d found.
The clearing was empty. No witches. No investigators. Just the fox, standing at the edge of the corruption, watching it pulse and spread with that patient, knowing gaze.
He’d gone back. Checked on the site. And found this.
The corruption was worse than it had been. Ramona could see the edges — where clean snow met stained ground. Could see how far it had spread since they’d left. A foot? More?
It was growing.
Ramona gasped, her hand jerking away from the fox’s head.
She was back in the living room. The TV was still playing — the contestant was crying, explaining her choice to the remaining suitors. Kashvi and Cammie were still watching. Felix was eating popcorn. Posey had paused her knitting.
But everything felt different. Tilted. Wrong.
“I knew it,” Zara said triumphantly, pointing at the screen. “I told you she’d bring back Trevor—”
She stopped and turned to look at Ramona. Her hand was already moving to Ramona’s shoulder before she seemed to consciously register something was wrong. “Ramona? What happened?”
“The convergence point is corrupted,” Ramona said, dread pooling in her gut.
“How?” Zara’s grip tightened, and suddenly her attention was completely off the TV, completely focused on Ramona.
“Wait, what?” Felix had muted the TV. “What’s going on?”
“What does that mean?” Cammie asked.
“The fox…” Ramona’s voice came out shaky. “He showed me. The convergence point where we did the ritual. It’s…” She couldn’t finish.
The fox sat in front of Ramona, watching her with those amber eyes. Waiting for her to understand. To do something.
“What does this mean?” Ramona repeated in a whisper. Her hands were shaking. She pressed them flat against her thighs, trying to stop the tremor.
Zara was quiet for a long moment. On the couch, Felix and Kashvi had both turned to look at them now. Posey’s knitting needles clicked as she reached to set her project down on the table. Gerald cooed softly, concerned.
“It means,” Zara said quietly, and there was something in her voice that Ramona had never heard before — something close to fear. “That we need to fix this. And soon.”
“Or else what?”
Zara’s hand slid from Ramona’s shoulder to take her hand, interlacing their fingers. The tether pulsed between them — sharp, urgent.
“Or else the convergence point dies,” Zara said. “Permanently.”
“Explain?” Felix asked, setting down the popcorn bowl.
“Where we tried the severance ritual. It’s corrupted. Demonic corruption. From…” Ramona glanced toward Zara.
“From my magic,” Zara finished. “I stabilized Ramona’s casting during the ritual. Used my demonic energy to keep her magic from cascading. It worked — the ritual didn’t explode — but it left… something.”
The room went very quiet. Her roommates exchanged looks.
“How bad?” Cammie asked.
“Bad,” Ramona said. “It’s spreading. What the fox showed me — the ground is black. The trees are dying. And it’s growing outward from where we cast the ritual.”
“Oh no,” Posey breathed. Her hand had moved to her chest. “A convergence point is alive. It’s a living thing. A very old, very sacred living thing. If it’s corrupted—”
“We have to find a way to undo it,” Zara said. “Before it spreads too far. Before the ancient oaks are affected.”
“How long do we have?” Felix asked.
Ramona looked at the fox, who was still watching her with that patient, knowing gaze. She didn’t know how she knew, but she could feel it — like the fox was pressing the answer into her mind through their connection. “The new moon?”
The fox made a small affirmative sound.
“The next new moon is in two weeks,” Zara said.
“Thirteen days,” Ramona corrected.
“If we’re going to perform another ritual at that site — and we need to, because it’s the only convergence point within reasonable distance — we have to cleanse it first.”
“How do you cleanse demonic corruption?” Cammie asked quietly. Ramona paused for a moment, grateful that Cammie was always just going with the flow of her weird, magical roommates.
“There are rituals,” Kashvi said, already pulling up her laptop. “Purification magic. Dissolution spells. But they’re complicated. You need the right components, the right timing—”
“And we need to do it without making the corruption worse,” Zara added. “If we try to cleanse it improperly, we could accelerate the spread.”
“So we research,” Ramona said. Her voice was steadier now. Determined. “We find out exactly how to cleanse demonic corruption from a convergence point. We do it right. And then…” She took a breath. “And then we try the severance again. Properly, this time.”
“Without using my magic to stabilize yours,” Zara said quietly.
“Right.” Ramona looked at her hands. “Which means I need to figure out how to control my magic on my own. Or find another way to keep it stable during the ritual.”
“The fox might help,” Posey said softly. “Familiars ground magic. That’s what they do. Even without a formal bond…” She looked at the fox. “He’s already connected to you. He might be able to stabilize your casting.”
The fox’s tail swished once. Agreement? Possibility?
“We have a lot to figure out,” Kashvi said, typing rapidly. “Cleansing ritual. Modified severance. Timing. Components.” She looked up. “This is going to take all of us.”
“I’ll search Hell’s archives for corruption cleansing protocols,” Zara said. “We have procedures for this. Demons corrupt things all the time. There are established methods for undoing it.”
“I’ll look through the grimoires for dissolution spells,” Ramona added. “Anything that might apply to sacred site purification.”
“I’ll ask the plants,” Posey said. “They might know how to heal the convergence point. They’re very good at healing.”
“And I’ll do some digging on the less… savory sites,” Felix said. Gerald cooed in solemn agreement.
“I can help…” Cammie glanced around, looking helpless. “Does anyone need a coffee? Chocolate?”
“Yes to both,” Felix and Kashvi said in unison, then glanced toward each other with a laugh.
Cammie stood, hurrying into the kitchen.
The fox made another sound — softer this time. Relieved, maybe. Like he’d done his part by showing them the problem and now trusted them to solve it.
“Thirteen days,” Zara said quietly.
“Thirteen days,” Ramona echoed.
The fox settled between them, warm and solid.
“We can do this,” Zara said. Not a question. A statement of fact.
Ramona envisioned the corruption spreading through the convergence point. Overwhelm sat heavy against her chest, and she could barely take a deep breath.
Zara’s thumb brushed over her knuckles, and she glanced back up to see Zara’s expression gentle and focused.
“We can do this,” Ramona agreed, and she almost believed it.
Felix unmuted the TV. “Okay. But first we’re finishing this episode because Zara called it and I need to see if she’s right about everything else, too.” He waited until Cammie reappeared with a bag of chocolate truffles from her café before hitting play.
“I am,” Zara said, her attention already shifting back to the screen, her hand still in Ramona’s.