Chapter 28 #2
“It’s in a grimoire. Fifteenth century. I left it—” Iris stopped. “I left it for you. I thought if you found it naturally, you’re smart enough that if you were looking for something else and came across it—”
“You left the grimoire for me to find?” Ramona’s voice was flat. “Instead of just telling me? Instead of just performing the spell? So you’d never have to take accountability and just let me deal with it?”
Iris shifted her weight. Eleanor sniffled.
“It’s late, girls. Let’s go inside,” Eleanor said, holding out her arms as if ushering them.
Iris turned, but Ramona stayed put.
“I did find it.” Ramona’s voice was cold. “In the donation bin at work. I even performed a spell from it, and then I summoned a demon. So, thank you. It worked out even better than you’d imagined.”
Eleanor made a small, surprised sound. “A demon?” she asked. “Zara?”
“Yep,” Ramona said, popping the P sound. “She’s a demon I’m now tethered to.”
Eleanor closed her eyes briefly. “Ramona—”
“Don’t.” Ramona’s voice was sharp. “Don’t lecture me about anything when you’ve been lying to me for decades.”
Their breath fogged in front of their faces, and Ramona shivered again. “The spell,” she said. “In the grimoire. How does it work?”
Iris pulled out her phone, scrolled through photos, found one. A page from a manuscript, dense text with marginal notes in a handwriting Ramona recognized from the grimoire.
“It’s a severance ritual,” Iris said. “It’s fairly simple and straightforward. I can—”
“That’s it?” Ramona interrupted. She didn’t want or need Iris’s help, ever again.
“It’s more complicated than that. The ritual takes three hours. It requires specific components — lunar water, blessed iron…” Iris looked at Ramona. “And it has to be performed during a new moon. The next one is—”
“Nine days, or maybe eight now,” Ramona said, glancing up toward the night sky as if that might tell her the hour. “I know.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve been researching severance rituals for a month trying to break a demonic binding.” Ramona’s voice was sharp. “Funny how both problems have the same timeline.”
Iris’s expression was pained. “Ramona, I’m so sorry. I know I should have told you sooner. I know I should have—”
“You’re right. You should have.” Ramona turned. “And now I’m leaving.”
“Ramona, wait,” Iris said quickly, pressing a tiny slip of paper into her hand. “Give this to Kashvi.”
Ramona nearly dropped the paper out of spite, but instead she tucked it into her pocket.
“We’ll give you a ride,” Iris insisted.
“No, I’ll be fine. I’ll call someone I trust,” Ramona said over her shoulder, holding her sweater tighter around her as she began walking back down the driveway.
She could have spent the night in her old bedroom, but after that discussion, she didn’t want to spend one more moment with her mother and sister.
Did her dad know? Did Simone know? Did everyone but her know?
The grounds were dark. The drive stretched out ahead, shadowed and still.
But there, near the tree line, a darker shadow. Moving.
Zara materialized from the shadows like she’d always been solid. No longer shadow-form — just herself again.
“Took you long enough,” Zara murmured.
“They wanted to talk.” Ramona grabbed her hand. “Felix?”
“Waiting at the end of the drive.” Zara started walking. “Come on.”
They moved quickly through the gardens, away from her childhood home, away from the banewood tree that stood silent and terrible in the darkness of the garden.
“Remember how you offered to burn down the manor if I needed?” Ramona asked.
Zara stiffened beside her. “Are you asking me to? Because I’d love that. Just say the word.” She held up her free hand, and a tiny flame appeared at the top of her finger.
Ramona laughed. “Just nice to know I still have that in my back pocket.”
Zara squeezed her hand. “I’d burn down the entire world if you asked me to.”
Ramona leaned against her as they walked. “I know.”
Zara’s voice lowered to barely above a whisper. “And I’d never burn anything again, if you asked me to.”
Ramona smiled to herself, her throat tightening with emotion.
They walked on in silence. The night had been a disaster, but they were together.
“So, you could have been shadows this whole time?” Ramona asked as they continued walking. “That would have been so much easier at work.”
“No.” Zara glanced at her. “It’s just closer to my true form. I couldn’t change before. The longer I’m away from Hell, the more demon I’m becoming.”
Ramona processed that. “Is that… bad?”
“I don’t know yet.” Zara’s voice was honest. “But it’s happening whether I want it to or not.”
They walked along the drive in the dark, Ramona’s hand in Zara’s, the loss of the grimoires heavy between them.
Headlights appeared in the distance. Felix, idling at the end of the road.
He leaned across to open the passenger door. Gerald cooed from his shoulder — concerned, questioning.
“Get in,” Felix said. “Kashvi’s at home with Cammie and Posey.”
Ramona slid into the back seat. Zara followed.
“Did the cops torture you?” Felix asked, pulling onto the main road.
Ramona nearly laughed. “Yes, but only by letting my mother and sister get near me.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you okay?”
“No.” Ramona closed her eyes. “But I will be. Once we break this fucking curse and fix the convergence point and figure out how to break the tether.”
Through the tether, she felt Zara’s hand find hers. Squeeze.
“We will,” Zara said quietly. “I promise.”
Felix drove them home through empty streets, while Gerald kept watch.
Everything was falling apart. She hadn’t even gotten the grimoires they’d risked everything to steal. They were either confiscated, or, best-case scenario, sitting in Ramona’s impounded car.
But for the first time in twenty-seven years, Ramona knew why.