Chapter 44
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
On the drive south from Harold’s to meet up with Vivian and Juke, I munched on chocolate and dumped the whole conundrum on the group. We hashed out what was going to happen for the ritual, and who was going to do what. Ranth walked us through as much as he could.
When we got there, I walked a couple of steps behind Ranth as we crossed the warehouse parking lot.
My house was ruined, I’d turned to earth magic to trap Fabra and the spirits, and the Marahk had a target on me.
I was also about to send away the only chance I had at connecting with my mother and possibly saving her.
I also was risking everything sending Ranth back because we didn’t know how the curse worked.
My life was in shreds. But to keep Ranth here longer, I would continue to put my friends and family in danger.
It was possible I would end the world or at least prevent the only way to heal the future.
I would have to be okay with letting go of the one chance to save my mother’s spirit if it would save everyone else.
Vivian had taken a rideshare from the airport and was talking to Juke, who had a table set up with the stuff Ranth had asked for. I slowed, as if not getting there would delay whatever was going to happen next. I wasn’t nearly close enough to where I needed to be to send Ranth back.
“Hey, you, I got what you texted,” Juke said, bouncing toward me. “Super, super sorry about the house. But you’re what matters. You okay?” She opened her arms for a hug.
“Yeah. I’m a survivor.” I hugged her back hard, inhaling her vanilla perfume and today’s raspberry gum.
She was right. In the end, the stuff I lost didn’t matter. It was the people who were important. My friends always had my back. They’d also care if something happened to me. I knew how I’d felt when Mom had left me. How could I be the cause of that same void in my friends?
Vivian handed me the package from Disneyland, and Ori enfolded me into one of her amazing hugs.
Hugging was keeping me going. Ori went back over to Vivian.
I hadn’t realized they’d linked up until they brushed lips.
A flood of joy swashed through me. Ori deserved all the happiness in the world.
Somehow, I’d missed the announcement, and Ori had stuff to catch me up on.
Ranth had been keeping a perimeter, but his eyes tracked me.
It was as if he too sensed that our touch would ignite something we couldn’t stop.
There was no more time for us. My breath froze in that impossible nightmare.
But this wasn’t about me, or even him, or us.
It was bigger than us, and I was making this choice.
The scroll case was heavier than I expected. The weirdness of knowing it belonged to my father was only made more bizarre by the fact that it was going to send Ranth away forever.
Ranth gave Ori and Rose instructions to lay out a triangle of gray sea salt and leave the ritual elements inside. He held the tome against his chest. My fingers itched.
“We’re going to need some privacy to open the book,” I said to Juke.
She handed me a keycard and nodded to the warehouse. “First door is my workshop. The card will work on that too.”
“We’ll be right back.” I picked up one of the pouches of salt, but I wasn’t sure we would be back. I scanned the faces of my friends, as if it would etch them in a memory I might not need—I hoped I didn’t need.
Ranth attempted to snatch the salt from my hand. “You will not be assisting me.”
I didn’t let go. “Ha, no. Not a chance.”
He frowned. “It’s too risky for you to be around when I open the book. We don’t know what Harold truly intended.”
“Exactly, we can’t risk—you. Let’s get this straight.” I pulled him over to the door and unlocked it.
Ranth tugged my braid playfully as we entered the cool metal building, and I grinned.
As the door clanged shut, I backed him against the wall.
“Look, I like you. A lot. You know that. I didn’t when you got here, but you’ve grown on me.
” I trailed a hand down his cheek, and he turned his lips into it.
The kiss rocketed through me like it was on my lips.
“We…” Ranth began.
“Are not done yet.” I spewed out the rest before I thought too much about it.
“I have standards, and you are bossy as all foxgloves. I’m used to being the one who makes the decisions, and I’m not happy with you trying to protect me.
I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m good at taking care of myself. I want you, but I don’t need you.”
“I know you don’t.” His soft reply brushed me on the inside like feathers.
He set the book down, then backed me against the wall.
The space between us throbbed with need.
He swept a thumb over my bottom lip, flooding wet heat between my thighs.
He tipped forward and brushed a kiss where his thumb had been.
I roped arms around his neck, and our tongues exchanged silent words.
His hand slipped down my back, and mine slid to his waistband.
“We can’t do this now.” I said it, but it was like stating the obvious.
“No, we can’t.” His head dipped, and his lips caught mine, the kiss sweet and slow, then blossoming into deep and hungry. He stepped back, his eyes glassy. “I’m sorry, but the desire will have to live on without the actions.”
I straightened up shakily. My brain had traveled to other types of magical places which involved no clothes. The tome called out to me. The desperation to open it eclipsing the passion that had been ripped away.
“Don’t,” he said as if reading my thoughts.
“Grimoires have never given me trouble,” I replied, lying. There’d been the grimoire sent to us from Great-Aunt Agatha who had attempted to bite me. Mom had sent it back to her.
Ranth saw right through me from the grim set of his lips.
“You have things to learn, and you aren’t acknowledging my experience.
I’ve opened many power books over the years.
Some with instruction, and some I sneaked out of my master’s library.
It was forbidden, and opening it almost killed me because I didn’t honor the book owner and ask permission.
I’m going to bet you’ve never opened a book with this much power. ”
“You mean because this grimoire has a warded cover, and the locks…”
“Grimoires are textbooks, collections of spells. This isn’t a grimoire. Every book of power has a creator who is bound to it, and part of the maker clings to it.”
“That’s earth magic.”
“It’s life magic, actually.”
I bristled at the inference that I didn’t know the difference, but he was right, this was out of my experience. “Binding yourself to a book is totally against everything positive and good. It has nothing to do with life.” I studied the cover through his fingers. Vigorous and lean, like him.
“This current world labels magic as good and bad, and life as a positive force. Magic is gray-edged and messy. To build these books, you have to give of yourself, which makes them precious and also able to survive through the ages. But to open it without harm, you have to have their permission. Remember when Harold opened the book in the other world?”
“He asked something in a language I didn’t understand, but yes, he asked permission. I can do that.”
“In Medieval Latin?” Ranth set the book down between us.
“Don’t they understand English in the plane? The sentiment is the same in any language.”
“You can only call them in their own tongue. Really, Sorrel, please don’t touch it,” he replied as I crouched down.
“It doesn’t look much older than a couple hundred years.”
“It’s been rebound. The original tome would have been a series of scrolls. Later, they were bound into what you hold. So not only do you need to ask permission of the maker, but you also need to ask permission of the binder. A lesson I learned the hard way.” He traced the scar across his nose.
“Ah, that’s how you got that.” Where ancient tomes in languages I couldn’t read were concerned, I was walking in the dark, and we both knew it. “Look, our lives are on the line, so we’re opening this together—no argument. But I’m drawing the salt circle.”
“I’m good with that if it’s a triangle.” He smirked, picking up the book and following me to the walled-off office at one end of the enormous open area.
Juke’s pink workshop had walls and a door, but the pink shag rug wasn’t going to work for salt, and the neon green-pink vibe hit me as wrong for opening the tome.
Ranth peered over my shoulder and made a huffing sound.
“Yeah. I think we’re using the open space.” We returned to the center of the cavernous room. The skylights filtered the weakening afternoon light. The center had a squiggly mosaic of the sun with a mirror ball in the center.
“Think we can use this?”
“Are you asking for a reason?”
“You seem to always have answers. I was double-checking,” I replied, starting to pour out the salt. Ranth settled in the center. I poured the triangle big enough for us to both sit cross-legged, knee-to-knee.
“What now?” I asked as he placed the book between us.
“We ask the binder to let us open it.”
“That’s going to be on you. My Medieval Latin is kind of rusty.” I smirked.
Ranth placed his hands on the cover. “Permission aperti sunt.”
The cover glowed a creamy bright white, and the bindings creaked as the lock popped open.
He raised the latches and opened the book.
As Ranth had guessed, the pages were older than the binding, papyrus perfectly preserved as if it were made yesterday.
The writing was in a script that did not look anything like Latin.
“Could it have been copied?” I asked.
“Keep your focus,” Ranth said sharply. “It’s not Medieval Latin, it’s in Aramaic.”
He spoke in a language I didn’t understand. Something that sounded like, Could Brussel Parsnips, and the pages glowed again. But this time they glowed black.