34. Chapter 34
Sienna stood in the living room trying not to hyperventilate.
This had to be some sort of cosmic joke.
Kick them when they’re down and laugh at them?
What was the point of all this talk of destiny and saving magic when she would have to lose her soul to make it happen.
There had to be another way. There had to be.
Tessa and Megan came into the room. Sienna backed away from them. She couldn’t let them touch her right now. She was hanging on by the thinnest of threads.
“There is still time before the Templars come. You both need to grab the girls and leave. Actually, Adam and Eric should go with you too.” It wasn’t like they would have to stay. She would be the one to stop them, right?
Megan frowned. “Where would we go? The Templars could track us down and we’d be vulnerable.”
“I’ll send guards with you all,” she said, her voice tight from the emotions bombarding her.
“And take away resources to protect the clan? No way. We can go to the secure room in the basement.” Tessa crossed her arms. “And if you think that Adam and Eric are leaving you here alone, you have another thing coming.”
Sienna started to pace. “We don’t know how much longer before they come for us. Mia is going to warn us if she can. But she might have already sacrificed herself in the process.” Sienna barked out a harsh laugh. “It seems like sacrifice is the word of the day.”
“Sienna. We can think of something,” Megan said but not with a lot of conviction in her voice.
“But?”
Megan hesitated for a moment. “But…I’ve always wondered what would happen to John once the curse is broken. It’s the reason he’s lived these centuries.”
Sienna rubbed her hand against the middle of her chest, but the searing pain remained. “Maybe he would start growing old and live out the rest of his life instead of being stuck in limbo.”
Tessa nodded. “Maybe.”
“Then why is Mia convinced that the dagger is the answer, and why the hell did it choose me?” Sienna choked out the question on what felt like a mouth filled with sand.
She circled around the coffee table by the couch as her pacing increased.
“There is no way that this has all led to me having to kill John. No way.”
She bumped against the table, and pain radiated up her leg as one of Lily’s sketchbooks fell to the ground, pages fluttering across the floor.
“Damn it.” She reached down and scooped up the pages, trying to arrange them before stuffing them back into the book.
A drawing caught her attention, and she held onto it, letting the book and the rest of the pages land on the floor again with a soft thud.
“What is it?” Tessa asked.
Sienna stared at it, trying to understand what she was seeing. Tessa and Megan stepped up on either side of her and stared down as well, each grabbing onto her arms as if to support her and themselves at the same time.
A partial drawing showed the three of them standing around an oval. Tessa held a square, Megan held purple flowers. But what Sienna couldn’t tear her eyes from was the drawing of her holding a knife with red on the tip and dripping down the page.
“Oh my God,” Megan whispered.
The page in front of Sienna blurred, and she blinked back the tears. She couldn’t keep falling apart. Her beautiful niece had drawn Sienna’s destiny with the scribble of a red crayon, and it was time to face up to it.
Her phone dinged and she looked at the screen. “It’s Mia! She’s alive. The Templars are heading this way. She estimates they’ll be here in an hour.”
“I’ll go tell Marcus,” Megan volunteered.
“And I’ll get the girls ready to go downstairs,” Tessa responded, taking the drawing with her.
They rushed away and Sienna froze with her phone in one hand and her heart in the other.
Sienna didn’t know how long she stood there lost in her thoughts.
She sucked in some deep breaths and found herself squatting down to pick up the papers she had strewn once again on the floor.
Marcus would be rallying the guards, her brothers would be securing their families in the basement, and Sienna needed to prepare herself.
No, she didn’t want to hurt John. But what he’d said earlier clung to her and pricked like stinging nettle.
If they couldn’t reverse the curse before the Templars attacked, who else would die?
She should go back to the office to find John. To talk to him…
Footsteps sounded behind her, and she turned to see Tessa and Megan hustling back into the room.
“Why aren’t you both in the basement with the girls?”
“Marilyn and Jonas are with them,” Megan said.
Sienna took a step toward them. “You need to be safe. Where are Adam and Eric?”
Megan’s eyes widened in fear. “They’re outside with Marcus, ready to face off with the Templars.”
Sienna’s heart sped up. She was their leader and should be outside. Maybe John was waiting for her there. “Go downstairs, please.”
Tessa held up Lily’s drawing. “This means that we’re supposed to be with you. I tried to ask Lily if she knew what the drawing meant, but she didn’t. She goes into an almost fugue state when she draws, and she didn’t get a chance to finish it.”
“Right. It’s not finished, so we need to figure it out ourselves,” Megan said. “Why are we with you in this picture?”
Sienna blinked. “Yeah. Why would you need to be there when I…”
Tessa nodded. “Exactly. It doesn’t make sense.”
“So what does?” Sienna looked at the drawing.
“We were all so preoccupied with what you’re holding in the drawing.” Megan gestured to the paper. “But maybe we need to ask why Tessa is holding a square—is it a piece of paper maybe? And why am I holding purple flowers?”
Sienna pointed at the oval that looked like it was the beginning of something Lily started to draw. “What could it mean?”
Blood shed. Forgiveness and sacrifice. Magic restored.
“Megan, what are other definitions for the word ‘restored’?”
“It means, to reinstate, return to, bring back to its original state. What are you thinking?”
“How do we bring magic back to its original state? To the beginning?” Sienna’s heart sped up.
“What if that oval is the top of the bowl used for the curse? What if we have to bring back what happened before? The day the curse was created. We have the bowl and the dagger. That can’t be a coincidence. ”
“Lavender!” Megan gasped. “That was the flower John said was in the bowl that day.”
Sienna grabbed Megan’s hand. “What if we write a new spell to counteract the curse? We have a witch to help us.”
They both turned to Tessa.
Tessa’s mouth dropped open. “Wait a minute! I don’t have any powers.”
Megan shook her head. “When you touch the scroll, the words change to English. John said you’re a scribe witch. That has to mean something.”
Sienna reached for Tessa’s hand too. “We have to try. If we don’t, John is going to sacrifice himself. I can’t let him do that if there’s another way.”
Tessa nodded and the three of them ran to the office.
Sienna opened the door, expecting John to be waiting in the room, but it was empty.
Thank goodness. She didn’t have time to explain things right now, especially since he would fight her on this.
Megan pushed everything off the top of the desk.
Then she opened the safe and took the bowl from its box and set it on the table before pulling the scroll out, removing it from its protective plastic sheath and laying it on the desk as well.
She rummaged through the desk drawer and then held out a pen to Tessa.
“What are you doing?” Tessa asked.
“I think you need to write the new spell on the original scroll.”
Tessa’s hand shook as she took the pen. “Okay. But I don’t know how to do this.” She placed her left hand on the scroll and the words changed so that they could read it.
A call to nature
Free us from the flying demons
Fire, air, water, earth
Take their wings
Take their fire
Take their powers
Free the sky
Megan looked at the curse. “I think you just need to change some of the words and leave the cadence the same.”
“Sure. Just leave the cadence the same. Right. Easy-peasy,” Tessa answered in an octave made for squirrels.
“Deep breaths, Tessa. It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Sienna said.
Tessa stared at the scroll. “Okay. A call to nature is a summoning, so I think it can stay the same. Next line. Instead of ‘free us.’” She crossed off the words. “We need the opposite.”
Megan started spouting out words. “Keep? Have? No…Hold on to? Embrace!”
“That’s the one.” Tessa wrote the word on the scroll.
“And I’ll change ‘demons’ to ‘dragons.’” She made the change.
“The four elements line can stay the same.” Tessa concentrated.
“And the next three lines change ‘take’ to ‘give back.’ Okay. One more change. Got it. I think.” Her voice cracked at the end.
Megan hurried to the door. “I’m going to get some lavender out of the back flower beds.”
Sienna took a deep breath, praying that this worked. She walked over to the box that held the dagger, her stomach rolling as she flipped open the lid and picked up the knife, the metal handle warming in her hand. She wanted to hurl it as far away as she could, but she took a deep breath instead.
A minute later Megan hustled into the room with a handful of lavender which she’d obviously yanked right from the earth with the roots and dirt still dangling from the ends. “Marcus said that guards spotted the Templars a few miles down the road. They’ll be here soon.”
Before Sienna could respond, John barged into the room. “They’re coming, Sienna. It’s time.”
She turned to him, and he stared at the dagger in her hand and held out his hands. “There is so much I wanted to say to you. I’m sorry we don’t have more time. But I have an idea. Let me wrap my hand around yours, and I’ll…do it for you.”
Oh, this man. Even now he was trying to protect her. “Well, I have a different idea.”