Chapter 32
JAMIE
She wants a drop of my blood.
Of all the things she could have asked for on a dark alley back street, she picked the one I never leave home without.
“Not my kidney?” I ask, smiling.
“Oh, hush, I’m serious!”
“Why my blood?”
She could tell me the spell runs on cash and a gallon of my blood, and I’d reach for my wallet, then give her my wrist.
“Not here.”
She checks both ends of the street and pulls me toward the manor by two fingers. I rub my thumb against hers before she pulls away.
We cross the garden that’s covered in leaves.
The kitchen window glows gold, and Josie’s voice carries through the glass.
“Is that Celine Dion?”
“I think,” Blaire responds just as Josie hits the high note of “My Heart Will Go On.” Blaire walks faster. “I’m so stupid. I should’ve just listened to my aunt. She warned me this could happen.”
Blaire opens the back door, checks the hall, and pulls me in, out of the cold.
The second the door shuts, she turns and pushes me against it with both palms flat on my chest.
“The only thing that breaks a love spell is the blood of the witch’s current lover.” Her chin comes up like I might argue the terminology. “You have to help me.”
I’m her lover, and this proves it.
I wish I could confess how I feel, but I can’t do that.
“Lover?” My brow pops up. “Are you claiming me?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
“I’ll help you,” I say, realizing how fucking important this is to her.
She breathes out, relieved. “Thank you.”
I grab her chin between my fingers and try to kiss her, but she backs away from me.
“Why?”
“He kissed me,” she confesses. “I need to scrub my entire fucking body of him.”
Now I’m fucking pissed. “I’m gonna beat his ass.”
“No, you’re not.” She grabs a fistful of my shirt, acting as frantic as I feel. “You can’t let the hands take you under, Jamie. This is a test. You have to pass The Tower, okay? Promise me.”
“Only if you seal it with a kiss,” I say, resting my hands on her waist.
She steps closer. Our mouths are an inch apart. Her eyes close and—
“You’re home early!” Josie says with a whisk in her hand. “Autumn sent some pumpkin bread! It’s still warm.”
She comes back with two small slices, and Blaire slaps them out of her hand.
“No! That’s a love loaf!”
“What?” Josie asks, utterly confused.
Charlie trots over to investigate the food on the floor, but snubs it.
Blaire grabs my hand and pulls me with her. “It’s a love loaf! I swear there’s magic in it that makes people obsess over one another. Call Autumn and ask her!”
We leave her cousin standing in the middle of the hallway, wearing a blank stare.
“I’m making her recipe right now! I’m going to label them Love Loafs at the shop tomorrow. Thanks for the idea.”
Blaire shakes her head, dragging me into the study. “It makes people fall in love. Autumn thinks she’s clever.”
“How so?”
She doesn’t answer me. When we’re in the study, she moves fast, like time is running out.
Blaire climbs one of the ladders on the bookshelves and grabs a leather-bound book.
It slams on the desk, and she flips through it.
I look over her shoulder, seeing most of the pages are handwritten in ink.
Cursive fills the margins. She turns the page two more times, then flips it back to where she was.
She scans down the page with her pointer finger, mumbling as she reads. The mood ring is still purple. I glance down at mine, and it’s the same color as hers.
“No, this isn’t it,” she says.
I can feel her growing more frantic. I rest my hand on her shoulder and rub my thumb across the back of her skin.
She stops, and her eyes close. I ground her in the moment, and when she looks back at me, I swear her eyes are a different color.
I decide it’s the lamplight, even though I don’t entirely believe that.
“Breathe,” I tell her.
“You don’t understand. If I lose the waning moon, I’ll have to wait an entire month before I can do this.”
I keep my hand where it is and breathe out slowly, keeping my voice low. “Don’t force it. Concentrate. Use your intuition.”
She breathes out through her nose. Then she turns pages, one at a time.
Three minutes later, the book gives her what she’s searching for.
She reads, then freezes. Her neck and face turn bright pink.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she whispers, closing the book on her fingers. “We have to find another way.”
I reach past her and open it. “Show me.”
The page is old; the ink is brown, and the handwriting is written in a slanted cursive that’s difficult to read. UNDO LOVE is written across the top. Different penmanship is on the page. There’s even a coffee stain in one place.
I struggle to read the list of items needed. “A fire of a proper size on the witch’s acreage, beneath a thinning moon, is required.”
“That’s the easy part,” she whispers.
“The lover she keeps now needs to be present.” I look at her again, and she nods. “The two shall drink the brew and dance free.” I clear my throat. “At the height of their joining, the love line should be traced, and the lovers’ blood is combined, sealed with an oath.”
“We cannot do this. I changed my mind,” she says, and it’s the first time I’ve seen her emotions get the best of her.
“Talk me through it, please. So I understand.”
“The love line.” She picks up my hand and draws across the line that starts between my pointer and middle finger and leads to the side of the palm.
The room dims around us. “Mine and yours, cut and combined. If this breaks him from me, it could tie you in his place.” She meets my eyes when she says it. “I won’t do it to you.”
I reach past her and open the book again. It takes me a minute to find the line, and I read it. “Let the lover choose.”
She goes quiet.
“I choose you,” I tell her.
“I don’t know if we can undo this if it backfires. It’s too dangerous because …”
“Because what?”
She stares at me. “Your cup didn’t say a fling.”
“I know that,” I say.
She looks at me, and her breathing grows more ragged. “How could you possibly know that?”
“I told you, babe, I’ve had my fortune read hundreds of times. Then I met you, and I realized I didn’t need anyone to ever tell me what was going to happen in my life again.”
She holds herself up on the desk. “I read my own cup after yours, from the same pour.”
“And?” I ask, curious.
She takes her time, but it never grows awkward.
“It had the same mark. Once-in-a-lifetime true love.” Her voice comes out weak, but she doesn’t let it stop her.
“It was never a fling, and I don’t know if it was ever going to be.
And if I cut our love lines, if we’re not meant to be together, we could ruin our chances of meeting the love of our lives.
Are you really willing to risk everything? ”
The bomb sits between us, next to a two-hundred-year-old spell book.
I take her hand off the desk and hold it between both of mine. “Yep. I’d rather gamble my chance at true love with you than leave here, haunted, wondering about what-ifs.”
Her breathing evens out. “You’re not scared?” she asks.
“I’m a skeptic, Blaire.”
“Exactly. That’s why you’re not fucking terrified!”
“Oh, I am. But it’s not because you want me to play witches with you,” I say.
“What terrifies you?”
“Losing you before Halloween,” I admit. “Everything else doesn’t really matter.”
A smile starts. “You’re something else,” she says.
“Come on. I think we have a date with the moon.”
“Are you sure about this?” she asks.
“I’ve never been surer about anything else.”
I grab her hand and tug her with me. She slides the spell book off the table, taking it with us.
Blaire takes her time packing a bag of items we’ll need to complete this spell.
On the way out of town, we get stuck in traffic, but it doesn’t take nearly as long as on the weekends. She rides with her hand on my knee and the book in her lap, watching the moon follow us along the ridgeline.
The cabin is dark, just how we left it.
She stands there for a long minute, looking at the spot at the bottom of the porch steps, where she pulled the ring off her finger days ago.
“This ends tonight,” she says, going back to the car and grabbing three bags from the back seat.
We go to the fire ring in the backyard. Our breath hangs in the air while Blaire gets the kindling started. Once it catches, we stack wood in the center. Sparks fly high up into the sky.
She hands me two quilts from one of her bags. “This one is for the ground. The other is for us.”
Then I watch her work.
She pours a salt ring wide around where we are without spilling a grain.
Afterward, she burns a stick of rosemary.
The scent isn’t something I’ll ever forget.
The spell book gets set out, along with a silver blade.
Blaire sits on the quilt, pulling out the familiar old bottle, along with two small glasses, the slotted silver spoon, raw sugar cubes, and a Stanley of hot water.
“Witches’ brew,” I whisper.
“We have to be careful,” she warns, laying each item out on the quilt with the same care she used back when I was a client and she didn’t want to be vulnerable around me.
So much has changed.
The wax on the bottle cracks under her thumb. She whispers while she pours, words I could never place.
She balances the spoon across the first glass and sets a sugar cube on top. Then she pours the water over the sugar. The green underneath begins to glow like it’s alive. The scent reaches me before the glass does. It’s licorice and earth.
She pours the second glass and hands me mine.
“Remember what I told you the first time?” she asks.
“Of course.” I turn the glass in the firelight. “Clothes optional?”
She bites her bottom lip. “Always. Ready?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Together.”
We tap the edges and down them.
“There is no turning back now,” she tells me, shaking it off.
“Let’s fucking go, babe.”
She sets up the second one.
This one is full of warmth and burns my chest.