Chapter 24 #3
A muscle in Stellan’s jaw twitched. “Then what do you suggest?”
Before Cassia could fire back, a loud crash echoed through the room. Bridget jolted as every item on Cassia’s desk flew off and scattered across the floor.
Cassia spun around, jaw slack, as Cade calmly lowered his hand.
“There,” he said scathingly. “That’ll do.”
Despite the tight knot of anxiety twisting in her chest, Bridget had to press her lips together to keep from laughing.
Stellan’s cheeks flushed as he stiffly moved the grimoire from the bed to the newly cleared desk. Bridget could practically feel the frustration rolling off him in waves. Not wanting to add to it, she crossed the room and lay down on the desk.
Cade moved beside her head without a word, tension radiating from every line of his body. Delphine slid up next to him, voice low and steady.
“If the bleeding gets out of control, I’ll be here to help,” she murmured.
It didn’t seem to help. Worry still tightened the corners of his brow.
Stellan placed the grimoire beside her. Bridget inched away slightly, suddenly uneasy about how close it was.
“Like I was saying,” Stellan continued, voice quieter now, “you’ll need to read the spell and channel through the Bloodstone. Once it starts, you’ll need access to Bridget’s blood. It might be easiest to use the scars she already has from Quinn’s previous attempt.”
Bridget’s gaze flicked to the dagger, heart lurching. For a second, she thought she saw something flicker in Stellan’s expression. Guilt, maybe. Or doubt. But it vanished before she could name it.
Cade slipped the Bloodstone from his pocket and held it out. Bridget turned her head away. She didn’t want to look at it. Didn’t want to feel it. The magic thrumming from it already made her skin crawl.
It seemed like Cassia felt the same way.
She stared at it for a long time before she finally took it from Cade’s outstretched hand.
She inhaled sharply when it hit her skin.
Moments later, Castor appeared behind her, lowering his voice as he leaned in close.
Whatever he whispered, Bridget couldn’t hear, but the tension in Cassia’s shoulders eased. Barely.
Bridget opened her mouth, ready to call the whole thing off.
Her instincts screamed at her to stop it, to yank the grimoire off the table and forget the crown.
But then Stellan and Finn moved to stand at her feet, silent and focused.
Before she could say anything, Cassia wrapped her hand around the Bloodstone and began to chant.
Her voice was unrecognizable. It was low and ancient, echoing in a rhythm that pulsed in Bridget’s veins.
Cassia’s eyes glazed over and began to glow.
They weren’t white like Cade’s, but golden.
Bridget couldn’t look away. There was something hauntingly familiar about it, like a dream she’d half-forgotten.
The chant abruptly stopped. Cassia vibrated, as if the spell transformed into something else entirely. In a fluid motion, she picked up the dagger with her free hand and drew it across Bridget’s abdomen.
Bridget gasped, pain slicing through her like fire. Cade flinched beside her, his hand tightening near hers but not daring to touch. Blood poured freely, hot against her skin.
Then Cassia’s fingers plunged into the wound.
The world around Bridget disappeared. Darkness consumed her as Cassia’s presence infiltrated her mind. The pure power connected to her left Bridget writhing and reeling from the sheer force of it. It felt like she couldn’t breathe.
Suddenly, a single thread appeared in her mind, tight and sharp. Colors bloomed. Shapes formed. Memories unraveled as she dug deeper and deeper.
The thread looped around her brain like a fishhook.
She could feel it. It swiveled back and forth, pressing against things Bridget couldn’t believe she’d witnessed.
Like a glittering frozen lake in the Elder Woods and a tavern that looked like it belonged in one of Archer’s favorite television shows.
But then she saw her face. The girl from her dreams. Just for a second. But it was enough. Bridget knew her.
Reflexively, she tried to catch it. She wanted to see… to finally know whether she’d been real or not. The hook stopped. A wave of realization rushed over her. She could control it. Bridget let her consciousness wrap around the thread.
Bridget, stop!
She ignored Cassia’s panicked voice. Because at that moment, she decided she didn’t just want the memory of the crown. She wanted everything.
Bridget pulled harder on the thread and tunneled further down.
Her entire life passed before her eyes. She saw her childhood, a waterfall, a dark tavern, dark blue eyes, Cade, a glittering ballroom.
And then the memories got darker. Sadder.
More devastating. Blood. Screams. Pain so raw it stole the breath from her lungs.
She wanted to look away but couldn’t. It was hers. All of it.
Her body trembled beneath the weight of it.
It was too much. She wanted to cry out. To scream. To thrash. But before she could, she found it. The crown. The memory she needed. And as it wrapped around her like mist, Bridget let herself succumb to the past.