Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
? Because you know she's all about the blood, ‘bout the blood, no trouble
She’s all about the blood, ‘bout the blood, no trouble
She’s all about the blood, ‘bout the blood, no trouble?
“How long do we have to suffer through this?” Wylder sends me a pleading look across the dining room table. “It’s been two days.”
I chuckle as Asher dances into the room, ruining Meghan Trainor’s song. “There’s no telling. Once he’s got an earworm song, he leans into it.”
Asher sets a plate of cookies on the table in front of us. “Don’t be a hater, Howe. You weren’t there. You didn’t see how Poppy’s blood sizzled and smoked as Mica forged the metal. It was magical. Literally. It’s going to work.”
Wylder reaches for a chocolate chunk. “I hope it does. You know I do. I’m just not sure the torture of listening to you sing about it is necessary.”
“I have an amazing singing voice. Have you never heard the saying, ‘voice of an angel’? Well, that’s me. Your very own angel sent down from the heavens.”
I laugh and grab a peanut butter cookie with Skor bits. “You’re the bomb, Ash. Would you be an angel and pour me a glass of almond milk to go with the cookies?”
He rolls his hand in front of his chest and bows. “It would be my honor, oh slayer of demons.”
Wylder rolls his eyes. “Seriously?”
I wave away his grumbles. “He’s the best, and you know it. And if you were feeling better, you’d think so too.”
He snatches another cookie and slumps back in his chair. “I feel fine.”
“Uh-huh. I know you do.” Not.
He’s still eerily pale, sleeps too much, and moves like his insides are breakable. I’m trying not to worry, but I wouldn’t be a card-carrying girlfriend if I weren’t secretly freaking out on the sly.
I brush crumbs off my fingers and lean closer to the laptop screen. I’ve been writing a draft email for what feels like an hour, and it still doesn’t sound right.
"What about this part? While the urgency of ensuring the lockstones remain intact is the Order’s priority, I believe the knowledge of how to repair them has been handed down within the families of The Nine.
If you or anyone in your family knows about this, or have any ideas about how to find the information, contact me as soon as possible. Does that sound bossy?"
He tilts his head, considering. "Maybe. Depends on how they read it. If world-ending demon invasion is a hot-button for them, they’ll understand your urgency."
"That's helpful."
"Do you want honesty or encouragement?"
"Both simultaneously. Is that too much to ask?"
His mouth quirks. "For you? Never."
I read the last line again. My fingers hover over the keys, then pull back. "We need them to understand it’s serious, and that we need the information quickly. This trumps their everyday troubles.”
"So, drop everything and help you figure this out."
"Exactly."
Wylder reaches past me and scrolls up to the salutation. "Start here. 'Dear' sounds too formal. You're asking them to trust you with their family secrets, not applying for a position."
"What then? 'Hey there, fellow descendant'?"
He laughs. “Yeah, go with that.”
I backspace over ‘Dear,’ and think. “‘Hello' is neutral, right?"
"Neutral isn't going to get them to open up to you."
"Then what will?"
He grabs another cookie and leans back in his chair, thinking.
The morning light catches the green of his eyes, but they aren’t nearly as vibrant and bright as they should be.
The physical healing may have finished days ago, but I see the shadow of exhaustion around his mouth when he thinks I'm not looking.
"Start with what we do know," he says finally. "Show them we've done our homework. That we're not fishing blindly."
I nod slowly and turn back to the laptop.
Hello,
My name is Poppy Hallowind. I'm writing to you as a fellow Descendant of the Nine—the spirit witches who performed the binding ritual centuries ago—about a matter of urgency.
Tharuzel the Soul Thresher has broken free of purgatory and is systematically breaking the lockstones our ancestors risked everything to put in place.
I recently travelled to the lockstone site in Ireland with Freya O'Malley, historian for the Ireland chapter of the Order of the Arcane, and a fellow descendant. While there, I witnessed spirit echoes of the original ritual.
There was a mention of repairing the lockstones should they ever be damaged, and they said that information needed to be remembered and passed to the generations of descendants to come.
I'm not asking you to get involved in anything you're uncomfortable with. I'm only hoping to compare notes—anything your family preserved about the lockstones, the ritual itself, what was bound, or anything relating to them. Even the smallest detail could help.
If you're willing to talk, I'd be grateful for your time.
Best,
Poppy Hallowind
I finish typing and sit back. "Better?"
Wylder reads it over my shoulder. "Yeah, it’s almost there. Add something about discretion. Let them know you're not broadcasting this to the whole Order."
"Right." I scroll down and add another line. Any information you share will be kept between us and the small team working on this directly.
"And give them an easy out," Wylder adds. "So, they don't feel cornered."
I type, If you'd prefer not to be contacted again, I'll respect that completely.
We both stare at the screen for a long moment. “Okay, I’m sending it through the secure server of the Order of the Arcane, and I’ve tried to lay it out as directly as possible. If this doesn't work, I'm out of ideas."
"It'll work."
"You don't know that."
"But I know you." He closes his hand over mine on the mouse. “People get behind you, Poppy. You have a knack for rallying people into action.”
I don’t know how true that is, but I appreciate the thought. Next, I pull up the email addresses Freya sent me and paste them into the BCC recipient field.
Thank the Goddess she’s obsessed with The Nine and their descendants. If the answer to how to repair the lockstones exists, these people are our best chance at finding it.
My finger hovers over the trackpad.
"You're stalling, Hallowind."
I draw a deep breath. "I'm preparing."
"You're catastrophizing."
"Same thing."
Wylder squeezes my hand gently. "Send it."
I click.
The whoosh sound as the email leaves feels louder than it should. Please work. Please find someone with the answers we need.
I lean back and let my hands fall into my lap. “All right, well, that’s done."
We sit there in the quiet, the morning light shifting fractionally across the polished wood of the dining room table that has been in my family for who knows how many generations.
I turn in my chair and reach for another cookie. “Now, while we wait on Mica and responses from descendants, tell me how I can help you.”
He flexes his shoulders slightly and swallows. “I honestly don’t know. Physically, I think I’m almost back to normal. The healers have taken care of the repair, and the pain is gone.”
"But?"
His jaw tightens, and he lifts a hand to his chest. "There's this… emptiness inside me. It’s like something important got burned out by the lash and didn't grow back when the healers worked on me."
My chest constricts. "Wylder."
"It's not horrible or anything. It’s not debilitating. Just strange. I'm aware something is missing that I didn't even know was there before."
I stand and flick my hand to get him to push his chair out a bit. When he does, I straddle his lap and settle my knees on either side of his hips.
His hands come up to rest on my hips, and he grins. "If this is my TLC reward for being a good patient, should we go upstairs?"
“In a bit.” I place both hands flat against his chest, palms over his heart.
"The lash was targeted against spirit energy, likely Tharuzel’s doing to stop spirit witches from meddling with his evil plan.
It damaged your spirit, not just your body.
The healers repaired your body. Maybe I can help with your spirit. ”
His expression softens. “Do you think you can fix it?"
"I’d like to try.” I wait, studying his reaction. “If you trust me enough to let me. And if not, I totally get it and won’t be the least bit offended.”
He gives me a half-hooded gaze and smiles. “Don’t be stupid, babe. I have way more faith in you than you have in yourself. If you think you can do it, I know you can. Give it your best shot.”
The rush of warm fuzzy that unleashes in my chest is both sappy and dangerous. I could really lose my heart to this guy. Like deep, serious love.
I cup his jaw in both my hands and brush my lips across his. “Thank you.”
When his hands leave my hips and skim up my back, pulling me closer, all thoughts scramble in my brain. Wylder returns the kiss, and I give in.
We’ll get back to my idea in a moment, but for now… this is all I want.
Kissing Wylder is like a balm to my soul. It’s joy and comfort, freedom and safety. It’s unlike anything I’ve experienced before.
If the world wasn’t coming at us from all sides, I could get seriously addicted to this man.
“Your almond milk, my queen—oops, sorry about that.” Asher sets the glass on the table and waves his hand in the air. “I was never here. Carry on.”
He is gone as quickly as he appeared, but the moment is broken. “We’ll circle back to that in a bit. Right now, I need to focus. Can we take your shirt off? I want access to the wound.”
Wylder pulls his shirt over his head, then relaxes against the back of his chair. “You do you, babe. I’m just along for the ride.”
With an endorsement of trust like that, I’m more determined than ever to help him through the last hurdle of his healing. “Wish me luck.”
He winks. “You don’t need luck. You’ve got the goods, Hallowind. I believe in you.”
I close my eyes and send a quick prayer to the Goddess Mother. If you’re listening, Birdie, please guide me in helping Wylder. He believes in me, and I believe in you. I’m hoping that together we can do this.
With that said, I call upon my affinity and sink into the space where spirit magic lives. It unfurls inside me like a rush of liquid power, flowing through my veins and empowering me down to my cells.
Spirit is the non-physical essence of a person, a vital principle animating physical beings. It is unique to all. It is a guiding force and a reflection of who and what we are down to our basest existence.
Wylder’s affinity is plant magic.
The essence of plant magic is the ancient practice of connecting with the living spirit of flora.
Wylder’s gift treats plants as conscious beings with unique personalities rather than mere objects, bridging physical healing and spiritual transformation through rituals, scents, and traditional herbalism because his spirit is about growth and life.
There is so much spirit in him and what he does, but the lash interrupted that flow somehow. If I’m right, that’s where the trouble lies.
Wylder’s skin is warm under my palms, and I release a flow of my spirit magic into him.
His spirit is bright, strong, the green of summer leaves, and warm like earth after rain. I follow the threads deeper, searching for the damage.
And then I find it.
There’s a gaping hole. A darkness within the light. A break in the flow. It is clean-edged and dark, like something vital was burned away and left nothing behind.
"Oh, Wylder." I breathe the words. "No wonder you feel like something is missing."
"That bad, is it?"
"It's…" I focus my intentions, directing my magic, probing carefully around the edges. I feel Tharuzel’s intention to hurt, to destroy, and it has no place here.
I call more spirit energy forward, and though I've never tried to channel through another affinity before, my instincts tell me I can help him. For all the horrible things Tharuzel has done, I haven’t been able to counter him. But for this, I can.
Spirit is my domain, and the best counter to the hatred and destruction of his intention is the love and healing of mine.
And I do love Wylder.
It’s not the deep, forever kind of love we might share one day, but it’s love all the same. I know his heart, and he’s a good man.
The kind of man who would train me and keep me safe even when he hated my mother and blamed her for killing his mom.
The kind of man who would take the hit in battle to spare someone else without hesitation.
The kind of man who dedicates his spare time to working with struggling witches at Arcana.
He has a strong, giving, nurturing spirit, and there’s nothing Tharuzel can do to that spirit that I can’t heal.
Because even in a world where crappy things happen and bad people take advantage, the good guys get to win. They have to. It’s why we fight the fight.
I pour all of my intention into closing that gaping wound in his spirit and into healing the pathway of the flow of energy. Light replaces dark. Vitality replaces void. And in the end, the flow of his natural essence is restored.
When I ease my hands away from his chest, the threads of his spirit have knit back together, woven across the empty space, filled it in with something new.
Something that glows faintly silver-blue but is merged with the lush green of summer leaves.
My magic. My love. Woven permanently into the fabric of who he is. I open my eyes and ease back.
Wylder is staring at me, his emerald green eyes glossy and filled with emotion.
"Are you all right?"
"Better." His voice is rough. “You are incredible, you know that?”
I smile, shaky. "You'll always have a piece of me with you now. Whether you like it or not."
His hand slides in beside my neck and he pulls me close. "I like it."
The kiss we share is slow and deep, and impossibly gentle. I melt into it, into him, into the warmth and certainty that he offers after years of emptiness and of not knowing where I belong.
A notification chimes from my laptop.
He groans. "You've got to be kidding me."
I twist around to look at the screen without climbing off his lap. The notification preview glows on the dark background.
Re: Descendant of the Nine
My heart jumps. I scramble off Wylder and drop back into my chair, yanking the laptop closer. “It’s a response to my email.”
"Already?" Wylder leans forward. "We just sent that."
"I did stress that it was urgent." I click the email open, my pulse hammering in my throat.
The message is short.
I have no interest in getting involved with demons or the people who let them onto this plane. I heard what happened to Henrik. Do not contact me again.
I stare at the screen, and the disappointment lands heavy and cold in my stomach.
"Well, shit."