Chapter 20 #2
He swallows, and when he finally looks up at me, there are tears in his eyes. "He was going to kill you if I didn't drop the shield on the lockstone. Maybe he couldn't get through it, or maybe he just wanted to prove he could make us bow to him. I don't know which…"
He falls silent, and I look between Asher and Wylder. No matter how much I want it to be different, the truth is in their eyes.
"You dropped the shield? Asher, no."
"Yes!" Asher pushes off the wall and grips his fists at his side. "Yes, I fucking dropped the shield, and I'd do it again."
"Ash—"
"Don't say it, Poppy. I know what you're going to say, and I can't take it. I did what I had to do."
"But the lockstone—"
"It's broken. The moment I dropped the shield, he turned his attention to the rune circle and trashed the thing.
His master is one step closer to freedom, and I don't give a shit.
" Asher steps closer and looks at me with a desperation that I know costs him.
"I would do it again. Any time there's a choice between your life and something else, I will pick you. Without hesitation."
"But that's not right." My voice comes out sharper than I intend. "My life isn't worth every single person who will suffer if Tharuzel's master gets free. That's insanity."
"Maybe, but that insanity is my reality.
My life is dedicated to your survival. Our souls are bound.
I am literally and cosmically your protector.
So, I need you to hear me when I tell you that there is no version of any scenario where I choose the greater good over you.
Not a lockstone. Not the life of another. Never."
My chest aches. I want to argue. I have a dozen arguments piling up in my head, and every single one of them dies somewhere between my heart and my mouth because Asher is completely open and utterly certain I am his everything.
And as unhealthy or codependent as other people might consider it, when life has been about survival, our unwavering bond has carried us through.
"I love you."
He blinks, and a tear slides down his cheek. "Yeah, and…?"
"And that's it. I understand you. I hear you. And I love you."
The tears fall freely then, and he collapses forward and hugs me. I rub his back and scrub my fingers through his shaggy hair.
Over his back, I look at Wylder. "What do we do now?"
Wylder rubs the back of his neck. "From what Rowan reports, Khylie's brother, Xavier, is working on the rune circle. It'll take a bit to repair the physical structure, but after that—and more importantly—the warding spell will need to be recast."
"And we don't know the spell."
"To reinstate what The Nine did, we need to learn the ritual and gather enough spirit witches to perform it."
I press my cheek against Asher's head and close my eyes.
The pressure in the air around me shifts with my breath, layered and dimensional and distracting in a way that would feel miraculous if I wasn't currently falling apart.
"So we need to find the spell. Learn the ritual.
And find enough spirit witches to get it done. "
"Yes."
All right. It's not great, but we're not out of this yet. Tharuzel possessing me is humiliating and humbling, but I'll make it up to the people I hurt. "Khylie and her family must hate me."
Asher eases back and wipes the dampness from his face with the sleeve of his shirt. "No one hates you, baby girl. It wasn't your fault. I'm just so relieved you don't hate me."
I roll my eyes. "As if that would ever happen. Not a chance."
Wylder is watching us. He’s holding himself in reserve, but the tension I read in him has nothing to do with Asher and me or what we've talked about so far. Wylder and I have only been together for a few months, but I can read him. And what I'm reading now is unsettling.
I draw a deep breath and exhale. "All right. What else?"
He glances once at Asher, then back to me. "Before Tharuzel released you from his hold, he told us you are the Key."
The word lands differently now than it did when Tharuzel said it to me in that strange, dark cave. Heavier. "He told me the same thing. He said he'd tried to control my mother first. When that didn't work, he marked my bloodline so he could find me and my sisters once we came into our powers."
The words taste bitter and I send an apologetic smile over to where Lily and Violet are taking this all in. "That was the whole point of the blood contract he forced me to sign. He didn't just want leverage. He knew exactly what I was from the beginning. He needed me bound to him."
Lily makes a small sound, and Violet takes her hand.
"He played me. He made me his puppet, and I was stupid enough to walk right into it."
"Poppy—" Asher starts.
"It's true." I don't say it harshly. It's just true.
Asher shifts forward. "First off, he gave you no choice. He held you in his realm of purgatory and said it was either you or your sisters. That's emotional blackmail, and you made the only choice you could in that moment."
"Wait, what?" Violet straightens. "Poppy? Is that true?"
"It is, but I don't regret that part. There was no way I was letting the ten-foot horror anywhere near either of you." Violet is about to argue, but it's a moot point now. I hold up my finger and give my attention back to Asher. "You said, first off. What else is there?"
Asher pulls out his phone and opens a photograph of a journal page, the handwriting looping and old. "Orion sent this from Khylie's family journals. It says The Key was the anchor witch. The one who was present at every single lockstone site during the original binding ritual."
I look at the photograph without really seeing it.
"Denmark and Ireland were the first two locations," he continues. "The ritual killed two witches in Ireland and one in Denmark. After that, The Nine adjusted. They rotated spirit witches in and out for different locations to manage the toll of it. Different witches at different lockstones."
"Except for one," I say.
"Except for the Key. The anchor witch was at all thirteen."
The number sits there. Thirteen lockstones.
All thirteen locations known only to the anchor witch who stood at every single one.
The realization doesn't come like a wave. It comes like a stone dropping clean through still water, and I feel it all the way down to my toes.
"The Nine," I say slowly. "It wasn't nine brave witches who did it together. Nine was just the number needed to perform the ritual. The Key was the one who held the whole thing together."
"Yes." Wylder's voice is very quiet. "The journal says the descendants of The Key would carry the knowledge of the location of all thirteen lockstones on a genetic level. You were never aware of it, but it was there."
"And now that Tharuzel has possessed me…
" My voice sounds strange to my own ears, thin and far away.
I press the heel of my hand against my sternum, trying to breathe past the horrible tether I agreed to because I thought it would buy us time and keep my sisters safe.
"He's been inside my consciousness… so he knows where all thirteen lockstones are hidden. "
Nobody speaks.
Because there isn't anything to say. The weight of it is perfectly, terribly clear.
Every lockstone. Every location the original Key had carried alone for a lifetime, that her descendants had never written down, never preserved, because the knowledge was never meant to leave one person—all of it was known to the demon who had spent years engineering precisely this outcome.
I handed it right to him.
Not carelessly. Not through negligence. I had fought and bled and tried everything I could, and it hadn't mattered. The game had been fixed before I was born, and every single choice I'd made had moved me one step further along a path Tharuzel had already laid out.
Lily squeezes onto the bed beside me and wraps her arm around my shoulders, and I feel Violet's hand on my knee. Asher is watching me, and Wylder is still leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his worried green eyes steady on mine.
All of them here. All of them knowing what I’d done. All of them looking at me with so much compassion and pity, I want to scream.
"I need you to go," I say.
"Poppy—"
"Please." The word cracks right down the middle. "I just… I need a minute. Please."
There's a long pause, then quietly, they get up and move toward the door. Wylder's hand brushes my shoulder as he passes. Asher pauses at the door like he might say something, then thinks better of it and follows.
The door closes.
The latch clicks.
I pull my knees to my chest, press my face into my hands, and fall completely apart.