19. Cori
Cori
H er heart pounded in her ears as her mind shifted into defensive mode. She whispered her mother’s incantation, and all the light and electricity inside the house clicked on simultaneously. The hair dryer, which she must have accidentally left plugged in, whirred to life from the bathroom.
At her side, Adrian jumped in surprise. Cori murmured the next incantation as all the doors sprang open at once. She turned to him urgently, the power of her magic pulsing through her as raw instinct took hold.
“Someone was here.”
He nodded, following her through the doorway. They began searching every crevice in the two small rooms, but there was no sign of anyone despite the electric heaviness of magic that hung in the air.
“We need to retrace their steps,” she explained to him, her voice trembling.
The next incantation left her lips almost silently as she fixed her attention to the door, her magic surging to life once more. The worn floorboards shimmered as ghostly footprints materialized. Adrian gasped, his eyes wide. This charm, one of her mother’s finest and most clever spells, showed you the path an intruder had taken in your home .
She had many spells like this in her arsenal, as Astrid had weaved many protective charms before Cori’s departure, planning for the inevitable dangers to come.
She followed two sets of shimmering footprints through the door. One set, big and thick, most likely made by a pair of boots, diverged into the kitchen. A second set, dainty and curved, like women’s flats, trailed into the bedroom.
She looked up at Adrian, an expression of shock on his face. “There were two of them?” he asked her.
“Looks that way,” she agreed. “You follow the boots, and I’ll follow these little ones.”
He nodded.
As Cori traced the steps into her bedroom, she let her Eye bubble to the surface, pulling on the lingering magic of the intruders.
The air in the house buzzed, full of magic and curiosity. A small woman holding a heavy flashlight stalked through the bedroom door. Her black hair fringed her forehead with wispy bangs, and her lips were painted with bloodred lip stain that accentuated the upward curve in the corners.
The intruder paused at the bedside table where two small folded notes were tucked into a drawer. She grasped the yellow note, and her eyes flared in triumph as she read Enzo’s angular scrawl.
Cori came back to herself to find Adrian in the doorway, his breaths coming quickly with earnest fear as his stare held on to her.
This time, though, she didn’t hesitate. Unfettered adrenaline coursed through her body, blood rising and falling in her heart like the tide. “I followed the spell,” she explained. She opened the bedside table drawer, but it was difficult to make out the words and crisp pen strokes now. She held up the note from Enzo, marked with a pentagram, painted in blood.