My throat still burns with salt and tears. I close my eyes and feel the faint spark of my magic. Traces. Leftover.
For just this moment, I let myself believe that it will be enough.
Chapter Fifteen
The night of the second ritual arrives in a heat wave. The midsummer sunset turns the sky to blood. The air is so heavy I can hardly breathe; sweat beads my face and trickles down the back of my neck. We stand beside the lake, at the edge of the forest. Shadows stripe between the pale trees. Arien and Clover are on either side of me. Our skin is marked with spells. The sigil is carved into the shore. We are almost ready.
The past weeks have been a blur of lessons. Days spent in the library, the table cluttered with papers and pens and ink, as I’ve practiced drawing the symbols for the spell to focus my magic. Days spent outside, the three of us circled around the jars of inky water, the sigil on the lawn now permanent: a sooty, charred mark. We’ve worked the spell so much that each night I’ve dreamed of it. My hands, their hands. The draw of power, the weave of shadows. The Corrupted water cleared and mended.
And all the while, outside, beneath the growing moon, the lake has waited for us to cast our magic. I’ve not heard or seen the Lord Under since he offered his help, but part of me is still afraid that using my magic will call him back to me. But there’s no other choice. It will work. It has to work.
Rowan comes down the path and through the garden archway. He has his cloak tucked over his arm. Florence walks behind him, carrying a lantern and a basket packed with bandages and folded cloths. When she puts the basket down beside our feet, I try not to look at it. Try to ignore the reminder that if the ritual fails, Rowan will have to cut himself and bleed into the ground, to let that angry darkness overtake him.
Florence gives us all a steady, flinty look. “You’ll be safe.” There’s no lilt of a question in her voice.
“Of course we will,” Clover says. She smiles, but the brightness doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Well, we’ll try our best.”
Rowan puts his hand on Arien’s arm. There’s a brief tenderness in his eyes as he looks at my brother. Then he steps back, his face as set and unreadable as a mask. “Are you all ready?”
Arien draws up his shoulders. “We’re ready.”
“Good.” Clover and Arien start to walk toward the water, but when I move to follow them, Rowan touches my arm. “Wait. Violeta, I…”
I turn back. He trails off. We stare at each other, neither of us speaking. He’s tied all of his hair back and his face looks so different without any of the loose, dark waves tangled around it. He keeps touching his fingers to his throat. Around the scars is a pale, indistinct shadow, traces of the poison beneath his skin.
“Aren’t you going to wish me luck in my first ritual?”
“You don’t need luck. I’ve watched you.” Rowan fastens his cloak around his shoulders, then takes his gloves from the pocket and pulls them on brusquely. “I mean—you and Arien. You’ve done well. Both of you.”
“I’m getting better at drawing sigils now. See?”
I show him my arm, and he huffs out a soft laugh. “Be safe, Leta.”
“You too.”
I walk down to the shore and take my place between Arien and Clover, stepping carefully over the sigil so my feet don’t smudge the carved lines. Arien kneels down and presses his palms to the mud. Clover flexes her hands, and sparks scatter from her fingers.
I kneel down beside Arien. The ground is so cold, and the wet mud seeps through my skirts. Though the air is hot against my face, the chill sends shivers all across my skin. I swallow down my revulsion as I put my hands into the earth.
Arien smiles at me reassuringly. “It will be just like when we practiced.”
Clover looks at us. Her eyes are gold, and magic dances over her outspread fingers. “You know what to do.”
The shadows come from Arien’s hands. With the first touch of his magic, the Corruption starts to shift and churn. His first few gestures are tentative, but with each movement he becomes more and more confident.
Power sparks up beneath my skin and the sigil on my wrist burns. I think of a thread. See it unspool alongside the strands of darkness. I hold the shadows in place as Arien casts them out across the ground.
Already, this ritual is different from the first attempt. Arien—all the practice, the lessons, our life at Lakesedge—it’s changed him. His blackened eyes, the cold of his magic, the salt-and-ash taste of it in the air—it’s part of him. It is him. He’s clever and strong, and he’s not afraid.