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“Wake up,” Charlie said, gently shaking Sadie’s shoulders.
Sadie opened her eyes, lifting her head and arms from the table where she must’ve fallen asleep. The candles were burned down to the wicks, and she didn’t know how long she’d been asleep like this, but light spilled into the room from the windows. She stood, popping her back, her gaze meeting two steaming mugs of hot chocolate on the kitchen counter.
“Which do you want?” Charlie asked. “Light or dark? The other will be for River, am I right?”
Light or dark… It was the same as the brews she and River would exchange in Salem. Another habit that had carried on through their lives. “Yes.” She shrugged, reaching for the dark one.
“I should’ve known sooner. Even before remembering all this.” The corners of Charlie’s lips tilted upward as she handed the mug to Sadie. “An idea came to me this morning. You spread River’s ashes in the woods—can you show me where you released them?”
“His ashes are what brought the hex and everything else here. But they would be long gone by now…” she trailed off, remembering what Charlie had done with Skyler’s remains. “Or wait, they would be part of the ground.”
“Precisely that. I want to see if I can feel more of the hex through his ashes.” She nudged the other mug toward her. “You can take this to him before we leave. He’s calmed down for now. But if he starts up again, try not to linger.”
“Thank you.” Sadie took the steaming hot chocolate and found River wide awake, peering up at the ceiling.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” he said, his voice gruff. “However, I can’t deny how much I want you near. Whether it’s holding you close or me between your legs. But last night went too far.”
She arched a brow. “I think I could easily take you at this point. Now sit up a little—I brought you something to drink.”
“Mmm, and I can’t deny that either,” River purred, adjusting himself and parting his lips as she brought the drink to his mouth. He slowly sipped from the mug while she tipped it back for him. Sadie ran her free hand through his damp hair, tempted to unbind his ankles. It would be rather hard for him to free his wrists with his toes.
“I wouldn’t touch those if I were you.” River’s face lifted to hers, his gaze swirling with a different kind of thirst. “Although, I don’t mind you taking advantage of me while tied up.”
“Even in this predicament, you somehow make me want you even more.” Sadie cocked her head, giving him a small smile. “I’m taking Charlie to your ashes. Will you be all right?”
“Don’t worry about me. Focus on your sister and our child. If you need me that bad, though, you can always bring me on a leash.” River smirked.
Sadie rolled her eyes. “Stop being ridiculous.” She pressed her mouth to his in a soft kiss, and she couldn’t stop herself from deepening it, letting her tongue dance with his before meeting Charlie outside.
Her sister was surveying the area, the trees still folded and entwined around one another. Only now, long fissures crawled up the trees.
“The spirits will soon be out throughout the days, too,” Charlie whispered, brushing her finger along a thin crack.
Sadie stepped toward the outer barrier, and the trees inched backward as they had before, reminding her that they would never allow her to catch up.
“Come on,” Sadie said, leading Charlie through the eerie quiet of the woods. She studied the trees, observing their cracks until they reached the oak. “I spread his ashes here, right in front of its trunk.”
Charlie focused on the engraved names as she knelt before the tree, lifting a handful of dirt into her palm. Closing her eyes, she moved her lips, speaking soft words that Sadie couldn’t hear. For a brief moment, speckles of silver flickered within the dirt before burning out—River’s ashes.
Charlie blinked, moistening her lips. “Let me try again. Something is here—I feel it. Hold my hand.”
Sadie knelt beside Charlie, then grasped her sister’s hand. As soon as their skin brushed, a tickling sensation spread through her, not her own magic, but Charlie’s. Her sister repeated her earlier chant, and the sweep of Charlie’s magic pierced through Sadie’s blood, seeping down to her bones, not pulling or mixing with her own, but trying to read something inside her.
Charlie gasped, squeezing Sadie’s hand. “It makes sense now.”
“What does?” She couldn’t see anything—she had only felt Charlie’s power weaving through her.
“As I thought, the spell twisted in Salem because of you being with child. It forced River to take your life, then his, and because it stripped away your magic and your child, it prevented you from having your son make it to term in each life. River disrupted the hex this time by ending his life first, so the spell is trying to correct this turn of events by having his essence kill yours, which would, in turn, kill your sleeping body.”
“I sort of knew that already, though.”
Charlie shook her head. “That’s not all. Skyler’s essence would then have to kill me. That’s why he was still here. He isn’t dead. He will rise again once River ends your life.”
Sadie ran a hand down her face in exasperation. “That doesn’t solve anything, though. How do we break this hex?”
“There is a way. One way.” Charlie chewed on her lip, her eyes shining with sympathy. “Things will have to be in reverse. You will have to kill River’s essence. If you do this, the spell will end, and it will reunite the malevolent spirits with the other part of their essence of themselves, taking them out of this world as it should’ve long ago.”
Sadie’s eyes widened in horror. Kill him… Kill him? “I don’t give a damn about the spirits,” Sadie spat. “Find a way so River doesn’t have to die. Find a way so he and our child can both live. There has to be a way.”
