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“You craft a spell with intention. Just set a different one.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “Tei, Prince of the Beyond, I’d really, really like for you to come inside.”
When I open my eyes again, Tei is right in front of me. He snakes his arms around my waist and pulls me against his chest. “Your wish is my command, little witch. I’m happy to fill you up to the brim.”
I hide my scorching face in his neck and playfully smack his arm. “You’re impossible.”
His lips are against my ear. “You know when I said I can taste emotions as if they were a physical thing? I can smell them like that, too.”
Oh, shit. Does that mean —
“You’re turned on, little gem.”
Yep, exactly what I thought. “It’s not fair you can do that.”
His wicked smile is back. “Whoever said I played fair?”
He wraps his long fingers around my throat and forces my face up to his, landing his hot mouth on mine. Tei doesn’t just kiss. He marks, all teeth and long, monstrous tongue, and brands me as his own.
I’m not sure that’s untrue.
When he pulls away, I’m panting. He spanks me, and I unsuccessfully fight a moan. “Let’s look for that grimoire before I desecrate every surface of this house by fucking you hard against it.”
A few deep breaths later, I’m nearly back in control of my cognitive functions. “If Àvia wasn’t a witch, the grimoire would come from my grandfather’s side of the family, right?”
Tei nods. “Your grandmother may have known about it, but it’s more likely your grandfather passed it directly to your mother.”
I clench my fist, running my thumbs over my knuckles. There’s really only one place the book could be. “Let’s go to the attic.”
The ladder leading to the hatchet hasn’t been pulled down in years, and a visible cloud of dust and debris wafts in the air as I fight against whatever is keeping stuck in place. When we finally both climb through the small opening and onto the attic floor, I steel myself against the assault.
It barely helps. Mama’s belongings are scattered across the room, covered in white cloths, looming scarier than any ghosts. Everything’s up here — has been for twenty years: her bedroom furniture, the piles of cardboard boxes bending under their own weight. The massive wooden armoire is pushed against the wall, cramped in the small space. I pull the sheet off it and open one of its doors. Her clothes are still inside, all hanging, all wrapped in plastic. Mama had a predilection for frilly dresses and floral prints; as a child, her clothes had reminded me of Àvia’s garden, beautiful and vibrant. Now, they look like still life, plucked from their pots and left to dry between the pages of an old book. I quickly shut the wardrobe door.
“What exactly are we looking for?” I ask.
Tei scans the attic. “Depending on how old they are, grimoires can look like anywhere from ancient tomes to spiral-bound notebooks.”
I huff a long breath. “So pretty much anything?” Tipping my head toward one of the tall stacks of boxes, I add, “do we need to go through all of them?”
“It’d be best.”
My stomach sinks to my feet.
“You’ll feel when we’re getting closer. Grimoires are filled with magic, and it should call to you.”
A part of me still struggles with the idea I could have magic. No, not could — I do have magic. I ate a spirit’s life essence. That’s not exactly something regular people do.
Steeling my spine, I stride toward the first stack of boxes. “We better get started, then, if you don’t want to be here all day.”
For the next three hours, we comb through every box. More than physically exhausting, it’s mentally draining. Old bottles of perfume and skincare that still smell like Mama; photo albums I didn’t know existed; doodles I made for her in kindergarten. Every object is a fresh wound, death by a thousand cuts. By the third stack we check, we finally make it to a box filled with books, notebooks, and magazines. Taking a full stack of notebooks out of the box, I pass one to Tei and flip through one myself.
It’s an expense tracker. Nothing magical about it, unless you want to call stretching my grandfather’s pension and Mama’s waitressing income far enough to support three people magic, which I’m not entirely sure it wasn’t. My throat feels both dry and coated in tar as I read all the ways in which Mama made ends meet.
Tei tosses the notebook he’s been reading back in the box. “Address book.”
Now that’s a relic.
The rest of the pile includes more financial notebooks for different years, an old handwritten recipe book, a journal or two. We’re nearly through the whole pile when I pick up a small, purple notebook. The cover is faded, the spine cracked, and the pages inside don’t lie flat anymore — some corners are curled, some sheets crinkled by moisture. Something about this poor grunt of a notepad screams to me, though. It’s a very similar electricity to Tei’s touch.
