Atlas rolled his big green eyes and licked a drop of liquor off his lips, and I pretended like the sudden urge to swipe my tongue over his mouth was just a lingering side effect of Marta’s appreciation.
I quickly averted my gaze and squashed down the heat in my cheeks.
“There are no sides, Atlas,” I continued, bringing myself back to reality. “We’re stuck in this together, and we’re gonna need to work together to get out of it.”
“Whatever.” He downed the rest of his whiskey and poured himself another glass. What was it? Noon? One? What did it matter? Like he said, nothing was real. In the liminal, societal norms didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
“I’m going to help her research.” I pushed to my feet.
“Alright, nerd,” he said. “Can’t wait to get your greedy paws on those books, huh?”
“This can’t be the first time this has happened,” I continued, ignoring his jape. “And if we can get the bond working again, maybe there’s a way out of this.” I headed toward the door, but turned back at the sound of his disgruntled sigh. “But I agree with you. Give it a few days, and we’ll circle back to Biltmore. There’s got to be something we missed.”
“Hey,” he called out just when I got to the hallway. “Keep your head on straight, right? I still don’t trust that witch.”
I nodded and left him to play with his toys, and as I slowly strolled through the house toward the kitchen, I debated the best way to heal the rift between them. It wasn’t just the history with our family, though that was a big part of the problem. They were very similar, almost mirrors of each other. Headstrong, arrogant, and confident in their own righteousness. Like magnets with the same polarity, they would continue to push each other away until someone forced them to make amends.
Since I was the only other person here, I figured that person had to be me.
CHAPTER 10
Marta
I sat at a table in the massive library, surrounded by three stories of bookshelves lined with ancient tomes. It was something out of a Disney movie, and I pitied my rotten luck that I’d been stuck here with the worst beast of them all. But like I told Wes, as long as Atlas and I stayed out of each other’s way, we could keep the peace.
At least until he saw the book in front of me. I found it in my room at the estate on the first day we came here. I’d never seen it before, and I certainly hadn’t pulled it before we left Asheville. So that pegged the question—how did it get there? And why did it reset to that same spot every day?
The uncertainty was enough to make me leave it alone, but when I read the title, my curiosity got the better of me.
Signa sanguinis et animae.
Signs of Blood and Soul.
It looked like any other book in the library: black leather cover, dusty faded pages, ornate swirling script. But when I picked it off my bed, a wave of magic coasted through my veins so powerfully, I nearly wilted. That should have been my second clue to leave it alone.
It was written by a witch named Constance in the late sixteenth century, which was legendary, seeing as most women couldn’t read or write at the time. She’d been bonded to two warriors. Immediately intrigued, I’d spent the last week devouring it, only to pick it back up and read it again.
Most of it was her diary, detailing the days of someone spent trying to survive in the throes of a witch-craze. Challenging enough in itself, but being bonded to two warriors had presented its own struggles. They struggled to find a homeostasis between them, each person connected in their own ways with their own bond, to the point where magic ricocheted through them with reckless abandon, creating “chaos and unmanageable emotions.” Finally, the tether snapped, cutting her off from the two people meant to protect her.
Rather than go to her coven, she started experimenting. The first half of the book seemed like her journal, detailing the daily tribulations of working with two warriors. When the bond was severed, she concocted three rituals meant to create something similar, but more powerful. They were dark spells that scared me to contemplate — things like bloodletting and magical coitus and sensation pairing.
The three rituals built on one another, creating greater magical resonance with each step. First, a blood sacrifice to connect their energy. Then, a flesh-bind to demonstrate their commitment to each other. All three had to participate in the sexual exchange, even her warriors. Finally, a soul-bond to seal their emotions and share their combined essence amongst all three. After the instructions for the third ritual, the rest of the pages were blank.
“Must not have gone that well if there’s nothing else,” I muttered to myself.
Because she didn’t want her sisters to know the bond had dissipated, she’d done it all by herself. I didn’t know if that spoke to how powerful she was or to how deeply she’d fallen into a mental health crisis.
Still, her words intrigued me, and the similarities between Constance and me couldn’t be ignored. Like her, I’d been bonded to two warriors, and the bond had seemingly disappeared once we got trapped in the liminal.
I’d been at the Harlot estate for a week, and I already felt my magic starting to return, which boded well if we wanted to attempt any sort of reconciliation to the bond between us. I didn’t know if Constance’s spells would work, but we wouldn’t be able to get out of the liminal without our combined power.
I shifted to the notepad at my left and began a list.
1. Get my magic back
-R&R at Harlot estate
-Attempt grounding in Sacred Forest
