Right.
I do as he said, planting myself exactly where it happened. Perfectly placed to watch Ahvi tip things into his bowl, seeming to measure by sense alone. Something that has me contemplating every decision that led me to this very moment.
The mixture begins to puff smoke over the sides, though a sprinkle of dirt scooped off the ground immediately snuffs that.
I fold one arm across my abdomen, using my other fist as a chin rest. “This seems wildly unprecise …”
“Precision is a cage we put ourselves in.” Ahvi shrugs, picking a strand of hair from his head. “Not everything needs a recipe. Sometimes all that’s needed is a bit of heart.” He drops the silver strand. The moment it strikes the surface, the mixture explodes with millions of shimmery particles.
Like a burst star.
I stare, unblinking. Unable to scratch the sense that I’m witnessing something …magical.Something both Fallon and Essi would’ve appreciated. Certainly more than me.
Ahvi leans forward, wedges his fingers into my boot, and pulls out a blade. My brows lift, then crush together when he usessaid bladeto poke the tip of his finger.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say as Kaan pinches the offending object, frowning deeply. In the same instance, Ahvi drips his blood into the shimmery mixture. “You said nothing about usingyourblood.”
“Just a drop.” He passes me a fleeting glance, wipes his bleeding finger on his floppy shirt, and begins stirring the mixture with a stick of coal I’ve never seen before. “I won’t miss it.”
I’ve seen enough shit to assume otherwise.
I glare at Kaan, mouthing, “I DON’T LIKE THIS.”
“No need to yell,” Ahvi says, using a brown feather I’ve also never seen to paint the thin liquid in a circle around the Book of Voyd. He branches off in a line that draws in my direction, then circles me. “I’ll need some blood. Alot, actually.”
“Out of the question.”
“Yours,” he clarifies with a roll of his eyes, holding up the mug. “Not mine.”
Oh.
I whip out a blade and slice through my palm. Kaan hisses a curse, like I somehow offended him.
I crouch, dribbling the red puddle into the mug. “How much is a lot?”
Ahvi glances up from where he’s using the feather to paint shimmery runes around the book, just within the circle surrounding it. “Half a mug?”
Creators. He’s obviously got a fucking mural planned.
Kaan’s skein thumps to the ground beside my foot, and I arch a brow, glancing up at him as I bite the cork free.
I sip until it’s empty, all the while bleeding into the mug. Once it’s half brimming with my viscous offering, I pass it over, allowing Kaan to bind my hand with a strip torn from his shirt. As he works to stem my bleeding, Ahvi uses my blood to fingerpaint a noose of jagged runes within the shimmery circle surroundingme.
“So,” Kaan murmurs, knotting my bind, simultaneously watching the runes take shape like they’re an encroaching army, “what’sactuallyhappening here?”
An important question I’d purposely not asked. Ignorance is bliss and all that.
Ahvi peeks at me, the swiftest glance that somehow feels like the slash of a silver blade.
I raise a hand. “Maybe we just … leave it to the unknown—”
“I’m unthreading the bind, but it’s like pulling a spine from a body. Everything crumbles without it.”
My gaze snaps to Kaan’s, his face losing all its color.
Questions, it seems, are underrated.
“You know what, Ahvi …” I shift my stare to him, “I’m quiteattachedto my spine.”
