“I’ve looked everywhere for a spell or a way to contact the entity who cursed her in the first place to no avail.”
“Maybe if you two worked together, you could help me,” Tish suggests. “You have no idea how awful it is to be stuck as a cat. I hate it.”
Guilt swirls in my chest. I know what it’s like to be in a situation where you’re only a shadow of yourself.
“Have you ever come close to finding a way to contact Hecate?”
“There was a spell in an old diary Tish got for me at the Nightshade Market that mentioned summoning a powerful entity, but it wasn’t specific to Hecate.”
“You said there was nothing there,” Tish complains.
“I didn’t want to get your hopes up. The ingredients it requires aren’t something I had access to before.”
“Had? As in you have access now?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It mentioned something about the blood of a beautiful otherworldly being. I had no idea what it meant, but perhaps it was referring to the blood of a Nightingale.”
“Of course. That must be it!” Tish exclaims. “It had that spell to travel the wind. That’s a Nightingale thing, right?”
“Come again?” I look at the familiar.
“That’s how Sophie was able to get to Indigo Mountain so quickly and save your asses.”
I look at Vaughn’s girlfriend. She looks embarrassed and won’t meet my stare. “Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“What is this book exactly?”
Sophie looks up, and her eyes are guilty as hell. “You’re not going to like the answer. It’s a diary from someone who dabbled in dark magic.”
I swallow hard. “You’re right. I don’t like that at all. The last time a book containing dark spells was misused, an evil witch set a demon free and opened a portal to Hell.”
“Probably because she was evil. Sophie isn’t. I know you don’t know me at all, but Iamliving in my own personal hell.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. Tish doesn’t need to say much to make me empathize with her plea. “Where is this book of yours?”
“In my apartment. But it’s not safe to go there. My father might be staking out the place.”
“Balls,” Tish blurts out. “Totally forgot about that pesky detail.”
I press my index finger to my lips. “Did you set up wards in your apartment?”
“No, it didn’t occur to me. In hindsight, I should have done it. Why do you ask?”
“Because I can walk the wind right into your apartment with you. If your father is just watching the place from the outside, he’ll never know we’re in there.”
Sophie widens her eyes, then smiles. “That’s a brilliant idea.”
“Hooray! So does that mean you’re going right now?” Tish asks.
I glance down at my robe. “I need to get dressed first. Wait here. I want to be in and out before anyone knows we’re gone.”
“Oh, I like you, Vivi,” Tish says. “I like you a lot.”
Forty-Six
VAUGHN
