I want to tell him everything. I want to explain about the summoning circle in my flat and the texts I’ve been studying and the binding spell that’s going to trap a shadow king in the human realm until I decide to let him go.
But I can’t. Because Adam will worry. And Hex will intervene. And I need to do this myself.
“I’m being careful,” I say. It’s not quite a lie.
Adam doesn’t look convinced. But he nods anyway. Because that’s what best friends do. They trust you even when they shouldn’t.
“Okay,” he says. “Just... remember that you don’t always have to do everything alone.”
My throat feels tight. I take a drink of wine to avoid having to respond.
Hex appears in the doorway, carrying a serving dish. “Dinner is ready.”
We sit. We eat. The food is excellent because of course it is. Hex might be an ancient shadow being, but he’s also apparently a natural at cooking, even though he can’t use salt, which is one of those facts about reality that I find deeply unfair.
The conversation flows around me. Adam talks about the coffee shop and the new seasonal menu he’s planning. Hex tells a story about Dark and some dispute in the Shadow Realm that was resolved by Dark simply being his large and brooding self. I contribute when required and laugh when appropriate and try very hard to seem normal.
But the whole time, I can feel Hex watching me. Those red eyes tracking my every movement. Assessing. Calculating.
He knows something is wrong. He just hasn’t figured out what yet.
Good. Let him wonder. By the time he works it out, it’ll be too late to stop me.
Chapter 3
Be Careful What You Wish For
Thedarkmoonhasrisen. And I’m standing in the centre of my living room and looking at the summoning circle I’ve spent the past three months preparing. The carpet is rolled up against the wall. The floorboards are covered in chalk runes, each one drawn with painstaking precision according to texts that most witches don’t even know exist. Black candles flicker at the cardinal points. Herbs smoulder in a ceramic bowl, filling the flat with smoke that smells like earth and graves and something older than either.
My hands are shaking.
I’ve checked everything three times. The runes are correct. The components are exact. The timing is perfect. The dark moon hangs invisible in the sky outside my window, and the veil between realms is at its thinnest.
This is going to work.
It has to work.
I crouch down and light the last candle. The flame catches and holds, burning with that particular black-edged flicker that means the magic is alreadygathering. The air in the flat feels thick. Heavy. Like the space itself is holding its breath.
I stand outside the circle, in the exact cardinal point of due north, and close my eyes.
I’ve never attempted anything like this before. No one in my coven has. Binding spells, yes. Minor summonings, certainly. But calling a former shadow king across the veil and trapping him in the human realm? That’s the kind of magic that gets you killed if you do it wrong.
Or possibly if you do it right.
I push the thought away. I’m not backing out now. I’ve come too far. Spent too long researching and preparing and building toward this moment.
Dis burned my flat down. He tried to use me as bait. He was willing to kill me without a second thought, just to draw Hex away from Adam. Dis wanted to do terrible things to my best friend.
He needs to answer for that.
I take a breath. Then another. I let my magic rise, that familiar sensation of power flowing through my veins like liquid heat. It builds in my chest, in my fingertips, in the space in my heart where all magic lives.
I begin to chant.
The words are old. Older than English. Older than most languages I know. They taste like iron on my tongue, like blood and salt and the particular flavour of power that has been sleeping in ancient texts for centuries.
The candles flare brighter. The smoke thickens. The air in the room shifts, becoming colder, heavier, wrong in ways that make my skin prickle.
