“Where is she?” he asked.
“I’m going to get her back.” I ran past him without making eye contact. The matches were in Octavia’s room next to her candles. I grabbed one of the Magic cards she’d left out, the glittery commander. I stuffed it into my back pocket before rushing back downstairs.
“Tell me something,” Wilson begged before I could leave the porch. “She’s still in there, isn’t she? Have you heard her?”
Meeting the gaze of a family member on these kinds of jobs could be one of the most painful endeavors. Locking eyes with Wilson was a particular hell, considering he mirrored my own fears. And he had the same challenging brown as his sister’s round eyes.
“I haven’t heard her,” I said. “But I know this: she wants to run this ranch with you more than anything. That fight will be what saves her.”
Wilson’s expression hardened, but he nodded. “Be sure she gets the chance to fight. Please, Rae.”
He dismissed me with a nudge of his chin toward the barn.
My lungs burned and boots caught in the mud as I sprinted to the barn. December and Nico dumped our mixof graveyard dirt, rosemary, and calendula. Jonah shoved the last wooden stake into the dirt, its wood engraved with celestial carvings.
The air in the barn had always been stale; the supplies too precious to risk the outside weather messing with the balance. I coughed as I pulled out the matchbox. Torches wrapped in cotton waited for me on the edge of the pentagram made of woven sticks on the ground.
I dragged the match across the box and lit the edge of the makeshift torch. The lavender from the cloth burned my nostrils. December offloaded her mix first and came over to claim her torch. The guys followed suit and moved to their designated spot on the pentagram.
“We still have Daylan?” I asked, and December held up the phone.
“Are you in position?” he asked.
“We all are,” I confirmed, my team standing with their torches like lighthouses in the dead of a rainy night.
Daylan sighed and whispered something to himself, ending with a soft amen. A prayer at a time like this should be a comfort, but when a man like Daylan bowed his head, it was more of a Hail Mary.
“I don’t need any of that,” I said sternly to all of them. “We’re here for one thing: to get this right. Leave the disbelief outside. We’re tools now.”
The order was a promise to myself. A command that I didn’t lose myself like I did at the cemetery. The outside shouldn’t touch us here because despite all the noise, this was what we did. What I did. To hell with being the best. I just had to get this done right.
“Ready?” I met Nico’s gaze.
He stood opposite me and nodded as he kneeled on oneknee, lighting the sticks. The fire crawled down the line. December went next, her hand shaky but gaze steady. Jonah was last, his flames moving quicker down the line.
“This is a summons for the one who claims Elmwood as home.” I touched my torch to the sticks, the last flame needed to trigger the trap’s door.
The flames burst, climbing higher and increasing in heat. Its color swirled between blue and yellow. December stepped back when a flame nearly licked her.
“Don’t move.” Nico reached his hand in her direction. “It’ll disrupt it even more.”
“Kneel if you need,” I said, knowing her center of gravity would be difficult to reclaim if she let panic in.
Nico kneeled first, not taking his eyes off my cousin, almost as if giving her permission to do the same. She followed his lead.
“To the one who makes deals at the crossroads,” I continued, my voice rising in volume over the roar of the flames. We neared the moment where I’d have to switch to speaking Sumerian while maintaining a natural cadence.
“It’s like a song,” Daylan’s voice carried over the flame. “Don’t think about the lyrics, just mimic what the singer’s saying.”
My tongue caught on the first word, but I tugged it loose, stumbling to the next.
“Green,” Jonah announced and crouched down now like the others, but only because he wanted a closer look. “I see green.”
“Exactly what we want!" Daylan let out a shocked laugh. “Keep going, Rae.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, blocking out their movements and encouraging words. It would only work for as long as Ididn’t second-guess a single syllable. As long as I powered forward. I reached for the memory of Octavia at the convention. Her standing over me with those judging eyes, unconvinced yet somehow inspired by who I claimed to be and the surety I projected.
“Don’t you…” a distorted voice warned.
