Page 70 of Bad Witch

“How?” he asked. “How do you know?”

My gaze slid over his handsome face and settled on his soft amber eyes that shimmered with gold. “I’m happy. Before I got here…when I got here, I was afraid, and now I feel safe.”

He massaged the back of my neck, his gaze sharpening. “You wanna tell me what scared you?”

“Before I left to come here, I found something terrifying in Brigid’s things. After that, Brick⁠—”

“I’ll be talking to Brick. You know he’d never hurt you, though, right? He was just protecting our territory. We have females and cubs here, and you obviously surprised him. He should know you’re not a threat, though, and I’ll make sure he doesn’t give you shit again.”

Again, I expected him to ask me how I got in here. I braced, ready to lie because I had no other choice.

“You wanna show me what you found in Brigid’s things?” he asked instead.

Why wasn’t he asking me?

“Peaches?”

I quickly slid off my bag. “Right, yes, of course.” I certainly wasn’t going to force the issue if he didn’t think it warranted further scrutiny. I placed my bag on the table and slid out the grimoire. “I’m not sure how everything ties together yet, but this new development isn’t good, Fender.” I found the page I was looking for and turned it toward him.

He stared down at it. His body went very still. “Who is that?”

“They’re wraiths, but more specifically, The Wraith’s of Destruction.”

“As in Disease, Mayhem, and Annihilation?”

“Yes.”

He cursed. “Do we know how they’re tied up in all this?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. Only that Brigid spent a lot of time on this sketch, and it can’t be for nothing. Do you know much about them?”

“Not really. Honestly, I assumed they were a myth. They vanished from stories and our histories a long time ago.”

“They’re definitely not a myth. They existed a very long time ago. They aren’t just any wraiths, either, they’re much more powerful.” I swallowed heavily. “They have the power to bring about the end of times.”

Fender straightened. “Uriel’s behind this. He has to be.”

“If we could just unravel all of this, how the sisters were involved, the angels”—or more specifically, Uriel, the rogue archangel who appeared to have highjacked Heaven—“the wraiths, all of it, then we could find those weapons, I’m sure of it.” I looked up at him. “I think we’re skimming the edge of something really bad, Fender.” I shivered and ran my fingers over the page again, then snatched my hand back as a spark of magic, dark and cold, shot up my arm.

“What is it?” he asked.

I leaned in, getting a closer look. “Oh gods, it’s blood. The sketches were done in Brigid’s blood. Her magic is saturating the book. It’s like us finding this, or touching it, has broken some kind of concealment spell.” I spun to Fender. “There’s more here, the answers are here, I just have to work out how to tap into it. If I do that, Brigid will show us. She’ll tell us what we need to know.”

“Do you have any idea how to do that?” he asked.

It was like the Matildas’ grimoire, I was sure of it. The blank page beside the sketch held secrets and I had to find out what they were. Biting my lip, I touched the page again, and when the spark of magic shot up my arm this time, I forced myself not to pull away. The ice spread through my veins, calling to my blood. “I need a knife,” I choked out.

Fender took one from his pocket, flicked it open and handed it to me. “What for?”

I took it, unable to reply because the ice had raced through my body, chilling me to the bone, while the buzz of Brigid’s magic tugged and called to my own. I had to do this. There was no other way, the book needed my blood. Gritting my teeth, I pressed the pointed end of the razor-sharp blade to the tip of my finger, and ignoring Fender’s curse right after, I placed my bloodied finger to the page, binding myself with the book, with Brigid.

The blank page beside the sketch filled with text. Beautiful sloped writing, all of it, a full page written in blood.

“What is that?” Fender said.

He was frowning down at the page, his confusion clear. “You can’t read it?”

“It just looks like a whole lot of weird symbols to me.”