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I have the goddess’s blessing in this endeavor—my soul is not damned. Light will be my end, not darkness.
No goddess I knew would bless vengeance—unless, of course, she meant one of the many war goddesses. She was certainly old enough to be a follower of more ancient deities.
If I agree to this, Belle said, how do I contact you? If they’re able to sense your presence, you cannot simply follow us around.
No. The White Lady hesitated. If you call for Vita, I will hear its echo through the spirit world and respond. The name gives you no power over me, but there are few who bear it these days and none such who do reside in this place.
Fine. Leave with our blessing, and we’ll be in contact.
Vita immediately did so. A few seconds later, the time exception ran out and the full weight of the spell layers slammed down. We’d been in contact far longer than I presumed.
Belle took a shuddering breath, then released her grip on my fingers and fell into my arms. I held her while she shook, pushing energy into her body through our telepathic connection despite the ache flaring in the back of my brain.
“Enough,” she said eventually, her voice etched with weariness. “One of us needs to be mobile for work tomorrow.”
“Work tomorrow is the least of my worries right now. Are you able to get to your feet, or do you want some help?”
“I think I can manage.”
She pushed out of my grip, then slowly got up. I rose with her, keeping a hand on her elbow just in case. To say she was unsteady was something of an understatement.
“If this is how talking to her for ten minutes affects you, I hate to think what letting her spirit into your body is going to do.” My voice was grim. “You can’t—”
“It’s not like we have many other options right now. Besides, didn’t Katie warn you to give her what she wanted?”
I slipped an arm around her waist, providing support as we slowly made our way out of the reading room. “Yes, but—”
“Vita wants this. She needs this. And if she doesn’t get it, the run of troubles we’ve had of late will seem like a party compared to the hell she’ll rain down on us.”
“But what she wants might well kill you—”
“Yes, and that means we have to find a way of preventing the force of her spirit overwhelming and destroying mine. There’d have to be spells—we can’t be the only witches in the history of all magic forced to deal with a spirit this way.”
“A comment that does not ease my fear in any way.” I took a deep breath that also didn’t help a whole lot. “Monty, Ashworth, or Eli might know, but in the meantime, we should check your gran’s books.”
“I’ll do that tomorrow. You need to grab everyone else and figure some means of trapping these things.”
A smile tugged my lips as we made our way up the stairs. “My familiar has her bossy pants on this evening, it seems.”
“Actually, I haven’t got any pants on.”
My grin grew. “Monty would be pleased to—”
The rest of that sentence ended in a grunt as Belle shoved her weight sideways and my shoulder hit the wall. “Tart,” I muttered, smiling as I straightened.
“If you stop being a teasing bitch, I’ll stop being a tart.”
I chuckled softly. “One foul revitalization potion coming up.”
“I’ll be asleep before you finish making it.”
“Then I’ll wake you.”
“You’re evil, you know that?”
I chuckled again. Once I’d helped her into bed, I headed back down to make the potion. She was asleep by the time I returned, so I left the concoction on the bedside table for her to drink whenever she woke up.
When I checked her the following morning, the glass was empty but she remained asleep—and probably would be for a good part of the day, given just how drained she’d been.
