Page 44

SARAH

Izzy's grin was still hanging in the air, and the whole war room was riding the high of a plan that finally felt like it would work. Sarah turned away from the map and looked straight at Amelia. "Okay. Now that we know what we're doing, I need to know how I'm actually doing it."

Sarah crossed her arms over her chest. The fire from a moment ago was cooling into something tinged with trepidation and fear. "You said a bit ago that you found a passage about locking the Titans away for good,” she continued. “You said it as if it were good news. Right after, everyone got distracted before you could explain what it actually requires of me. I want the details now, so I walk into that alley prepared.”

They needed to weaken Lucifer anyway they could. She wasn’t stupid enough to think they could beat Lucifer at this point. They needed to cut off his support system before there was any chance.

Amelia's expression shifted, humor draining into something more careful. "That's fair. We can leave these guys to plan the fight we will no doubt face while we deal with the magical end of things."

Her gaze flicked toward the door. "Let’s go to the library. There you’ll be able to concentrate on the ritual and what you need to be prepared to do step by step, so you aren't distracted by who's sneaking up from the sewers."

"She’s not going anywhere without me." Abraxos fell into step before either of them could argue about it, already moving toward the door.

Zander's mouth twitched as he watched them go, though he didn't comment beyond a low, "Good luck."

Amelia was right. The library was far quieter than the war room. The fire someone had lit that morning had burned down to embers and coals. It was still helping to battle the chill still clinging to the house. Amelia crossed straight to the table and pulled the journal toward her. She'd left it open the night before with a piece of torn paper still marking the page.

"If you make me read one more page of Latin, I'm going to set the book on fire and see if that makes the Titans surrender," Sarah warned as she dropped into a chair and slapped her palm flat against the journal the second Amelia slid it across the table.

"Do that, and your Nana will come back to haunt you. You know how she was about this stuff," Amelia replied as she traced one finger down the page. Gold light began to pool faintly beneath her fingertips, as if she were reading Braille. "Okay, this is the part that actually matters. I told you the binding was possible. I didn't say it was simple."

Sarah barked out a laugh. "Nothing has been simple in my life for weeks. But making me suffer is your love language, so I know you’re enjoying this." She dragged the book closer.

Abraxos moved closer to the edge of the table and read over her shoulder. Restless energy hummed beneath his skin, making her jittery. She was nervous enough, and having his added to the mix made her magic feel unstable. There was a low thrum of coiled readiness coming from him that, oddly enough, helped offset the rest.

"Walk us through what she needs to do so she is prepared for tonight," Abraxos demanded. It was more like a verdict he handed down with no room for negotiation. He was an alpha, and he cared about Sarah’s safety above all else.

Sarah's head came up, and her hair fell across her eyes. Through their bond, she felt him bracing before he had finished speaking. It came through as a tightness that rolled through her chest like a held breath. "You're already bracing to argue with whatever she says next," she told him. "I can feel it. Don’t. She didn't create the rules here."

"I merely want to understand every piece of this before you stand in that circle. It’s the only way I can protect you." His voice dropped into a low register. "That's not the same as arguing. I understand she didn’t design any of this."

Sarah’s cheeks heated as she realized she’d read things wrong. It was to be expected with them still learning the mechanics of their bond. "Fair enough. This is all new for us.” She turned back to Amelia, done stalling. “Sorry, go ahead."

Amelia chuckled and shook her head. “You guys will learn how to read one another in no time. Before you know it, you’ll know what the other is thinking before they do.”

Sobering, she turned her eyes to Sarah. "Alright, now. First, you need to create a focal object." She tapped a line of cramped Enochian near the bottom of the page. "Something that already carries a piece of the Old Ones' signature, so the seal has an anchor point to lock onto instead of trying to bind to a void."

"The Tellstone," Sarah blurted when her instincts provided the answer. It had been sitting in the back of her mind, waiting for her to finally put the pieces together. The information she had was like a jigsaw puzzle she needed to assemble.

"That's my guess, too." Amelia nodded, some of the tension bleeding out of her shoulders now that the pieces had started locking together instead of remaining scattered apart. "You'll carry it into the alley. It needs skin contact, the same as when it bestowed your powers.

“It's going to hurt the second you touch it,” she continued with a grimace. “It’ll be worse than before, since you're not waking your dormant power this go-round. You're dragging an active binding through an object that's only halfway tuned to what's under this city."

Sarah's stomach dropped with that. It took incredible effort to keep her face steady and her spine straight. She wanted to hide how every muscle in her body wanted to react. She remembered all too well how much it burned when she got her powers. She didn’t love that whatever waited for her this time was going to be worse.

"And the ritual itself?" Abraxos pressed. His fingers tightened on her shoulders without causing pain. He was offering comfort and grounding himself.

Amelia's finger moved down the page. "You need to draw the binding circle by hand using the stylus Ithuriel gave you. You need to do that before moonrise. Abraxos, you will need to stand inside it the entire time the ink’s still wet. If you step out before it's finished, the whole casting will collapse. If that happens, you'll be left holding a half-formed binding that could do more damage than the crack you started with."

"That’s not going to happen. I can manage to remain in the circle." Abraxos retorted with a scowl.

"It's not that simple, and you know it," Sarah challenged quietly. "You'll be standing in the one place Lucifer's spent weeks fortifying. You’ll be unshielded. And you will need to stay there for as long as it takes me to draw something I've never drawn before in my life. That is not a small ask, Abraxos."

"I've stood in worse places for less reason. Never once has it been for my mate." He reached down and intertwined their fingers, so they locked together. She let him grip hers tightly, needing the anchor of him as much as he did. "I'm not saying it’s going to be easy. But do not doubt that I will do whatever you need me to. The particulars are just logistics."

Amelia made a sound that wanted to be a laugh but didn't quite get there. Not with everything they still needed to discuss. "You two are going to give some future historian a migraine trying to figure out which one of you is more stubborn," she quipped, shaking her head.

"It's me," Sarah cut in, her voice deadpan enough that it startled a real laugh out of her friend despite the weight in the room.