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Chapter Five
Tamsin
I awake the next morning with the strangest feeling of both disorientation and familiarity at the same time. The sun comes in weakly through gray storm clouds and the aged lace of my bedroom curtains. A scent of stone and old magic wraps around me, a unique combination found only in my family home. I’d forgotten about it until now, and a wave of nostalgia tumbles me over.
There’s something else from the past here, too. Something alive and sleeping on top of my feet.
“Thistle?” I gasp.
It’s my old border collie. But there’s no way she’s still alive.
At my words, however, the dog’s eyes pop open and she sits up and yips at me. Then she crawls up to my end of the bed and proceeds to lick my face repeatedly. She’s so enthusiastic I can’t turn her away, no matter how gross it is to be covered in canine slobber. I stroke the creature’s black and white fur, feeling the prick of tears at the corners of my eyes.
Nessa happens by and stops in the doorway. “Aye, it’s the same dog you knew as a child, Tamsin.”
My eyes widen. “But how?”
A sad smile turns the lips of the older witch. “Luciana bespelled the beast not long after you left. Said she didn’t want… well, you get the picture.”
“So… but she isn’t actually… not immortal?” I can barely get the words out. I’ve been away from magic for too long, and my brain just can’t wrap around this.
“Not quite. A century, as I recall, that’s the spell your sister wrought.” She shrugs. “Thistle doesn’t seem to mind.”
I scratch the dog between the ears. “Well, I’m glad she’s here.”
Thistle follows me downstairs after I get dressed. I check on Luciana and the other demons, make coffee, and then get to work on formulating a cure. I hadn’t had much time to work on it since I escaped the lab. My first focus had to be synthesizing more of the neutralizer I’d created in Costa Rica, which keeps the demons in a coma, but without the disastrous effects the Night Guild had brought me in to fix—violent fits and eventually death. After I’d recreated the neutralizer, I was able to work sporadically on the actual cure. But I’d been on the run with four demons. So, this is the first dedicated space I’ve had to set up a full lab. Well, not quite full, being as how it’s sprawled across the dining room table, but better than the temporary setup I had before. Now I can focus on a permanent cure for my patients.
For Luciana.
It’s best, though, if I think of her as just another patient. Stay objective, emotionless. I can’t work well if I’m worrying about her. Or Blake. Or the Night Guild coming after me. Or any of it.
I start by organizing my makeshift lab on the table. Beakers, burners, lancets, vials, needles. It takes the better part of two hours to get everything set up how I want it. Another two hours to get a chemical compound brewing that will mark about my dozenth attempt at a cure since I started working for the Night Guild. Of course, they hadn’t wanted me to cure the demons, they’d just wanted them to quit dying off. I’d been doing it secretly without their knowledge.
Around lunch time Ainsley brings me a sandwich, but I’m distracted and can’t eat much. Thistle, who is sleeping under the dining room table, ends up getting half of it. By mid-afternoon I’ve run through a variety of tests, tracking progress on my laptop. I’m using blood samples from the demons and a microscope to observe how the blood cells react to different variations of a potential cure. The demonic blood cells look, unsurprisingly, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. They’re bright yellow, first of all, with a strange silver halo around them. They also have nodules all over them that look like tiny spikes.
So far, since I began testing in secret in the Costa Rican lab, nothing has come even close to transforming the demonic cells.
I synthesize and test a couple different chemical compounds on the cells throughout the afternoon, and finally stop to take a break when it’s approaching dinner time. I’m tired and frustrated and need to get some fresh air after smelling demonic sulfur all day. Plus, my magic has begun to buzz within me, a low-level vibration that grates on my nerves. It’s gotten stronger and stronger all day. Why has coming back home brought it to life? I don’t intend to use it, and it’s becoming distracting.
As I move past Luciana toward the door, her yellow eyes move rapidly beneath her closed lids, and she lets out a whimpering sound. My heart climbs into my throat. Is my sister in there somewhere? Is she conscious of what’s happened to her? I can only pray to any higher power that might be listening that she isn’t.
“Luciana,” I whisper, taking her rough, spiked hand in mine and squeezing it gently. “It’s Tamsin. I’m working on a cure. I’m—” I break off for a moment, tears fogging my throat. “I’ve been a bad sister. But I’m here now.”
I sit with her for a few more minutes before straightening, tears stinging in my eyes. I stride out the back door, grabbing my coat as I go and stepping into a pair of boots. The sky is threatening snow, which isn’t a surprise. It’s almost December. Wintry wind bites at my cheeks, and I shove my hands into my pockets since I don’t have gloves with me. Thistle trots ahead, her tongue lolling out. She turns frequently to make sure I’m following.
Steering clear of the lake, I march west down the valley, following a dirt path that cuts through the heather and the boulders that dot the area. Green peaks rise on each side of me, and the sky is a light gray, the same color as my eyes. In the distance, I see a flock of sheep grazing among the hills. Farther in the distance, the dark expanse of a forest stretches across the valley.
When I come to a fork in the road, I climb up onto an outcropping of rock that juts from the ground and sit with my legs dangling about a dozen feet above the earth. Thistle joins me on the flat surface, lying down and licking my hand until I pet her. I laugh and tousle her shaggy head. When she lets out a growl a moment later, I freeze.
But it’s not me she’s growling at.
An enormous gray wolf has come up behind me and is now staring with bright blue eyes. In a swirl of magic, it transforms into a man.
“I’m not sure being out here alone is a good idea right now,” Blake says. His voice still carries the growl of his wolf.
“Thistle is here,” I say, raising my gaze to meet his.
“That dog would die to protect you, no doubt.” He takes a step forward and bends down to pet her, and the creature softens her stance and wags her tail. “But would you really want that?”
