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“It takes practice—and guidance. I’ll talk to Liz about finding you a tutor this summer. But for now, look up ‘Shadow Travel—how to call a traveler back from.’”
I thumbed through the S’s, past Sand Shifting, Séance Summoning, and Shadow Repelling (which would have been useful on New Year’s Eve) until I found the spell Soheila had asked for. “It says that to keep him safe on his travels I should draw his shadow on a piece of paper and then burn it while repeating the words,intra scath hiw—”
“Hiwcuolic,”Soheila pronounced the difficult word. “Old Icelandic for ‘familiar.’ You see, that’s why you had to look up the spell in your spellbook. The book intuited that the creature you’re trying to help is your familiar.”
“You mean the book changes the spell depending on who is using it?”
“Yes, and the more you use your spellbook the better it gets to know you and the more useful it becomes. I bet you didn’t even realize that Ralph was your familiar.”
“No,” I admitted, stroking Ralph with my hand. “I just thought he was my friend. The book says that to bring him back I have to catch the shadow that dragged him into the Borderlands. But how? That creature probably went back through the door New Year’s Eve.”
“I doubt it. It’s probably lurking around your house waiting for a chance to get the rest of the spark out of your little friend. Take it from someone who fed on the human life force for centuries: once you get a taste of it, it’s hard to do without. You’ll have to keep an eye out for it and when you see it…Well, here, I’d better give you something to catch it with. You can draw his shadow while I’m doing that.”
While Soheila went into her closet I took a piece of paper out of Soheila’s printer and laid it next to Ralph. I sketched ina little Ralph-shadow as best I could and then, using the box of matches Soheila kept by her samovar, I burnt the paper in a copper tea saucer while repeating the spell. The smoke coiled up into the air in the shape of a mouse and then vanished. When it was gone I noticed a familiar-looking figure out on the quad through Soheila’s window. I got up and walked to the window, but the figure was gone. It had looked like Liam…but Liam hadn’t said he was coming to campus.
A chime drew my attention to Soheila’s desk behind me and I turned and looked at her laptop before I realized that I was snooping. An instant message box was in the corner of the screen, an icon of a bobbing Jets logo beside a scroll of text.How ’bout lunch?was all it said, but I had a sudden inkling of what mortal Soheila liked. Only he wasn’t just a mortal—he was a witch and because of that the last person her family would approve of. But Soheila didn’t know that. I heard Soheila coming out of the closet and I quickly scurried back around her desk so that she wouldn’t see I’d been reading her IMs.
“It’s a little old and out-of-date, I haven’t used it since capturing a kelpie on a fishing trip fifty years ago, but I think it will still work.” The wicker fishing creel she handed me looked like it was meant to hold trout, not demons, but I thanked her for it and put its worn leather strap over my shoulder. Then she told me how to destroy the shadow-crab once I’d caught it. I started to leave but turned back to ask another question. She was looking at her computer screen with such a winsome smile that I couldn’t bear to disturb her.
Walking home slowly through the damp, chill air I thought about Soheila’s story. Angus Fraser had been dead for nearly a hundred years. What would it feel like to live alone for that long? And what would it feel like to love someone but know that if you gave in to the desire to be with him you would endanger his life? It made my dilemma about whether Liam and I were moving too fast seem pretty insignificant—and my reservationsrather cold. Hadn’t I done the same thing with Paul—keeping him at arm’s length because he didn’t measure up to a childish fantasy?
When I opened the door to Honeysuckle House I was greeted with the smell of cinnamon and bergamot. Liam was in the kitchen making a pot of Earl Grey tea and fresh cinnamon rolls, which he knew was my favorite afternoon snack. With the tea kettle still in his hands, he leaned forward to kiss me. His skin was warm and there was a dusting of flour in his dark hair. He smelled like yeast and butter. I must have been mistaken about seeing him on the campus; clearly he’d been here all day.
“I’ve just got to run across the street to get a change of clothes,” he said. “I’ve gotten flour all over these.”
“Why don’t you get all your things,” I said impulsively. “I mean, it’s silly for you to keep going back and forth…The house is so big and…” I looked up and saw he was staring at me, his brown eyes widening. “What I mean to say is, if you want to live here, I’d like you to.”
Liam put down the kettle on the stovetop and wrapped his arms around me. I could feel the heat of his skin through his flannel shirt enfolding me, taking away the chill of my slow walk home. “Yes,” he murmured into my neck. “I’d like that very much.”
