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Her words echoed my father’s comment the other day. My gut twisted, but hearing that sentiment coming from her didn’t hold the same pressure. From my cousin, it was a statement that she believed in me.
Aunt Ginny was shaking her head. “I can’t imagine— If we’d had any idea he was going to those lengths— Oh, Spark help us, poor Alora. Pooryou.” She tugged on my hand, and I let her pull me into her arms. Like the mother I should have had, I thought, and almost started bawling all over again.
They were horrified, but for me, not by me.
At least, some of them were. My gaze found Aunt Irene, sitting stiffly on the bed. When our eyes met, I was surprised to see hers were watery.
She lowered her head. “Virginia’s right,” she said, sounding weary. “We should have done more.”
“You didn’t know,” I said quietly. “Ididn’t even know until yesterday. I doubt Mom had much of any idea.”
“Yes, but—” She grimaced and met my gaze again. “I’m sorry. You’ve been a stranger to me, one I assumed followed your father’s path since he was the one who raised you. I let my anger with him and my fears for my family determine my actions. You didn’t deserve that. You’re a victim of his schemes just as much as my little sister ever was. I should have defended you as much as I would have her.”
I stared at her, not sure what to say. I’d never expected an apology. Did I even believe it?
Did it matter? She wasn’t condemning me. I wasn’t going to trust her any time soon, but I didn’t have to shun her if she wasn’t shunning me.
“Well, now what?” Naomi said. “There’s a demon on the loose and the Assembly is acting like a bunch of idiots. We didn’t come all this way just to sit around.”
Aunt Ginny stood up, resolve hardening her expression. “We go to the Assembly right now and bring every bit of influencewehave as the Levesques. And we do have some, even if we aren’t in the Portland crowd. We know enough to make life very difficult for the Northcotts and their associates if we wanted to.”
I looked up at her, my spirits lifting. “You think that’ll work?”
She smiled tightly. “Nothing gained without trying. But yes. You can’t do better than a united front. Come on. Let’s set them straight before they bungle this catastrophe any more than they already have.”
Chapter Eleven
Seth
The smell of soldered metal filled the air in the abandoned parking lot the Assembly had given over to our use. Somewhere behind me, tools were hissing and bars clanking against each other. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and inspected the massive wall of twisted copper and steel that was standing mostly upright in front of me.
The steel sections were just there to bolster the softer metal. Kyler had found a reference to the demons’ dislike to copper in the Frankfords’ records, so I’d wanted to incorporate as much as possible into the structure. We were fixing the bars in the shapes of glyphs intended to strengthen the walls and to contain and subdue whatever lay inside them.
If this plan worked, the demon on the loose would be caged by tomorrow.
Jin came up beside me. After all the work he’d done incorporating glyphs into paintings for practical use—and he had done some metal work for sculptures in the past too—I’d appreciated having him consult on the designs. He looked the wall over, cocking his head.
“If you don’t think it’d hurt the structural integrity or whatever to add them, we could work in a few more of the binding glyphs,” he said, pointing. “Fit them around this corner here, and the curve in the shielding one there.”
With the movement of his finger, I could picture it. I nodded. “Good thinking. I’ll add those in right away.”
Right away wasn’t all that fast when I was doing this right. I sketched out the addition to be sure of it and worked the metal into shape slowly and methodically. Soldering it into the existing structure required the most care. I didn’t want to jar any of the seams that were already secured.
When I’d finished that enhancement, I ambled across the lot to check on the handful of workers the Assembly had brought in to help get this project done. The basic framework for the other five sections of the cage was in place and the larger details coming together well. I made a couple of suggestions—“Add a little more steel here.” “Make sure you support that bend.”—but mostly all I needed to offer was praise. I’d put a lot of time into the plans I’d written up to make sure every aspect was covered before we even got started.
I checked my phone. It was mid-afternoon now. I still had to take care of the more intricate glyphs on three of the walls. We’d betterbe ready to cage that demon tomorrow. The main—and maybe the only—reason the Assembly had approved this plan and Rose’s involvement was that since the confrontation a couple of days ago, the creature had picked up its speed. And its ferocity. In the last two days, it had killed a dozen people who’d crossed its path.
If we didn’t stop it soon, it’d reach way more inhabited areas. The thought of what might happen then made me wince inwardly. We’d just been lucky so far that the towns near it now were few and far between.
I’d just fixed a few more strips of copper onto what would become the cage’s floor and was reaching for another when the gleam of familiar black hair caught my eye. Rose came up on the other side of the work table that held my tools, her cousin and two of the other young witches in tow.
“Jin said at least a couple of the walls are ready for us to get to work doing the magicking for them?” she said.
The plan was for the witches to spread out the work—some enforcers were due to show up to lend a hand too—but Rose needed to add her touch to every spell. We were hoping that imbuing each glyph with a little demon-influenced power would make them more effective than the past spells the enforcers had tried.
“That one’s finished,” I said, pointing to the wall I’d added the final elements to earlier. “And this one almost is.”
“Wow,” Naomi said, taking in the propped up metal square I was working on. It was more than twice as tall as I was and equally wide. I’d been standing on a step ladder a lot of the time. “So how is this all going to come together? Is there some kind of bait we can use, like a mouse trap?”
