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A grateful smile curls my lips until I look across the room at Devyn and Azarius. Their hands are intertwined between them, and he’s drawing small circles across the back of her hand. It shouldn’t bother me—I’ve seen them together countless times over the last week—but I can’t deny the flare of jealousy in my chest.
Despite all my efforts, I can’t shake my desire for my best friend’s mate.
And when we’re alone, I can almost swear she wants me too. But it’s not enough for me to make a move and risk mine and Azarius’s friendship. I won’t do anything until she tells me to.
Then all bets are off.
Half an hour later, Ignatius has finally assembled all the tools he needs in the middle of the living room floor. There’s a fat spell book opened to the appropriate page and a tiny alter with a stone bowl sitting on top. A sheathed dagger with a glittering handle lays beside him, along with a collection of ingredients in glass vials.
“This spell was originally intended for magical objects,” Ignatius explains as he sets to work sprinkling ingredients into the bowl. “I’ve modified it some, but it should work just fine.”
A smidge of this.
A dash of that.
I can hardly keep up with what he’s doing.
He crushes some dried flower petals in his hands before adding them to the mixture and runs his boney index finger down the list of the ingredients in the book to double check everything.
“Yep. Yes. Got it,” he mumbles under his breath. “Perfect. Everything is added. Now we get to have some fun.”
He holds one hand a few inches over the bowl on the alter, his eyes lasered in on the blend of ingredients.
“Fao.”
At his incantation, a red flame sparks to life, incinerating the dry mixture.
“Devyn, I need your finger please.”
Her eyes bulge, and she looks a little pale as Ignatius unsheathes his dagger, but she lets go of Azarius’s hand and drops to the floor beside him. She offers him her pointer finger and squeezes her eyes shut tight.
The blade of the dagger is so thin that it all but disappears when held sideways and barely grazes the tip of her finger.
It instantly beads with scarlet liquid and for the first time since being in my bedroom, I can smell her human essence. Even the nesda can’t cover up fresh human blood.
Ignatius instructs her to drip it into the bowl.
“Just a few drops will do it,” he says as she holds her hand above the flame. One, two, three drops fall into the fire, and Devyn retreats, instantly placing her finger in her mouth.
I hold my breath, eyes glued to the spell before us as we wait for something to happen. The fire grows smaller but continues to flicker while it incinerates everything in the bowl.
“Come on,” Ignatius urges under his breath. “Come on.”
After a few more minutes the fire stops burning, and a ringlet of scarlet smoke curls out of the bowl. This means nothing to me, but Ignatius gasps excitedly and points.
“Do you see that? It worked,” he says, bouncing eagerly on the spot. “That’s our answer.”
Devyn, Azarius, and I all exchange looks.
“Well, what is it?” I ask, losing every bit of my patience.
“The color of smoke determines what properties her blood has. Black smoke means demon. Purple smoke means monster. And red smoke means—”
“Warlock,” Devyn interrupts, her mouth hanging open. “I’m descended from warlocks?”
“The spell doesn’t lie.” Ignatius points to it again. “It might have been several generations ago, but as long as you have one drop of magical blood in you, it seems the portal is your gateway to use.”
“Yes!” Azarius punches the air on the opposite couch. “I told you my girl was special. I was right.”
