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Bone buddies,my brain said.
Stop it, brain, this is serious stuff.
Cock colleagues.
That one doesn’t make sense because I don’t have a cock—well, I did peg him, so I guess that name works.
Anal associate.
No.
Fuck fellows.
“Alyssa?” Ram said.
I shook my head clear. “I was just thinking of pegging… this magic circle, by which I mean getting it right. Go us!”
Jag looked up from the far side of the table, where he was reading a book. “Do you like pegging magical circles?” He raised a brow.
Heat pooled deep in my gut when he looked at me like that. “I’ve got you pegged as a cocky ass. No, wait, I mean arrogant jerk. Forget I said anything!”
“You’re right. I do have a cocky asshole.” Jag raised his brows up and down. “Okay, not really. I’ve never done that, but did you get excited?”
I laughed as a flush crawled up my neck. “Excited by you? Never.”
Ram groaned and dropped his face into his hands. “I should have stayed in prison.”
“Well, I told you to,” I said.
He groaned again.
“You’re just jealous,” Jag said.
Ram’s head shot up as he glared at the other man.
Jag ignored him and turned to me. “Is the spell ready?”
I stared at the taped together papers with their interlocking circles and scores of symbols. It was very different from the version we’d been using. But that version kept collapsing universes, so in theory, a fully working spell should look different.
Still, I had no idea if it would send us to our deaths until we stepped through its portal. The book mentioned being torn apart by “between the world monsters who are very hungry” if you got the spell wrong. I didn’t know if that was literal or poetic license to scare people away from a very complicated and dangerous type of magic.
Whatever came next, I couldn’t put Jag, Elliot, and Moe at risk, no matter how much I wanted them around. I had never been good at making unselfish choices, but if I wanted to hold on to people, I had to get better.
I glanced up at Jag. “It’s ready. Go find Elliot and Moe.” They had wandered off a while ago to find something more entertaining than watching Ram and me work.
Jag jumped up. “I’ll be back faster than that one nuts.” He nodded to Ram, then took off through the shelves.
“That was uncalled for,” Ram shouted after him.
I stood and pulled out my phone. “We don’t have much time.”
I opened Screech and pulled up the profile of one of the missing locals—a brown-haired cat shifter named Tanner. I had tracked it down during a break earlier. I would rather save Juniper and the Eclipses first. But fucking Juniper would redirect us to a random local again, so I had to rescue their asses first.
Leaving the phone open on his profile with photos of him as a cat lounging in sunbeams, I placed it in the center of the circle.
“This is who we’re trying to find.”
According to the book, if we placed an item belonging to the missing person in the circle and focused our magic on them, we should be able to open a portal to their location.
