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“Do this for us,” Dad offered Proctor, “and I will be in your debt.”
“An unspecified favor from the great Hiram Nádasdy is not worth nothing.” Proctor angled toward his bridge with an odd longing, as if it hurt him to stand even this far away from it. “Give me a half hour.”
“All right.” Dad locked a hand on my shoulder before I could protest. “We’ll take a short walk.”
Halfway back to his bridge, Proctor raised a hand in farewell as he hustled toward its dank shade.
Using his grip on me, Dad aimed me at the woods and nudged me into a brisk walk.
Marita and Derry followed until the bridge was almost out of sight then hid in the overgrowth to watch over Proctor.They must have worried, like me, that he would call for reinforcements or plot some other way to take the Hunk from me. Probably my head too, while he was at it. And my heart. Why waste free food?
“How long have you known where to find him?”
“I found him three days ago. As soon as I read your magic, I could tell the thread he had woven into the grimoire burned as bright as mine. I suspected then that the book was feeding on him in some way. Which meant he was alive. Perhaps dormant but alive. That was when I began searching.”
“And you didn’t tell me this sooner because…?”
“Proctor didn’t want to participate in the grimoire. His partner, Edward, convinced him they had enough magic between them that they could afford to part with a little. Edward was a black witch but not a very good one. He didn’t have the stomach for it. I believed then Edward longed to save Proctor in the same way your mother wanted to save me.”
As we walked, Dad began scratching Blay’s ears, but it was an absent gesture as his thoughts meandered through the past.
The condition we found Proctor in spoke for itself, but I asked anyway. “Are they still together?”
“Edward was killed not long after we completed the grimoire. Another black witch cut out his heart.”
Yep. I had been right to dread the answer. No surprise there. Love and black witches didn’t mix.
“That’s why Proctor went to sleep.” I couldn’t say I blame him. “He had no reason to stay awake.”
“Without Edward, he has no reason to hold back.” Dad delivered the news with the bite of a guillotine blade. “Proctor will want his magic returned to him.”
“I picked up on that,” I said dryly.
“Asking Proctor for help was a last resort.” Dad continued petting the bunny. “I don’t trust him, and I don’t trust him to be useful, but these are desperate times.”
A buzz in my pocket sent me reaching for my phone to read a text from Isiforos.
>>Witches have finished warding Ballroom Three. Kellies are en route.
>Get them plugged in and ready to work ASAP.
>>Will do, boss.
“We’re still looking at a couple of hours until the Kellies get settled and start searching for the director.” I thumped my phone across my palm. “I hate this.” I wrapped my hand around the pendant and yanked out of frustration. “I could find my familiar if I could sense her.” I wet my lips. “It might be worth?—”
“The book will consume you if it gets a foothold in your power again.” He pried the ruby from my hand. “No familiar is worth your life.”
That was where he was wrong. Colby and my lives were intertwined. But to explain my desperation to reach her, I would have to give my parents more of my story. That presented its own complications.
Better to press the angle that, through her, we could track Clay’s—and therefore the director’s—movements.
Under orders, Clay had the personality of a wet paper bag. He became an empty vessel, a blank slate, and it gutted me to watch how it whittled him down to a bare-bones version of himself I didn’t recognize as my best friend.
Clay would do everything in his power to protect Colby, to get her back to me. But the golem? The shell? She didn’t matter to him. Her fate wasn’t his problem. He wouldn’t care if she lived or if she died.
A shimmer distorted the air, and a figure limned in soft blue light appeared before us.
“Mom?” I reached out and touched her, expecting my fingers to pass through, but she felt solid. “How did you do that?”
