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“Just know that the more you start messing in the other plane, the more stuff is drawn to you. No one needs that kind of drama, especially not me. Helping you means I’m opening myself up to who knows how many attacks, and I just—” She pressed her lips together, as if to stop herself from saying more than she wanted to. “Apocalypse. How serious were you about that?”
“Extremely.”
“Tell me everything. Start at the beginning.”
At the beginning? “Like from when I got bitten? Because it’s all sort of snowballed…”
“If that’s where you think the story starts, then yes.”
“It’s going to take a bit.”
“You got somewhere else to be?”
You take your time, Dastien said. We’re going to grab some food around the corner, but I can come back in a few if you need me.
Go. I’ll be fine. “I’m good here.” Especially if in the end, she was going to help.
“Lay it on me.” She grabbed a cookie and a glass of lemonade and sat back into the chair.
By the time I was done, the cookies had all been eaten. We’d slid down to the floor to be closer to the plate and made a few trips to the kitchen for lemonade refills.
Samantha leaned against the bottom of the armchair as she stared at the popcorn ceiling. “Shit.” She looked at me. “Shit. This is really bad.”
“I know. So, do you think you can help me? I’ll owe you big time. Anything you need, any time of day. I’ll be there. Although, I’ll be there even if you don’t help me.” I winced. “I probably shouldn’t have said that.”
“Probably not.” She blew out a breath and stared at the ceiling. “My dad is going to be so pissed.” She stood up and brushed the crumbs off her skirt. “Okay. I’m going to help you.” I started to jump up but she stopped me. “But I don’t know how much I can do for you. I think I can fully break the tie from Astaroth to Claudia. Raphael, too if it’s like his sister’s. Except he’s far away, so that could be an issue. But yours… It’s sticky.”
“But you’ll try.”
“Yes. But I can’t promise anything.”
A zing of triumph ran through me at her words. This was good. I didn’t care that she couldn’t promise anything. That she could see the tie and try to break it was a huge step forward.
This will work, Dastien said. We’re coming back.
Good. The sooner we do this the better. I wasn’t sure when Astaroth was coming back, but this was our chance to head him off. I wasn’t about to wait. “What do we need to do to set up?” I didn’t know how she did what she did, but if it was anything like the magic I knew, there were going to be things that had to be done first.
“It’s not so much a set up as a timing thing. 3 a.m. is when the veil between realms is the thinnest—”
“So, we do it at 3 a.m.”
“But that’s also when his hold is the strongest.”
“So not 3 a.m. Then when?”
“I’d say dusk, because it’s an in-between time, but my gut says 3 a.m. But it could get ugly. There’s really not a great answer here.”
I didn’t like the sound of ugly. My stomach twisted into a giant knot and I hoped I wasn’t about to be sick.
We’ll all be there. I won’t let him take you again.
I wasn’t sure Dastien would have a choice. “Okay. Sounds like a plan.” One I hoped would work. Because there was one easy solution that no one wanted to talk about.
If Astaroth was tied to me and that tie couldn’t be broken… If him stealing my magic was going to bring on the end of the world… There was one thing I could do: eliminate myself from the equation.
No! Pure, white-hot rage burned through our bond.
Stop. It’s just a worst case scenario. But the fact remained—if it was my life or literally everyone else on the planet, then I couldn’t rule it out.
