4. Chapter 4

My hand shook slightly as I transferred the potion from the mortar where I had ground and mixed it, using a pipette to fill the little cavity inside the stupid fucking locket. The tiny note was gone from inside it—I didn"t see if Dyre had kept it, and I honestly didn"t want to fucking know. The locket had been cleansed, and the spell ingredients were prepared. Now all we had to do was combine me, Dyre, and Sunny"s magic with a boost from Hasumi, and activate it.

I had offered to find another anchor for Aahil"s spell, so Dyre could keep the locket if it held as much sentimental value to him as I suspected it did. But he had brushed off my concerns.

Stupid thing. It was irrational to be jealous of a woman who had lived and died a couple hundred years ago. And I wasn"t. Really. But I was pissed off that the Goddess thought it would be funny to add this bullshit in on top of my already fucked-up life situation right now.

I took a deep breath and tried to focus on what I was doing, rather than constantly trying to puzzle out whether Dyre"s contribution to my bloodline was far enough away to be overlooked. I mean, it had been a couple hundred years, and a lot of Lovell witches died early because of magical stupidity, so… there had been plenty of generations between us. Right?

"Stop," Hasumi"s smooth voice halted me before I could add another drop of the potion to the locket. "If you add too much, the surface tension will break and the potion will spill over. And if it touches the workbench—"

"It will mess everything up and we"ll have to start all over," I finished for the water weaver, feeling like an idiot. "Thanks."

I tossed the pipette back into the mortar and straightened, pushing my hair back out of my eyes. Dyre was standing on the other side of the workbench, looking grimmer and more corpse-like than ever. His glaring and brooding was the stuff moody emo-goth teenagers only dreamed of. He hadn"t spoken to me all day, except to mutter quick directions to help with the spell. I think I"d prefer Sunny right now, if all he was going to do was pout. It was a sad day when the evil wraith was a better companion.

I met Hasumi"s turquoise eyes and the water weaver nodded slightly in understanding. The cool, comforting swell of water magic sent calming waves of tranquility and goodwill through the room.

My shoulders came down from where they"d been scrunched up around my ears, and my breathing deepened. But no amount of relaxation was going to suddenly produce the answers to all my problems.

At least for now, I could do something about one thing that was bothering me. At least I could help Aahil, even if I had no damned clue what to do about anything else. The jinn currently sat cross-legged in the middle of a spell circle he had helped me draw. He was bare-chested for the first time since he"d come back to us, wearing nothing but a pair of soft joggers and hardly any of his usual jewelry. The piercings at his navel, nipples, and ears glinted with gold, but he had removed the rest of his usual jewelry so it wouldn"t cause an issue with his new locket.

Goddess, I hoped this worked. Aahil had never been a large person, and his extreme personality generally made him feel more imposing than he was… but even discounting that, he was looking too thin, and he still had dark shadows under his pretty golden eyes. This was all taking too much out of him. He sat with his hands resting loosely in his lap as if he was completely unconcerned. But there was tension in his shoulders, and his eyes narrowed slightly when he caught me looking at him.

"You ready?" I asked as I approached the spell circle.

He shrugged. "It can"t be any worse than setting myself on fire multiple times a day."

I opened my mouth to tell him not to be flippant. I knew none of this was as easy for him as he was making it out to be. I was glad his sarcasm was returning—it meant a slight slip of his fiery personality was coming back—but I didn"t want him to go back to using snark and sharp edges to deflect his pain like he had done before.

Hasumi spoke before I could, probably sensing that I was likely to say something that would only end with us fighting. Even this tender, vulnerable new Aahil could get under my skin sometimes and make me want to shake him, and I thought the feeling was mutual.

"I will know if it is too much for you, little flame," the water weaver said calmly. "I will monitor what you are feeling the entire time."

Aahil swallowed down whatever defensive reply he might normally have made. Instead, he just nodded. "Fine."

Dyre came to stand beside me just outside the circle. Sunny"s dark energy was close to the surface, so I wasn"t surprised when it was the wraith"s eerie, multi-layered voice that spoke. "No harm will come to your jinn, Oleander. Shall we proceed?"

I waited for Aahil to protest at being called my jinn… but he didn"t react. It was strange how much I actually missed his snippy attitude sometimes. "Sure," I said dryly. "Let"s get this show on the road."

My head was pounding, and my mouth was dry. I was getting nauseous intermittently as the day progressed. My insulin pump vibrated against my stomach, where it was tucked into my waistband, but I had the volume turned off. There was no sense even looking at the screen. It would only tell me what I already knew. What it had been telling me for a couple of days now. I was low on insulin, and my blood sugar was dangerously high. I had used the last vial of insulin to top off my pump last night, and I would probably run out this evening. Rationing my doses, drinking my magic-infused concoctions, and praying to the Goddess to just give me a fucking break for once could only do so much.

If I didn"t get more insulin soon, my body would start shutting down as ketoacidosis, or DKA, set in. If I was being honest, it had probably already started. But, you know, one thing at a time here.

I held out the open locket in the palm of my hand, careful not to spill the fluid held inside the concave surface. Dyre and Hasumi both held their hands over mine, and we all started channeling magic into the potion, activating it and setting the spell into motion. Aahil was a powerful fire elemental, and jinn flames were nearly unstoppable. It was going to take a doozy of a spell to keep him from burning himself.

But an excess amount of powerful magic was something we had in spades around here these days. Sunny alone could probably cast this spell, but having the extra boost from me, plus the added calming and quenching flavor of Hasumi"s water magic in the mix, would make sure that nothing was getting through to hurt Aahil.

As usual with these sorts of things, the prep work and the buildup were way more time-consuming than the actual working of the magic. I felt our magics swirl together and light up the wards on the locket. Aahil gracefully unfolded himself and came to stand on just the other side of the spell circle. I held the glowing necklace out to him, and he added his own magical signature, just a little taste of his power, so the locket"s spell would identify him as its target.

The liquid inside the locket absorbed into the metal, fusing the magic to it. Then Aahil picked it up and draped the chain around his neck. We pulled back our magic, everyone took a deep breath, and it was done.

"How do you feel?" I asked the jinn as he stood before me. His face was scrunched up like he expected something terrible to happen, but nothing did.

"I can"t touch my flames," he whispered. "I can"t pull on my power. But… I can"t lose control of it either. So it looks like your little solution is a success, Lovell."

I nodded. "Good."

He could take the necklace off anytime he wanted, just in case he needed to use his magic in an emergency—say, if the SA showed up and tried to murder us all. But otherwise, his power was almost completely suppressed. He could transport and do some minor workings, but no fire. No heat at all. The destructive forces inside him were subdued.

Aahil stepped out of the circle and headed to a nearby chair to grab up the baggy sweatshirt he had left draped over the arm. He tugged the shirt over his head and seemed to lose some of his tension as he was swallowed by miles of fabric. "Thanks," he said in a soft, flat voice. Then the jinn padded out of the room without a backward glance.

I sighed. He wasn"t going to accidentally set himself on fire. But there were so many more hurdles he had to get through. Niamh and Zhong had been hovering out in the hallway, and they came into the workroom as Aahil left.

"Did it go okay, then?" Zhong asked eagerly, glancing after where Aahil had disappeared. It was strange and heartwarming to see him so concerned about the jinn. Last I knew, they hated each other. Apparently, mutual captivity had helped them bond or something.

"Yeah, it worked," I said, fighting a small swell of nausea. Hasumi shot me a look that said they knew exactly what I was trying to pretend wasn"t happening.

I rubbed my forehead and willed my blurry vision to clear. Right. More important things to worry about now. Couldn"t fight the SA, check on my sister, save Aahil, or figure out if I was in love with my great-great-great-great-etcetera grandpa, if I died of DKA.

"I need to go to the Planus realm," I muttered. "Like yesterday."

"I"ll go with you," Niamh said immediately, crossing her arms over her chest and squaring her shoulders like she was certain I was going to argue.

She was right. I was. "No, you"re not," I snapped.

Zhong opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off. "And neither are you. Have you guys looked in a mirror lately? Even if I was willing to risk the SA catching you—which I"m not—you would stick out like a sore thumb. Neither of you can pass as human, and the disguise charms we"d have to use would probably draw even more attention. The SA has to be on the lookout for that kind of thing by now.

Ambrose stepped out of the shadows where he"d probably been lurking the whole time and placed a hand on my shoulder. But he didn"t offer to come with me like the other idiots. The boogeyman was a walking nightmare. A sexy nightmare, but still. Humans would freak if they saw him walking down the street. And the SA would probably sense his magic. Same with Dyre. The SA knew I had a necromancer with me, and they knew exactly what it looked like when we hid him. They"d be all over that the second we stepped out of our nice, safe pocket realm.

"I"ll go by myself. It will be quicker and easier that way." And less risk of the others being imprisoned yet again by power-hungry assholes.

A cool, graceful hand touched my other shoulder, and Hasumi caught my attention. "If you go out there alone and are attacked, you would stand a better chance of escaping with some additional support. I will go. I can pass as human, or close enough. And my magic is more flexible. I stand more chance of escaping their traps or sliding under their radar."

I heaved a massive sigh. But I knew there was no way they were going to actually let me leave this realm on my own. Ambrose had gone out once already to get news, and although he wouldn"t admit it, I suspected he had almost been caught. It wasn"t safe to go alone, and we all knew it.

Hell, it wasn"t safe to leave our little pocket world sanctuary at all. But it was that or I died, simple as that.

"Fine," I huffed out. "Give me a few minutes to get ready and we"ll go… I"ve put it off too long as it is."

I turned to ask Dyre if he would keep an eye on Aahil in case the suppression spell wasn"t as stable as we hoped, or something made it misfire. But the necromancer was gone, apparently having slunk out of the room while I was distracted.

Cool. Fine. This was fine.

Ignoring my pounding head, I made my way to my bedroom to grab some extra charms and say a few prayers to the Goddess. Because I was pretty sure I was about to die either way. Or something else really awful would happen. Knowing my luck, it would be the latter. No way would the powers that be just put me out of my damned misery. Nope. The universe would just find new and ever-more creative ways to fuck me over.

As I made my way upstairs, I thought I heard a voice whispering in my ear, but I shook it off. No. No time to figure that out, because I needed to go back downstairs and get an anti-nausea tea before I vomited. Then I"d go get my charms and head out to the pharmacy.

Good plan.