Chapter 13

13

CAROLINA

I see the energy ball of blue static leave Elijah’s hand, the crackling sound echoing through the alley like the crack of a whip. It pulses with unnatural power, twisting the air around it.

Everything moves in slow motion. As if by the Fates’ design, the moment the energy ball passes across the perimeter of the crystal cage, charged strands of golden light emerge from the five crystals Camila and I placed around the alley and unite at an apex above Elijah’s head.

Then, time seems to speed up again. The alley is filled with a hum of magic, so thick it feels like it’s pressing against my skin. I feel the energy woosh past me, locked on its target. It’s too fast for me to do anything about it. Bullseye.

“No!” The word is a choked plea as I try to catch Declan before he drops to his knees.

He’s a dead weight against my body, and I struggle to hold him upright. I do my best to gently guide him to the ground, summoning my magic for a bauble of extra strength. The air crackles with static energy, a tangible tension that almost feels alive. It buzzes in my ears, mixing with the frantic pounding of my pulse .

My emotions are too chaotic for me to try to do more than that. I can feel my magic flickering inside me, chaotic and desperate, as if it’s trying to fight against the inevitability of what just happened.

No, no, no. This wasn’t supposed to happen. My being here was supposed to prevent all of this.

Why did I lose everyone? My parents, my grandparents. It’s like the Fates brought people into my life just to take them away.

“Camila!” I yell while trying to pull Declan’s upper body onto my lap. Camila would heal him, and everything would be fine. He would be fine, and the giant hole burning in my chest would go away.

There’s a grunt from behind me. “A little busy, Caro! I could use a hand!”

A crushing sense of sadness spreads throughout me that I can’t explain. I don’t even know him, so why was this affecting me so much? I should be more preoccupied with helping Camila trap the demon 10 feet away from us.

My hands pull at Declan’s sweater, trying to find where the energy ball hit him. Aside from a patch of red, welted skin, I don’t see any other injuries. Fingers pressed against his neck, I feel his pulse slowing, and I panic all over again.

“Carolina! The sooner you help me, the sooner I can heal him.” Camila’s voice has a tone of desperation that wasn’t there before.

Right . Focus, Carolina . I close my eyes, inhaling deeply, trying to force the panic down. Demon first, detective later.

“I’ll be right back,” I whisper to him, like he can hear me. Maybe he can. I hope he can.

As soon as I turn to her, I see the problem. Elijah—or rather, the demon inside him—has completely lost control. His eyes are wild, black pits of malice, and his movements are frenzied. Relentlessly attacking the cage, he’s firing energy ball after energy ball at it without tiring. Each hit rattles the cage, the golden strands trembling but holding. I wonder just how much of a toll their magic takes on them and if it’s anywhere near ours.

I cringe at the sound a particularly large blast at the cage makes.

“I don’t think we can transport it while he’s doing that,” Camila says. “I’m worried it’s not going to hold him.”

I chew on my lip and flex my hands at my side. My magic pulses beneath my skin, desperate to do something, but it’s divided. Half of it is pulling me toward the demon, the other half tethered to Declan, lying unconscious behind me.

“Think we can use a spell to knock him out?”

Camila shrugs, but I can feel the anxiety radiating from her. “Worth a shot.”

My hand closes around hers as we begin an incantation our grandparents used on us more times than we can count. Before our magic came in, we thought it was just a lullaby our family would tell us. Safe to say, we felt pretty betrayed when we got older and learned they’d been spelling us to sleep.

By the stars that softly gleam,

Let them drift into a dream.

Eyes grow heavy, breath so deep,

Fall now gently into sleep.

Whispers of peace, soft and slow,

To the realm of rest you go.

Restful night until the morn ,

Wake refreshed when day is born.

In the cage, Elijah’s movements slow with every line we recite. His arms drop to his sides, his head lolling forward as if the weight of the world has finally caught up with him. His eyelids grow heavy, and he stumbles, fighting to keep himself upright. He loses, collapsing to the ground.

The second I’m sure he’s not going to pop back up, I turn back to Declan. The pull to him is magnetic, overpowering. I’m by his side before I even realize I’ve moved.

I swallow the growing feeling of apprehension and try to stay calm as Camila crouches beside him and places her hand on his chest. The seconds stretch out, feeling like hours. Every beat of my heart is excruciating as I wait for Camila to work her magic.

I’m holding a breath that I only let out when I see the steady rise and fall of his chest resume. The red-marred skin doesn’t heal, but Camila removes her hand.

“I don’t want to over-heal him. It’ll have to wait until he’s conscious,” she says, standing.

Camila’s powerful enough that her magic targets anything that might eventually decay. It’s like watering a plant—give it too much water, it’ll drown.

For that reason, Camila tends to assess injuries in piecemeal ways, but in this case…

“Unless you think there’s a way to explain this situation without telling him,” she says when I don’t respond.

I shake my head slowly, resigned. “No, I know we’ll have to.” Now that Declan is breathing, I can think more clearly. “Let’s get them both back to the shop. We’ll put Declan in the pantry and Elijah in the attic.”

I wave my hand over him and allow my magic to guide his body into the air, and a flick of my wrist allows me to shimmer his visibility. I can’t see him anymore, but I can sense him.

Camila does the same to Elijah before collecting the crystals from the ground.

“Silas and Luna will be so proud,” she says as we begin our trek home. Our hostages floating silently behind us, non-existent to the naked eye.

“Babies’ first demon,” I laugh.

We settle into a silence, and we’re halfway home before Camila breaks it. “Are we going to talk about…”

“No.”

“Got it.”

My reaction to Declan—that’s what she wants to talk about. Even if I did want to talk about it, I wouldn’t know where to start. I can’t explain the way my magic reacts to him, the way it pulls me toward him like a magnet. Since he first walked into the shop, my magic had called out to him for some reason.

It had grown attached to him. Comfortably alive in his presence.

Whatever its reason for wanting him, I couldn’t give into it. He was here to solve the case and go home. Whether he knew we were witches or not, I wouldn’t get involved with him.

I’d never been a curious child. I didn’t wonder about why things were or how things happened. I stuck to rules and routines. They were there for a reason, and I found no reason to deviate from them.

Camila had been the wild child. Restless. Always exploring and interested in testing boundaries.

No doubt, if she were in my position, she’d have climbed the detective with the blue eyes and scruffy beard like a tree already.

Like calls to like , my magic whispers to me again .

I roll my eyes.

No.

There would be no climbing. No exploring. No curiosity. Not with him.

I’d already almost gotten him killed once. That was enough.