43. Bram

43

brAM

I stare at the bag containing the snake, my stomach churning with dread. The thought of swallowing that thing makes me want to hurl, but I know we don’t have a choice. This is our only shot at fixing the mess we’ve made.

Walking slowly outside, we see the scorched circle, and we stop to stare at it and the churned-up garden. “You might not have a house left after this,” I mutter to Cathy.

“It’s too small anyway,” she mutters back and then moves off with determined steps to stand in the opposite place she did for the ritual.

“Okay, so we have to create a mirror image,” I state and kneel on the opposite side to where I was earlier. Tate and Torin take up reverse positions as well. I glance down at the book, place it on the grass, and open at the page we need. The snake wriggles in the bag, not amused in the least. It’s hissing and spitting, and its fangs keep appearing through the bag as it bites it. “Ivy, lie in the middle with your feet pointed towards me.”

She nods and lowers herself to the ground. Keeping my hands steady, I look at Tate. His gaze is on Ivy, never wavering. “Tate Blackwell of the Well line, are you ready?”

He nods grimly and closes his eyes. When he places his hand on the scorched circle, it fires up with a dark glow, and I breathe out. I release the snake, shaking it out of the bag. It is mad and writhes dangerously but then seems to realise it has a purpose, and it slithers over to Ivy and curls up her stomach. I glare at it with loathing, but there is no way around this. It’s got to go back in the way it came out.

Tate rasps harshly as bright sparks shoot out of the snake and into him, knocking him flat, but he keeps his hand on the circle, never breaking it.

“Prince Bramwell, son of Mabius, King of the Dark Fae, are you ready?”

I place my hand on the circle, and for a second, there is nothing. But then my magick seems to return to me in a blast of energy as the snake slithers towards me. The rush of my magick returning is powerful and wild. It’s intoxicating after feeling so hollow. But I don’t have time to revel in it. The snake is approaching, its beady eyes fixed on me.

“Fuck,” I mutter, steeling myself.

The serpent rears up, and I force myself to stay still as it lunges forward, plunging straight into my mouth and down my throat.

The sensation is indescribable - scaly, writhing, choking. I gag reflexively but force myself to swallow, to take it all in.

Black spots dance in my vision as I struggle to breathe around the creature slithering down into my guts. Just when I think I can’t take anymore, it’s over. The snake disappears inside me with a final, nauseating gulp.

I double over, gasping and retching. But I can feel my magick surging, stronger than ever. The circle flares, and the magickal wind whips around us, ripping out the grass at its roots.

“Torin Ashford, of the Ainsley Coven, are you ready?” I grunt.

Torin places his hand on the circle, and it bursts with a red glow. His eyes roll back, and he passes out. The wound on his arm reopens, but instead of bleeding out, he bleeds in.

It’s fucking warped and nauseating, but it makes sense. Everything is back to front.

Ivy’s body convulses on the ground, her back arching as bolts of energy course through her. The wind howls around us, whipping debris through the air. Tiles fly off Cathy’s roof, but we keep going. The circle blazes with blinding light, forcing me to shield my eyes. I can feel reality itself bending and twisting around us.

“Keep going!” Cathy yells over the sound of the magick.

There’s a deafening crack, like thunder directly overhead. The ground lurches beneath us. For a moment, I feel weightless, suspended between realities.

Then everything goes black for a second before deep purple magick flashes like a laser light show.

“Ivy!” I shout as her body slumps to the ground. “She’s gone! We missed the opening!”

Tate’s eyes are wide with horror. “No!” he roars, lunging towards where Ivy is, but Cathy, quick as lightning, is there, gripping the back of his collar so he doesn’t break the circle. He gags and tries to scrabble away, but that woman is surprisingly strong.

“We don’t know what will happen if we break the circle now!” I yell at him.

Tate struggles, his eyes wild with desperation. “We have to find her! We can’t lose her again!”

“We won’t,” I say firmly, even as doubt gnaws at my gut. “But we have to finish this properly, or we could make things even worse.”

Torin groans, regaining consciousness. He blinks groggily, taking in the chaos around us. “Did we do it? Are we back?”

“We’re not done yet!”

The magickal wind is still howling around us, reality bending and twisting. We’re balanced on a knife’s edge between dimensions. One wrong move could shatter everything.

“What do we do?” Tate asks, his voice raw with anguish.

I take a deep breath, centring myself to impart this news and to gather the strength needed to do what has to be done. My restored magick is confident and happy to be back with me, wild and potent. “We go back to the exact moment before all this started. Before Ivy scattered herself across dimensions.”

“And then what?” Torin demands.

“And then we stop her from doing it in the first place. We are going to rewind time.”