23. The Plan

CLOVER

It’s a frenzy in here. There’s more going on in the Calla house today than the last few centuries combined. I try to imagine what it would be like to be the house, watching us work, an epic montage of all of us running around like chickens with our heads cut off, trying to bring this plan to fruition. I’m furiously running around, checking every nook and cranny for any yarn I can find and placing it into my guys’ arms. When I have just about enough, I send Mip off to find Aldrich on the other side.

I can practically hear the theme music in my head as I lift another salvageable ball of yarn from a little red mushroom jar.

“So, when are you going to let us in on this plan?” Kushim asks.

Both he and Fitz have been following me around the house, giving appreciative hums whenever I bend over.

“I would like to help,” Fitzy says.

“Oh! Right.” I turn and face them, holding out a faded ball of rainbow yarn. “The plan is simple. We trap Blobby in a body. You said you couldn’t use your magic on him the way he is right now,” I say, pointing the yarn at Kushim. “Which means it has to be solid-like, right? And the book said I can bind souls to objects to let them move between realms and stuff. Like how Mip has a body.”

“And once it’s in a body, I can kill it,” Fitz says, a wide smile growing on his face as glee sparks in his eyes.

“Or once he is in a body, we can talk to him!” I say,also very excited by my plan.

“Clover, I love how sweet you are, but this remnant likely has no ego. So it won’t be able to chat,” Kushim says. “It’s essentially just a mindless, power-hungry cloud.”

“Plus, it tried to eat you and Aldrich.” Fitzy crosses his arms.

“Hmm, fair point,” I say. “Okay, so we trap him, then beat him up? Or… we trap him, then send him back again?”

“Why don’t we just open the portal and pull Aldrich out, then shut the portal and leave the thingy there. Since Aldrich is your last mate, once you’re with all of us, the curse should break.”

I gasp, hand to my chest, “We can’t doom Mip and his friends to wait or run forever until that thing grows enough to eat their entire world.”

“Are you sure?” Kushim mumbles.

“Yes.” I point a very firm, pointy, instruction-y finger at him. “No sacrificing my friends.”

Kushim holds up his hands in surrender. “All right. How about we try beating him up and trapping him? I’d say kill him, but I doubt that’s possible.”

“But how are we going to lure him into a body to trap him?” Fitzy asks.

“Oh, I thought about that part. I’m just gonna lure him into that cave-y place. You know, the drawings in the book?”

“The catacombs beneath the town?” Kushim asks, his eyes wide.

“Nope. Not happening. You are not being the bait.” Fitzroy crosses his arms, glaring at me.

“I second that.” Kushim points his very firm, pointy finger at Fitz, in case I was confused about what part he was seconding. “However, we can use that Fae.” His smile is wicked.

“But I wanted to be bait.” I pout.

“None of that. You will need to focus your magic on not just opening a portal, but also binding Morfran’s remnant to a doll. He won’t just be visiting this world, like your friends. You’ve only just started becoming familiar with your magic, and to do all of that while running away would take way too much concentration,” Kushim says, as he thumbs through the grimoire.

“Maybe you run and just hold me?” I say to Kushim. Demons are fast, right? Or was that vampires? There are too many supernatural beings.

“I’m fast, but not that fast. Unless we fly, but that’s hard to do in a cave, and I’d like to be able to fight, if necessary,” he says. He can fly?! I might be slightly jealous of my own mate. Oh! Maybe he can take me flying sometime.

I look over at Fitzy, and he avoids my gaze. “I’m not fast in this form, but my other form is fast, strong, and can heal.”

“That sounds amazing!” I say.

“Hmmm…” He looks back. “I don’t like being in that form, especially around people I’m not killing. But for you, I will.”

I leap over to Fitzy and pull him in for a soft kiss. “Thank you.”

“Yeah.” He blushes, rubbing his neck.

I smile up at him. Such a sweetie.

“Okay, now that we’ve got a solid plan, let’s figure out how to get into the catacombs.” I lean back against Fitzy, clapping my hands together. “The book said something about how every founding family would know the entrance.”

“Let’s look around the house a little more,” Kushim says. “I think I saw basement stairs when you were montaging earlier.”

He leads us towards what was once the kitchen and pauses in front of a door that’s halfway open. Stairs lead down into the dark.

“I’ll go first!” I volunteer and push the door the rest of the way open, but the guys have other ideas. Kushim pushes me behind him to Fitzroy and pulls his phone out, turning the flashlight on.

“ I will go first,” he says, quirking his eyebrow at me. “Then, when I’ve deemed it safe for you, my sweet, the two of you may join me.”

“Okay, fine. Have all the fun.” I wave him down into the darkness.

We only have to wait a few minutes before he calls up to us, and Fitz pulls his phone flashlight out before leading me down the stairs.

The basement is huge. I think it’s bigger than the house. We decided to check the right half of the basement first. There are shelves of jars with little bits and bobs floating in them, piles of tiny bones piled strategically here and there, and volumes upon volumes of books containing dried flowers and herbs.

When we don’t find anything that looks like an entrance to catacombs, we turn back and try the left half of the basement. This half is filled with an even more random assortment of things. We push past old bits of furniture, tools, two or three cauldrons, and what I think is a collection of miniature horses. One of them has a little horn, and I pick it up and stuff it into my pocket. We’re coming up to the end of the basement, and it doesn’t seem like we’ll find what we’re looking for.

“Dead end,” Fitz says, and Kushim sighs.

One of them shines their flashlight a little to the left, and a flash of white catches my eye. A small portrait of an old man standing on the porch of the house is hanging on some wood that sticks up above a pile of boxes. I start to wade through all the stuff, and Fitz lifts me up, stepping over it with ease.

“I want to look at that picture.” I point at it, and he sets me down in front of the boxes. I lean in and spot a faint outline of someone next to the old man. It seems I’m not the only one who tried to preserve my sanity with pictures. I take a closer look at the wood where it’s hanging. It’s round…

We move the boxes to the side to reveal a small round door with a brass knob in the center. A large honeycomb is etched into the wood. I smile up at the guys.

We found the catacombs.