I glanced down to hide the tears in my eyes. "He loves me. Or, he wanted me to love him once, and now that's just… enough."

"You wanted to love me once, too," Nathan reminded me.

I nodded and swallowed against my tears. "He's different now. When he was my sire, I wanted so badly to give in to him. To let my humanity go just so I could be with him. But I couldn't. I don't know why."

"Because you're a good person." He smiled sadly. "So, you love him now because he deserves it?"

"Nathan, I would never want to hurt you. But… " I closed my eyes. "But no matter what, I'm going to be with someone who doesn't love me more than he loves a memory. He's my fledgling. I do feel like… like I owe him my affection."

"I know exactly how that feels." Nathan's words sent a dagger through her. "Except for the bit about owing my affection. You see, I never felt I owed you anything. What little I could give you, I gave freely."

My chest constricted, and I couldn't hold back my sob. "Nathan—"

"No." He turned away. "No, I get the last word in this one, Carrie. Read the spell. I'll go look for a book on basic magic."

I slumped over the counter, resting my forehead on my palms. It would have been so nice to break down, to sob my eyes out at the unfairness of it all. Once again, I was pulled between the same two men. Once again, I would never be certain I'd made the right choice.

But there was no time for self-pity. Wiping my eyes, I willed myself to stop crying. Time to get down to business.

The spell was broken down into two parts, an ingredients list and various directions, numbered, renumbered, crossed out and scribbled over.

"We need heliotrope," I called.

"The herb or the stone?" Cupboard doors scraped open somewhere in the back of the shop.

"Both, actually." I scanned the ingredients. "And a blue candle. And a bunch of stuff that is, like, way too disgusting to even consider."

Nathan returned and leaned over my shoulder. His closeness did nothing to calm my strained nerves. "Why would she include these things?" he mumbled, his finger pausing near the item "baby teeth."

"Maybe to get someone off track?" It came to me in a flash of inspiration. "If I were to look at this spell, I would think all this weird, exotic stuff was the most important."

The bells above the door jingled, and Cyrus strolled in casually, a carefully composed expression on his face. "So, what have I missed?" He stopped at my side, one hand possessively on the small of my back, and leaned over the book. "Do you really have all these ingredients?"

"That's what we were just discussing," Nathan explained, "We have the heliotrope. Not much else."