103

The needle stung like hell as it pricked her nipples, but the best spells always demanded sacrifice. She had taken three drops of blood each from the index finger of her left hand and the ring finger of her right hand, and a drop of blood from each nipple. She mixed them together into a red ink in a disposable plastic sushi dish and dipped the point of her knife in it to carve a Helm of Disguise into the piece of charcoal. She had bought barbecue charcoal, the only kind she had been able to find. Now she just had to wait and see if the spell would work. It also called for blood from the brain of a living raven, but that was an extra ingredient to protect her from enemies. This girl from Tinder wasn’t exactly her enemy, even though she now wished she hadn’t helped Gréta reel her in.

She covered her nipples with toilet paper so blood wouldn’t stain her bra and examined the photocopy of the Helm of Disguise to remind herself of the lines. This was a more than usually complex rune, made up of eight circular runes, so she wasn’t certain that this little piece of charcoal was big enough for it. She also didn’t know what to do if the blood ran out. She didn’t have that much to work with. She had no idea how long the spell would work, and for that reason she had decided to prepare it in the toilets in the basement of the Harpa concert hall, so as to not waste valuable invisibility time walking there. 229

She would have needed a magnifying glass to see the rune clearly in the piece of charcoal, as by the time she had finished carving it into the surface, the rune’s delicate, complex lines seemed to have become a network of illegible scratches. But that didn’t matter, so long as it worked. Stella pressed the piece of charcoal against her forehead, then she left the cubicle and looked at herself in a mirror. Instead of being printed neatly, the rune had left a mess of blood on her forehead. She could see herself in the mirror, but more than likely you’d always see yourself. The only way to be sure the magic had worked was to find out if other people could see her.

As she went up the stairs and towards the lower restaurant, a little man with a bald head almost walked into her. That might indicate that she couldn’t be seen, but she couldn’t be sure. There were so many men who expected women to make way for them. She continued up the broad staircase. Most of the events taking place in the building had to be over by now, so if Gréta and the blonde had attended any of them, they had to be having dinner by now. The blonde had said something about a concert and dinner at Harpa, and Stella hadn’t seen them in the buffet downstairs, so they had to be in the restaurant on the top floor. Gréta was classy, so nothing less than a pricy dinner would do, now that she had finally got herself a date.