“He’s not insane,” Cyrus explained. “He’s sane enough to know what he’s doing, but he can’t control the memory. It’s already happened, so he’s helpless to repeat his actions. He knows who is responsible, at least who is responsible for making him kill his wife in the first place. Father needs to gather to him the souls he’s corrupted. What better way than enrage and torture them until they seek him out to end it?”

“If we kill the Soul Eater, will the spell stop?” Good old Max, always ready to hack and slash his way out of any problem. Not that I blamed him. At this point, I wanted to kill Jacob Seymour myself.

Cyrus shook his head. “That’s the beauty part. Even after the caster is dead, the spell continues.”

“The sigils,” Bella interjected. “They are the anchors.”

Cyrus nodded, looking a bit too impressed with his father’s cleverness. I turned away, disgusted. “Well, then what, he’s just screwed?”

“No.” Bella’s golden eyes scanned the pages. “It will not be easy, but there has to be a way to fix this.”

“Does there?” Max laughed, a weary sound despite the fact he’d just gotten up. “Well, that’s a relief.”

“Everything has an opposite. No spell exists that cannot be broken.” She sniffed derisively and snatched the book from his hand. “I will be downstairs. I assume I have the supplies there at my disposal?”

“Of course.” I was fairly certain Nathan would have given away his entire inventory to escape the hell he was in.

Bella closed the book and slipped it under her arm as she walked toward me with unnerving grace. “Do I have you at my disposal?”

“Of course,” I repeated, though this time I sounded less certain. “What will I have to do?”

She tossed her hair and gave a thoroughly European shrug. “Maybe nothing.”

As she passed Cyrus she paused to give his near nakedness an appreciative once-over. Then she took the keys from the hook on the wall and left.

“Don’t you have any clothes?” Max growled.

An antagonistic grin twisted Cyrus’s mouth. “They are, unfortunately, the same ones I’ve been wearing for nearly a week now.”

“I’ll loan you some of mine. And keep them on.” Max shoved past us and went to the foot of the couch, where his duffel bag lay open. He pulled out a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and tossed them to Cyrus. With an angry glare my way he added, “I’m going to go feed Nathan.”

“Stay away from my girl,” Cyrus muttered in an exaggerated American accent when Max emerged from the kitchen and stalked down the hall.