“Soon,” I breathed. The magic filled me, slowed my muscles. “Show me your hands.”

He did, and I dabbed them, my heart pounding in time with the drums. Ta na shay rose through me, even as I desperately wanted to hide.

Blood, I thought, fear slicing through the drum-borne lethargy. I needed a drop of undead blood. My head snapped up, and Jenks darted back, shocked at my worried expression. “Ah, I need a drop of his blood,” I said, flicking a look at Felix.

“My blood?” Felix snarled, and I drew back as Cormel moved to get between us.

“Felix,” he coaxed, his thick fingers looking odd against Felix’s young body as he forced him to stay down. “It’s for your soul. Just a drop so it can find you. Let me. From your thumb,” he suggested, and I nodded. I didn’t want to risk contaminating the connection on his palms, but his thumb should be okay. I guess. God help me do this right, I thought as I rummaged in my bag for a finger stick. I didn’t know what was on that knife Cormel had used to cut Felix’s gag. One by one, Felix was losing his bonds.

I pushed the finger stick across the glass table to Cormel. He picked it up, clearly already knowing how it worked. The snap of it opening was familiar, and Felix held out his bound hands, never taking his mistrustful gaze from Cormel as he pricked his thumb. Felix hissed as the master vampire retreated, careful to not get any blood on himself.

Buddy began to snore, immune to everything now that he was home and his stomach was full. Bis was creeping down the wall beside the door, and Cormel frowned, noticing him when a nail scraped.

This is for Ivy, I thought as I got to my feet. Reaching across the distance, I touched the wand to Felix’s thumb before pressing it to the top of the silk pentagram. My knees wobbled as the energy flow sharpened to a crystalline hum. The spell was ready. I only had to finish it.

But the beauty of the lines, clouded until I found this very moment, was hard to look past, and I blinked a tear away, shaken. I hadn’t seen them like this since losing the mystics. The reminder hurt. I could see evidence of their passage all around me, but they couldn’t see me. Perhaps the punishment was fitting.

“Trent, stop this,” Jenks protested, and I bowed my head, shaky hand raised to tell Cormel I wasn’t backing out of it. Breath held to hide the heartache of what I’d lost, I touched the rod to Felix’s forehead.