Tiddly Jinx (8 page)

Sebastian closed his eyes for a moment. “What if she does turn evil?”

“She won—”

He held up a hand. “Let’s just say she does. Then what? You won’t be Erlking, you won’t have the resources to protect her or kill her, and you’ll be alone. What happened to your father could have happened whether or not he was Erlking.”

I nodded. “I know, but it isn’t going to happen to me.”

“It’s arrogant to believe that.”

“Selene and I are going through with the bonding as planned. If she dies, I die. Problem solved.”

“And the child.”

I shook my head. “That’s part of what I need to talk to you about. First, we need to set up an assembly so I can make the announcement about stepping aside. I would like you to run the assembly. Also, I meant what I said earlier. I think you would be an outstanding Erlking. You should consider it.” I waited until Sebastian acknowledged my comment to continue. “Second, if Selene does lose herself to the darkness, we will need a way to contain her until the child is born.”

“And then let the jinni kill both of you?” Sebastian’s face was hard.

I nodded. The words I needed to say were thick in my throat. “We would like you and Katrina to take guardianship over the baby if that happens.”

The shell surrounding him cracked. “Me? Not someone in your or Selene’s family?”

I shook my head. “Selene chose you…and I agree with her choice. We may fight, we may not always see eye to eye, but you have always protected my family as if it were your own. You’ll always be family to us, Sebastian.”

He looked down at his lap and let out a slow breath. “I’m not going to pursue a relationship with Katrina.”

“I know. Yesterday made that fairly clear.”

“I—”

There was a knock on the door before Selene opened it with Jessica and Katrina behind her. “Holden agreed.” Anything else she said was a blur. My beautiful wife had managed to arrange our deaths and our wedding in the matter of an hour. I wasn’t sure if I should be proud or frightened.

Selene still clutched that white package in her hands and the girls wore solemn expressions, not a hint of teasing around them. “I have the other two working with Alana on the wedding plans. Jess and Kat want to help.”

I cleared my throat. “The more help the better.” I waved them in. Slowly, Sebastian’s expression closed off again, and whatever he had been going to say was lost. “You might not need to do the spell.”

Selene’s eyebrows shot up. “Do you have a lead?”

“Maybe. Someone mentioned to Sy that they saw Frost. He’s looking into it. If she is alive—”

“She might be able to tell us where the Pole is, or at least where to look,” Selene finished my sentence with a wide grin.

“But we’re not sure yet?” Jessica said. “Shouldn’t we prepare for the worst? Like, you can give us the book and we can start looking for the spell?”

Selene leaned away from Jessica. “If we don’t have to open this book, we’re not going to. According to Grandma, just reading these spells is enough to let the darkness in. This,” she held up the white bundle, “needs to be treated with extreme caution. It’s not leaving my sight until the crisis has been averted and I can find a better hiding place for it. And if the time comes, I’m the only one setting eyes on the contents.”

“Do you really think your grandmother is the most reliable source when it comes to this stuff?” Katrina raised an eyebrow. “I mean, this wouldn’t be the first time she misled you where magic was concerned. And let’s face it, there are a significant number of moments when she is bat-shit crazy.”

Selene shook her head. “Even if Gram is wrong, it doesn’t hurt to play this safe.” She sat on the arm of my chair and tapped her foot. “If Frost is back, then we should be able to do a pretty simple tracking spell on her. Did she leave anything of hers here?”

I scanned my memory trying to remember if I saw her with anything the day before. “She had a book. Did she take it with her when the two of you left?”

Selene smiled. “No. She didn’t take anything with her. I’ll go check the room.” She kissed my cheek and all but skipped out the door.

Everything in the room lightened and seemed less dire when she was happy. I glanced around. Was I the only one who thought that? Jessica and Katrina still had worried lines across their foreheads and Sebastian was still staring at his hands.

“How’s Selene going to get the Pole back to the underworld?” Katrina blurted out. “I understand why she needs to find it, but once she has it then what? She can’t go back there. It was a damn miracle she made it out the first time.”

“I’ll go,” Jessica said. “If Selene can do it, so can I. And I probably have less ammunition for them to use against me.”

“You can’t go,” Katrina snapped. “You’re alive.”

“So was Selene. We’ll use Frost again.”

“No—”

“Neither of you or Selene will be going again,” I told them, cutting Katrina off. “If he’s willing, we will entrust this task to the vampire. He can come and go from purgatory easier than any of us, and he owes Selene.”

“You’re going to trust a vampire?” Sebastian asked.

“I’m going to trust Selene’s friend,” I said. I didn’t like vampires any more than Sebastian, but Selene had gone through something profound with Corbin. If he was willing to help, this was where we needed it most. “The more important problem to consider, and it is something we have to do while Selene isn’t here, is how will we contain her if she does end up evil.”

“Why would you contain her?” Jessica asked. “She already arranged to have herself whacked.”

“We’re going to save the child.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Holy shit balls, what child?” Katrina was standing now. “I think maybe Selene left out an important detail. There’s no way in hell she is doing this now. One of us will do it or we’ll find another way.”

As much as I would have loved to agree to what she was saying and sacrifice one of the humans rather than Selene, I couldn’t betray her like that. I gave Katrina a small smile, but shook my head. “Selene is stronger than the rest of you. She has a better chance of casting a spell powerful enough and coming through this unharmed. We are just making precautions. I’m sure everything will be fine. I wouldn’t let her do it otherwise.”

Jessica snorted. “Excuse us if we don’t have a huge amount of faith in that. Just yesterday you let her literally kill herself to get this stupid Pole and now she is going to potentially turn herself evil to take it back. I don’t understand why we went through any of this in the first place.”

“She got it because she made a deal when she was trying to break the curse. The spirits would have claimed her soul had she failed to follow through on her end. We didn’t get to her in time to tell her not to give the Pole to them. This isn’t Cheney’s fault and it isn’t Selene’s fault either, but they’re setting things right,” Sebastian explained.

Jessica sighed. “I know that. That’s not what I meant. It just sucks.”

Katrina straightened her shoulders and closed her eyes for a moment before she opened them with more determination. “What about the dungeon for containing her?”

“It would prevent her from transporting, but that’s all. It isn’t warded for magic.”

“The pit is,” Sebastian said softly.

My heart clenched. When my father put Selene in the pit it almost killed her. The cruelty of throwing her back in there now was more than I could reconcile in my mind. I shook my head. “She’ll lose her mind.”

“She’s going to die eventually anyway,” Jessica said. “I mean that’s the plan, right? Contain her until she has the child and then kill her.”

“It’s cruel.” I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it to her, no matter what happened. Letting her die quickly and painlessly was one thing. Making her suffer was another.

“The whole plan is cruel,” Katrina countered. “What’s to keep her from hurting the baby even if we do contain her? She will know why we are doing it, so basically it’s like she has a hostage.”

“What if she’s asleep?” Jessica said. “Like, in a coma?”

“Elves metabolize too fast. Human medication wouldn’t work on her and we don’t have anything that could be used to the same effect.”

“We’ll have to use magic,” Jessica said. “We just have to find a spell.”

“Like the Sleeping Beauty spell,” Katrina said.

Sebastian raised an eyebrow at me, but I had no clue what they were talking about either. “What’s the Sleeping Beauty spell?”

“You know. Like the cartoon. She pricks her finger on the spinning wheel then she falls asleep.”

“We could probably find a spinning wheel,” Sebastian said, still looking confused.

Katrina scrunched her nose and narrowed her eyes. “What? Why? We don’t need a spinning wheel. That’s just what happens in the cartoon—you know what. Never mind. I just meant there is a spell that can put someone to sleep. We just have to find it.”

“I don’t know that cartoons are the best source of information, Kat,” Jessica said.

Katrina rolled her eyes. “It’s based on a fairy tale, which, if I am not mistaken, are based on true stories that happened in the Abyss. Somewhere around here an evil fairy cast a spell on a princess, and when her true love kissed her, it brought her back to life. We just need to figure out who it was and what spell was used.”

My stomach sank. I knew exactly what she was talking about. “That wasn’t a spell,” I said.

Katrina tilted her head to the side. “You know the story? Great! That will save us time looking it up to see what was done.”

I shook my head again and glanced at Sebastian, who was white as an elverpige. “It was my sister, but she never awakened. She was cursed.”

“Oh.” Katrina’s eyes widened before her whole face dissolved into sympathy. “I’m so sorry.” She pressed her lips together. “But if your sister died, then it probably isn’t the spell I am looking for.”

My throat and my chest tightened just thinking about it. “She didn’t die. She laid there asleep waiting for the man she was going to run away with to kiss her and bring her back.”

Both girls stared at me.

“He was killed,” Sebastian said. “He couldn’t wake her because he was dead and we didn’t know about the curse to help her.”

“Oh Cheney, I’m so sorry.” Katrina hugged me tight.

“Not to be callus, but do you know the curse? It might be the best option to use for Selene. She wouldn’t suffer and she couldn’t hurt anyone.”

“I have no idea.”

“At least we know where to start looking,” Jessica said as Selene came back into the room with a bag slung across her body and a novel in her hand.

“Looking for what?”

“Nothing,” Jessica and Katrina said in unison.

Selene raised an eyebrow at me, but I shook my head. “We were discussing containment. You can’t be in on those conversations.”

She nodded and held up Frost’s book with a smile. “We have a lead.”

THIS WAS A SIMPLE enough spell to do on my own. I kneeled on the floor and sat back against my feet, taking a few deep cleansing breaths to wash away some of the stress. Finding Frost could solve so many of our problems.

As effortlessly as breathing, the magic gathered beneath my skin. I didn’t have to use the words or even a casting circle anymore. The human magic and the elf magic were blending in such a way that my power seemed almost exponential in its growth. I was also having an easier time controlling my meltdowns—times when anger took over and destruction ensued. It was as if everything had finally clicked once I got rid of the curse. My body was in harmony with the world and the magic thrived.

The romance novel hovered off the floor and rose toward the ceiling as I trapped Frost’s lingering essence on it. Extracting it away from the book, I brought it down until the psychic imprint hovered in front of my face, about the size of a swirling marble. Usually the essence would go into a crystal that would then be used for scrying, but that would take forever. I wanted to try something new. All that transporting required was a location. If the energy in front of me could be used to scry that information then surely it could be used to transport there. If she was in another realm it wouldn’t work. If she was back, ideally I’d end up next to her. I let out a slow, even breath, reached out, and grabbed the energy while trying to transport at the same time. Instantly I felt the tug at my core, and I was gone.