first, meaning if I screwed up here, it wouldn’t work. I winced at the spilled wax, but Hodin didn’t seem to care as the new candle sputtered to life.
“Replace the All candle,” he directed, and I did before I made more of a mess.
Hodin nodded his approval at the new flame tinted with that same shade of my aura, and I exhaled. “Now use the candle you just lit to light the next,” he said, a hint of what might be respect in his voice. “Upper left. Set it in place with ex animo.”
From the soul, I thought as I did, hand trembling to spill more wax when the flow of energy seemed to trickle faster through me.
“And the third with the newest flame with semper idem.”
Always the same, I echoed in my thoughts, then repeated it in Latin as I lit the third with the flame of the second. The energy flow had become noticeably stronger, and I concentrated on my breathing so Hodin wouldn’t think I was a newbie at this, even if I was.
“And lastly, with the candle you just lit, kindle the final with a maiore ad minus.”
The ley line tracing through me glowed, and I felt as if I was breathing out stardust. From greater to smaller, I thought as the last candle lit with that same gold, red, and black tint.
“Did she do it right?” Bis said, his craggy brow furrowed. But nothing had changed.
Disappointed, I slumped. “Crap on toast,” I said softly. “They look the same to me.”
“Of course they do.” Hodin leaned over the table with his chalk and wrote something, his finery looking odd among the construction debris. “You haven’t finished.” He pulled back to show that not only had he written a phrase of Latin, but he’d written it upside down so I could read it properly. “If you will,” he said, tapping it.
Nervous, I steadied myself. I could feel the line energy passing through me, tingling through my chi and down into the earth through the soles of my boots. Please work, I thought, but it wasn’t a plea to the Goddess. No. Never that. “Obscurum per obscuris,” I said, jerking at the sudden burst of line energy falling to nothing in me.
“You did it!” Bis all but crowed, and my attention flicked from him back to the table. My lips parted. The candles had moved. They’d just . . . moved. I had set them at the center of the pentagon, but now five of them were outside of it, all arranged in a perfect circle at the points of a pentagram etched in ash that I hadn’t drawn.
Delighted, I turned to Hodin, seeing his flash of surprise before he hid it. He thought I’d fail? My center candle still stood, now burning with a mundane yellow, but the rest? They’d shifted color. The first was gold, the second a dull red, followed by a faint blue, a silver-tinted green, and, finally, a muddy brown. I had separated my aura into its constituent parts, showing shades that were usually hidden by the dominant colors, like green hides the yellows and oranges of leaves until fall and the chlorophyll dies.
“Wow,” I said, and Hodin seemed to hold himself straighter.
“That’s the song your soul now sings,” Bis said, pointing, and the demon nodded.
“Hodin, that is amazing,” I said as I leaned closer, and he hid a flash of pleasure.
“Thank you.” Hodin eased back into the couch. “Bis, what do I need to change so you may again pass through Rachel’s circle without breaking it?”
I sat up straighter as Bis carefully hopped to the overstuffed arm of my chair. Ivy would have his hide for sitting there, digging his claws into the sawdust-laden suede, but we’d have to get a new set anyway. Everything smelled like sweaty Were and wolfsbane beer.
Bis went quiet, his focus going from the entire spread to the red one. I thought it telling none of them seemed to be being consumed, as tall as they were when we started.
“Her red is sharper. Not more, just sharper,” he amended when Hodin mouthed a word of Latin and the flame deepened.
“Better?” Hodin questioned after he whispered something else, pairing it with a ley line gesture. “How is that?”
Bis bobbed his head, his tail curling over his feet when the red flame reverted back to the original shade, but somehow . . . cleaner looking. “Good,” he said. “Rachel doesn’t have silver in any of her outer shells. Her