Ruthie said. “Something that can’t be opened.”
“Then how do I get him inside?”
“I know!” Annette took off toward my room.
“Don’t you dare pour out my Patron!”
“You keep Patron in your room?” Dad asked.
“Only the one bottle. I bought it in celebration of my divorce being final, but I never opened it. That stuff is too expensive to drink.”
Annette ran back to us, her flapping towel dangerously close to revealing more about her than anyone needed to know. Too bad the Puritan was locked in my fist. He’d have a cow at how much skin she was showing. It would’ve been fun to watch.
“This.” She skidded to a halt beside me. “It’s a container and can’t be opened.” She held out the crystal ball.
“No.” I frowned at her. “You bought that for me.”
“You can still use it.”
I glanced askance over my shoulder.
Ruthie nodded.
“Even though it’s solid glass?”
“Glass is more porous than you might think,” she said. “He’ll fit.”
“Okay, fantastic. So how do I get him in there?”
“How did you get him into your palm?” she asked.
“I don’t know. It just sort of happened, like everything else I do.” I never thought before I leaped. That was my problem. Well, one of them.
Ruthie stepped in front of me, a patient smile on her face. “Only you know how to do it.” She put her hand over my closed fists. “Take deep breaths and think about it.”
The pressure of holding him in my palm was starting to feel like tectonic plates rubbing together and creating friction. My hand was getting hotter and hotter. Like I’d disrupted some sort of cosmic balance, and the universe was trying to right itself again. “Deep breaths. Okay, I can do this.”
Roane was still leaning against the wall without a care in the world, a gorgeous grin lifting one corner of his mouth.
Ruthie took the glass orb from Annette and held it out to me. “This way, no one can ever release him again. Even if it happens to break, he’ll be scattered throughout the microscopic holes in the glass.”
“Right. Good idea.” Heat blistered my hand, but I concentrated, filling my lungs and slowly releasing the air.
Ruthie was wrong, however. I didn’t know anything. The dozens of witches who came before me did. Those who were a thousand times stronger than I was. I tapped into that. I went back in time and asked my sisters how to stuff a malevolent spirit into a glass orb, as one does.
Naturally, they had an answer.
“Oh,” I said aloud. “Duh.”
The spell flashed in my mind bright, hot, and excited. I risked the revenant’s escape by releasing my left hand and taking the orb. I cradled it in my palm and drew the spell on the air with the orb.
This spell reminded me of a Josephine knot, intricate and interlaced. Closing loose ends. Tying them off. Binding that which needed to be bound. Instead of the air glowing with the lines of the spell, the orb absorbed the power and glowed as bright as a small star.
I brought my right hand to my mouth, the energy in it scorching my skin. I filled my lungs and opened my hand.
Annette gasped.
But I’d tethered the revenant to me as I blew softly across my palm. His molecules drifted like dust on the wind and penetrated the glowing glass. Even though it was solid, it absorbed the revenant, soaking him up and drawing him deep inside.
We would never know his name, but it didn’t matter. I leaned closer to the glass as it began to solidify, and whispered, “You will never know peace.”
The glow dissipated, and I could see beyond it again.
“Did you do it?” Annette hugged the front of her towel.
I turned and showed her the orb. “I did.”
“Oh, wow.” She walked forward and peered inside. “You can see him in there.” She looked at my dads. “It was clear before. Now it has black sand in it.” She tapped it like a kid at a snake exhibit, because that doesn’t make the snakes nervous at all. I couldn’t help but wonder what it would do to Sir.
My dads leaned in. “You did it, cariña,” Dad said.
Annette beamed. “This calls for donuts.”
“Isn’t it, like, four in the morning?”
“Almost five. And Dunkin’ opens at five. I should know. Worst two weeks of my life.”
“Okay, but don’t get pulled over.” A teasing grin played about Roane’s lips. “You’re nigh naked.”
“And you’re nigh high if you think I’m going out for donuts in a towel.” She turned