Persie Merlin and the Witch Hunters - Bella Forrest Page 0,99

a spell exists, I thought, trying to calm my whirring suspicions. Maybe someone else read it, which is why she erased it—so no one would be able to get their hands on it again. Maybe it’s not her. Until that moment, I’d only seen a curse like this in action during Reid’s turns, but I hadn’t known how the magic had been done, so to speak. Now, I had a much better idea. Taking a picture of the revealed pages before folding the Grimoire back into its velvet pouch, I stuffed it back into the secret recess and locked the panel back into place. With the spell safely stowed inside my phone’s memory, I legged it out of there.

Victoria would be too rattled by the vandalism to continue her conversation with me, anyway. And I was too rattled by what I’d found to face her.

Twenty-Seven

Nathan

I paced my study in frantic strides, clutching a swiftly copied version of Victoria’s curse in one hand and my phone in the other. I’d sent word to Genie and Persie to meet me here before I moved on to stage two of proceedings, mainly to make sure that the former was okay and her diversion had gone without a hitch. She, by rights, should’ve been back at the Infirmary, but she’d informed the medics that she refused to go back and had essentially discharged herself for the sake of this mission. They’d agreed, likely glad not to have to butt heads with her anymore. My heart flapped in my chest like a restless bird, struggling to cope with the nerves and adrenaline and fear crashing through my bloodstream.

What if I’m overcomplicating matters because of my history with Victoria? The thought had occurred to me many times during the rushed copying of her chilling hybrid curse and on the hurried dash over from Victoria’s office, and even in the initial reading. After all, in situations such as this, it served to implement the philosophy of Occam’s Razor—in layman’s terms, that the simplest option was the right one.

Could she really have been the one to cast the curse on Reid? I removed my spectacles, using the comforting familiarity of wiping them on my shirt to slow the pace of my racing mind. She had created a curse very similar to the one that was affecting Reid. She was likely the only one with access to her Grimoire. She’d hexed the book to keep out prying eyes, and she had erased the evidence of those two pages—all highly suspect. I put my glasses back on and sighed, distressed by the implications of the discovery. But why would she curse Reid? Was he more local than he’d let on? Had he trailed Victoria before he’d trailed Persie, and Victoria had retaliated? But if that were the case, surely he’d remember her. It wasn’t as though she was easy to forget. Goodness, this was a mess. And if she’d cast the curse, when?

My futile Q&A with myself came to an abrupt halt as Genie barreled through the study door, grinning like a madwoman. “Aloha!”

“There you are.” I waggled my phone at her. “I was waiting for you to reply!”

“I thought it’d be quicker if I just came straight to you. Plus, there’s less of a paper trail this way.” She flashed a wink and pointed to her phone. “Speaking of which, you should delete any messages about Operation Sneaky Weasels.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Is that what we’re calling it?”

“I blame the flu meds.” She stooped to catch her breath, a sure sign that she was still feeling a few side effects from the resurrection and the cold she’d contracted.

I waited for the third member of our party to stagger in, but she didn’t appear. “Where’s Persie?”

Genie gestured behind her vaguely. “We thought our plan would work better if we all had a decent alibi for our whereabouts. Oh, and I didn’t have the energy to conjure up my invisibility spell to cover both of us, so we went back to her room and made sure a bunch of people saw us both go in. Then I snuck out, all invisible-like, and spray painted the crap out of Victoria’s apartment door.” She laughed deviously. “Persie’s eagerly awaiting news.”

“What did you paint on her door, out of curiosity?” There was a bit of concern in my question, too, considering she had been borderline bananas before we’d undertaken this endeavor. In hindsight, letting her loose with a can of spray paint might