harm,” Aislin says, getting a bottle of water from the fridge. “When you went on that I-need-to-get-away-from-Gemma journey of yours, you missed out on a lot of amazing spells I learned.” She unscrews the cap off the bottle and takes a swig.
“But you didn’t do the spell on me,” I remind her. “Maybe you should.”
She sets the bottle down on the table and elevates her hands in the air. “Non proferre verbum ad hostis.” Sparks of silver shoot from her hands and land all over me, singeing my skin and clothes.
“Dammit, Aislin!” I jump to my feet, brushing off the sparks on my arms and shirt.
Laylen chokes on a laugh, and Aislin grins at him. “Don’t get too giggly; you’re next.”
She sits down at the table and opens up her spell book to a marked page titled “Bonum et Malum Cantus.”
“The Good and Evil Spell,” Aislin reads the title as I sit back down. “It separates good from evil when it coexists inside one entity.”
Laylen joins as us the table “But how is that supposed to work on Stephan when he doesn’t have any good inside him?”
She traces her fingers along the page. “I know, but for now, it’s all I have. Maybe, deep down inside him, he has some form of good in him.” She shrugs. “He’s a father, so there’s that.”
“But he was a shitty father,” I mutter.
“I know.” She tips her head down.
We grow quiet, and my thoughts instantly drift to Gemma again. Is she okay? Is she in the Afterlife yet? When will we know if she’s freed the souls?
“There’s just one tiny, little problem with the spell,” Aislin says, breaking the silence. “There’s this thing about blood.” She flips the page. “The spell requires the blood of a person who’s both good and bad.”
“I have an idea on where you can get that.” Laylen says then points at himself. “Me.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s what it means,” Aislin skims the spell. “It couldn’t be . . .”
I decide to put my two cents in, even though Aislin’s more than likely going to get pissed off at me.
“He’s a vampire and a Keeper, and that’s bad and good.”
“Alex, be nice,” Aislin hisses, glaring at me.
“I’m not trying to be mean,” I say. “And I’m not saying he’s bad, just that he carries vampire blood inside, and vampires are usually bad.”
Laylen places a hand over Aislin. “It doesn’t hurt to try it.”
She mulls it over, running her finger along the page. “We can try it, but I still need a few more ingredients.” She scoots back from the table. “Let me go check my supplies and see what I have.”
She skips off toward the stairs, swinging her arms.
“Sometimes, she can be so crazy,” I say, shaking my head.
“She’s your sister”—Laylen crosses his arms on the table—“so wouldn’t that make you crazy, too?”
“I never claimed to be completely sane, but what I really want to know is what Aislin is to you.”
He shifts in the chair, seeming uneasy. “Where the hell did that come from?”
I shrug. “You guys just seem really close lately, yet at the same time, you’re close to Gemma, too.” I recline in the chair. “I just want to make sure no one gets hurt.”
“Gemma and I are just friends.”
“Okay, but what about you and my sister?”
“I care about Aislin. You know that.” He pats the table then scoots the chair back and stands up. “I think I’ll go help Aislin.”
The second he walks out, the silence sets in, and my head crams with worry. I hate not knowing what’s going on. I want go upstairs and check, but worry I might mess something up.
But all I can do is wait and hope everything will be okay.
GEMMA
“This is way worse than I thought it would be,” I tell Alana as we hurry out of the torture chamber and down another long, narrow tunnel that, fortunately, doesn’t have any lost souls bound to the wall. “They look so . . . so broken. I don’t get it. Why does she have to torture them?”
The glow from the red lanterns hanging on the walls lights up her face as she looks at me. “When people die before their time, their soul is considered lost. There’s no real place for those souls to go, so they end up here. Queen Helena collects them and turns them into those mummy figures you saw. She has them work for her in order to keep her world thriving.”