it. I’d be performing it on you.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“Harper.” Elias gripped my arm, drawing my gaze. “What are you talking about? You can’t use blood magic. And… and you’re seeing ghosts? What’s going on?”
My heart ached at the betrayal and disappointment I saw swirling around behind his stormy blue eyes. But I had to disappoint him even more. “It’s not the first time I’ve had to use blood magic, Elias.”
He gasped, his face draining of color.
My chin quivered. “I had to. I had to use it to find them.” I cast a quick glance at Cal and Adrian, who bore twin looks of guilt they shouldn’t have felt. They never asked me to do it. And if I had to go back and do it again, I would. I didn’t regret it. “Now, if I want to find Kendra before she’s dead, if we want to find out who’s been fucking with Bianca’s head, then I have to do it again. It’s the only way.”
“Harper—”
“Leave if you want to. Go! But if Bianca agrees, I’m doing this. I found a dead girl last week. Granger found one the week before. We’re not going to let it happen again tonight.”
Elias steeled himself. I saw the hardness in his stare and in the way his hands were clenched in tight balls at his sides. “It’s dangerous—” I opened my mouth again to protest, but he silenced me with a raised hand. “But I’ll help you.”
I ran into his arms. “Thank you,” I said, meaning it more than I knew he could understand. “Thank you.”
In those two words, I thanked him for more than his help. I thanked him for being here. For not judging me. For understanding that I had no choice and would do it any other way if I could.
I let him go and went to Bianca. “B?”
She bit her bottom lip.
“Please?”
She nodded, unable to voice her answer.
“About time,” Rose said, stepping further into the room. “I don’t know how much time I’ve got here, so let’s do this quick.” She discarded her trademark cigarette and it winked out of existence before it could touch the carpeted floor.
“What do I do?”
The space was set. For this spell to work, a sigil unlike any I’d ever seen before was required. A huge sigil. Large enough so that Bianca could stand within it. It felt as though it was taking hours to draw it out, even though I knew it was mere minutes. Rose directed my hand the whole way through it. Every loop and curve. Every line and corner.
“There,” she said, stepping away.
Bianca was standing at the center of my bedroom floor, and now, all around her was a red glowing sigil, hovering in midair. A double ringed circle with runic symbols between the rings on the outer edge. It pulsed with magic, and the magic in my own veins was singing. A chorus of deadly, potent intent.
It was forcing my heart to beat harder and sweat to bead on my brow from the effort of containing so much energy at once. I needed to finish casting the spell soon or I was going to burst.
“Soon,” Rose said, reading my thoughts. “Just one more thing first.”
“What?”
“Your blood.”
Elias, Cal, Adrian, and Draven watched me from the edge of the room. Elias could barely watch. Cal and Adrian seemed slightly disgusted. But Draven—he seemed almost hypnotized, in total awe of what he was seeing.
“Don’t mind them.” Rose snapped her fingers. “You need to focus.”
Bianca hand her hands clasped together at her front, holding them up to her heart. She, too, was sweating in her gown, and I saw her panic in the way her breathing was fast and her eyes wide with worry.
“This won’t harm her in any way, right?” I whispered to Rose, hiding my voice under the whispers of my guys and soft rushing and roaring of the sheer amount of magic in the room.
Rose shook her head. “It shouldn’t. No.”
“Alright then.” I took a deep, calming breath. “Let’s do it.”
“You’ll need to bleed,” she told me plainly, as though it were the most normal of things to ask of someone.
I shuddered. “How much?”
“Not too much. Just a little on each of your hands should do it.”
I searched the room for something sharp, but came up empty handed, groaning.
“What is it?” Elias asked. “What do you need?”
“I need to bleed,” I said, repeating what Rose has just said. “Help me find something sharp.”
That shut him up, but he didn’t move