“Trust me, I could never mistake you for anyone else.” A small smile hovered on his lips. Then, before she could even begin to allow his words sink in, Curtis let his crutches fall with a clatter to the ground and closed the distance between them. “And now there’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while . . . Emma.”
“There is?” she croaked as she realized he had just called her by her first name. She watched in mute fascination as he tilted his head and his perfectly formed lips came crashing down on hers in a way that she had never dreamed possible. The sensation was instant as she felt herself being engulfed by his broad shoulders while her senses were filled with the smell of vanilla cookies.
His arms snaked around her back and his mouth explored hers. Emma pressed into him and felt her whole body start to tingle with the rightness of it all. It was perfect. Curtis was perfect. He was... wait, why was he pulling away . . . and why wasn’t he kissing her anymore?
“Is everything okay?” she asked in a cautious voice. “You’re not going to have another freak-out, are you?”
“There’s something I think you should see.” He gently steered her around so that she was facing the same way he was, his arms still protectively wrapped around her shoulders, as if he was afraid that she would disappear on him.
“What are you—”
But the rest of her words were lost as there, hovering in the air, just behind where she was standing, was an elaborately decorated container about the size of a backpack. The wood was so dark it looked almost black, while deep red gems were studded in the lid and glistened around it like some sort of blood-soaked halo. For an inanimate object it seemed to radiate a lot of evil. Like darkhel, like soul box, she supposed, while not finding the thought remotely comforting.
“You found it,” she croaked. “You really found it.”
“We found it,” he corrected as he stepped back and watched Emma fish the pendant out of the pocket of her shirt. The large circle in the middle of the box was a mirror image of the crystal. “So go on,” he encouraged, and Emma felt her hands start to shake.
Is this what her mom had done when she had banished the darkhel?
The idea of Curtis and her repeating history gave her a small thrill. Of course it wasn’t the same as being a dragon slayer, but at least she was following in her mother’s footsteps in some small way. Even if it had taken Emma four days and a bunch of friends to inadvertently figure out.
She took a deep breath and slipped the pendant into the front of the box. It was a perfect fit and she watched as the top opened up like a flower and a dark wisp of smoke curled out. For a moment it hovered over her head before it formed into a small, tight ball and then it went speeding out of the freezer and off into the food court.
A second later the box itself disappeared and the crystal pendant fell to the floor with a clatter. She bent and picked it up before turning back to Curtis, slipping her hand into his and shooting him a shy smile. He squeezed her hand and gave her a dazzling smile that made her feel short of breath.
There. It was done. The darkhel’s soul had been returned, and in twenty-four hours the vile creature would be banished back to the other side of the gate, where it belonged.
Emma just hoped that things didn’t get worse before they got better.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I still can’t believe you did it,” Loni said as they sat in Emma’s dorm room carefully activating the dozens of tiny wards that Loni had attached to the silver knives and carefully coated in salt, while they waited for Tyler and Curtis to come back with some food and the list of potential Pure Ones.
“I know, it’s crazy, isn’t it?” Emma agreed as she used her screwdriver to flip the switch in the ward before adding it to the growing pile. “I mean we actually banished the darkhel. Well, almost banished it,” she corrected while desperately trying to ignore the irony of finding herself in the position of longing for rather than dreading tomorrow’s induction ceremony. Even though she wouldn’t be made a dragon slayer, she would at least