been this whole time, patiently waiting for my powers to become unbound.
“It’s okay,” a voice echoes through the gray. I turn back and find myself a few inches from Ryan. I open my mouth but don’t know what to say. “Hi,” won’t cut it.
“Anora.” His voice is a little stronger than a whisper. “I’m so sorry for what I’ve put you through, but I can only appear here or in dreams. I’ve been trying to warn you.”
“I’m sorry too. I couldn’t piece things together until now. Where…where are we?”
“The spirit realm. I can’t come to you without alerting her. But you, you’re able to come here.” He looks at Hunter. “And your familiar too.”
If Ryan knows about familiars, then he has to be a warlock…or something.
“The Harvesters,” I say, knowing we don’t have much time, and he flinches. “What did they want from you?”
“My powers. I can magnify the powers of crystals.”
“It was you who healed Ethan, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. And that night when she was there—” He starts to fade.
“Ryan?” I reach out for him, but my hand slides right through his arm, feeling like I stuck my hand in an electrified rain cloud.
“I don’t have much time, Anora.” Fear takes over his face. “You are in danger, the same danger I was in. Asaroth collects powers. She hunts people like us and sends her Harvesters to collect them. There’s something special about you, Anora. She was very excited when she found you. She even sent out the Pricolici to make she sure got the right one.” He looks at me as if he’s expecting me to tell him why I’m so special.
I shake my head. “I have no idea what she could want. I’m not the chosen one or anything like that.”
“Don’t agree to the ritual,” he rushes out.
“I never would.”
“They can’t take your powers unless you say yes. Surrendering your will is the first part of the ritual.” He looks down. “For me, they promised to stop the torture. But here I am, more than ten years later…”
“They won’t let you move on.” I remember the dream where I got sucked back into total despair.
Ryan nods. “There are others too. She won’t let us go, and we can’t move on. An aspect of ourselves is locked to this plane.”
“The powers.”
“Right.”
“If she has your powers, then how did you heal Ethan?”
“We can still tap into them from time to time, but it’s risky. Asaroth has been too distracted with finding you. It’s like she has a vendetta.”
“I have no idea what I could have done.” Now would be a really good time for my memories to come back, though I don’t see how ten-year-old me could have pissed off a demon this badly.
Ryan whirls around. “She’s coming. They can’t know we spoke.”
I blink. When I open my eyes, Hunter is standing over me, licking my face. I’d fallen backward on the salt circle, missing a candle by a mere few inches.
“Holy shit.” This changes everything.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Anora,” Ethan says, voice hoarse.
I blink my eyes open, and it takes effort to keep them open. Exhaustion hit me as I was cleaning the salt circle, and I barely made it into bed before passing out. The first time I used magic, my energy was drained. Traveling to the spirit world was even more draining.
“You sound terrible,” I grumble and sit up, feeling his forehead. “Shit, you’re burning up.” I get the thermometer from the nightstand and check his temp. Shit is right. He has a hundred-and-three fever, which went up since last night. It might be from being under the covers next to me. I hope.
“Your phone,” he says as he swallows hard. I can tell his throat hurts. Yep. This is definitely the flu. “It was ringing.”
“Oh. I’ll get it in a second. It’s probably my mom, checking on me.” I get out of bed, head still hazy, and refill Ethan’s water glass and return with his antibiotics as well as more Advil. My phone is in my purse in the living room, and the battery is almost dead since I didn’t charge it last night.
I have a missed call and a voicemail from an unknown number, and in my haste to plug my phone in before it dies, I accidentally call back the unknown number. Shit.
“Anora?” A male voice comes through the phone.
“Uh, yes?”
“It’s Marcus. I work with your brother.”
“Oh, uh, right.” Harrison said Marcus wanted my number. It’s only nine-thirty in the morning. Even if I was single, calling