Page 108 of A Study of Blood and Ichor

Vain said nothing, and my confusion quickly morphed to something hot and bitter inside me. “Why didn’t we use it then?” My voice rose as I fought to keep the hot tears welling in my eyes from spilling over again. “If we could have saved him earlier…” I choked on the rest of my words and Vain squeezed my hand once, like a silent acknowledgment.

“It was not that simple,” he said.

I looked at him, completely puzzled, and then back down to the grimoire. Even as he offered it out to me, I did not reach for it. The very thought of touching it repulsed me and made my skin crawl with unease.

Seeming to sense my hesitancy, Vain flipped through the dark grimoire with careful, long fingers, then presented a set of pages to me. The writing was in the demon tongue, albeit a much older dialect than the one I was used to. Some of the words didn’t come to me easily, while others were simpler to pick apart through context.

Ritual. Soul. Blood magic. Binding.

The more I read, the passages came together slowly piece by piece. The crude hand-drawn diagrams and scribbled notes in the margins indicated a complex series of spell work, but one word I couldn’t translate kept appearing. When I finally broke the roots of it down, at last everything clicked into place.

Resurrection.

The dark energy swirling around the ancient tome as if it had a life of its own finally made sense. I edged away from the book further. My breathing stilled and I looked up to Vain who had been staring at me, studying my expression with sad, curious eyes.

“This is…necromancy.”

“Not quite,” he said. “Necromancy reanimates the body without a soul attached, or in some cases, only a shard of the soul may remain. But this spell is supposed to ensure that the body, mind, and soul remain intact. The newly dead may become whole again.”

There was a reason necromancy was forbidden. The consequences for bringing back the dead in such a twisted and evil state were more severe than all other dark magics.

All dark magic came with a cost. But even if the ritual wasn’t full-blown necromancy, resurrection was still a risk.

Vain’s eyes gleamed with a mesmerizing iridescence. Up close, his irises shifted like colors on the surface of an oil slick. Deep purples and bright reds undulated with flashes of gold and silver. They glinted with grief and a small shimmer of hope.

“What’s stopping you from doing it? If you’re so powerful, why don’t you help him?” I demanded while choking down my sobs. “I’m not strong enough. You’ve seen it yourself. This is powerful dark magic, Vain. I’m not—I would need your ichor to even attempt something like this.”

Vain set the book on the nightstand and took a cautious step toward me. He held my face between his hands, forcing me to meet his gaze. “You are more than strong and capable enough to do anything, Ava. You don’t need me or my ichor. But my powers do have their limits, and this magic demands more cost than what I could give alone. It requires a measure of equal worth. A soul.”

My hand shook as I pressed it to my trembling lips. “He knew what it would cost and told you not to tell me, didn’t he?”

Vain nodded.

“So, this is really possible?”

“It is.”

I shook my head and clenched my jaw to stop my chin from wobbling. “Even if I could, I don’t have the ingredients necessary to do this spell.”

“I have them,” Vain said.

“What? How?” My skin prickled as the realization struck me.

“I knew that his death was inevitable, as did he. So, I prepared for it.” Vain shut his eyes and dragged in a breath before he continued. “I could not bear the thought of him dying.”

“Why?” I asked. The idea that a demon—an archdemon at that—could feel in such a way for a mortal soul was still so incomprehensible to me.

Vain shrugged, a strikingly human gesture. “I am not without my faults. I fell for him the same as you did.”

The pain gleaming in Vain’s eyes forced me to look away and concentrate on anywhere but him. I looked back down at the pages of the grimoire, taking in all I could of the spell until the words made my head spin.

Blood exchange. Soul-bound.

“It’s a binding ritual?”

“A soul for a soul.” He nodded, and I took two wobbling steps backwards away from that damned book. Away from Vain.

“It is your choice. I cannot…” he paused. “I will not force you. I know the ritual ceremony itself is…intensely intimate, and not one to be taken lightly.”

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