Page 32 of The Evil Twin

But Tennyson wasn’t finished. “I’ll do your stupid ritual, but you’re going to owe me, big time.”

I stared at him. “Really?”

He shrugged. “That’s what she says. What happened? You seemed fine, then all of a sudden, the lodestone started glowing in your pocket, and I could hear you screaming in my head.”

“It was probably her screaming,” I said.

He shook his head. “No, it was you. Do you really think I could so easily confuse you with someone else?”

I shrugged and shifted in my seat. My whole body felt seized up.

“How long was I out?” It had seemed like hours.

“Not long,” he said. “Ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”

I nodded, then glanced over at him. He still had those two top buttons on his shirt undone.

“Soooooo…” I began, not sure how to continue.

“You’re referring to that kiss?” he said, looking away. “I apologize. I know it wasn’t appropriate, given the state of our relationship at the moment, but I couldn’t think of another way to tell you what I needed to say. At any rate, it wasn’t technically a kiss, as it was actually all in our minds –”

I rolled my eyes and grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt, pulling him closer.

We were interrupted about thirty seconds later by Hannah and Nikolai bursting into the room, ironically enough.

“Oi, you two! Get a room,” said Nikolai, laughing.

“This is my room,” I said.

“As happy as I am that the two of you seem to be sorting things out,” said Hannah. “Althea wants to see you. Both of you.”

“Is she okay?” Tennyson asked, jumping to his feet. “Has she had another vision?”

“No, I think it’s about the ritual,” said Hannah, but from the way she shooed us out of the room, I suspected that was just an excuse to get rid of us.

Althea was not thrilled that I’d brain-visited Other-me.

“Do you have any idea what could have gone wrong?” she asked, from behind a massive pile of books.

“Of course I do,” I said, even though I didn’t. But then, neither did Althea. Probably.

“At any rate, it worked,” said Tennyson. “She’s agreed to do the ritual.”

Althea’s head popped up from behind her book. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “She did? And you believe her?”

I shrugged. “She’s given us her verbal consent. Surely that’s enough for the ritual to work.”

“Magic isn’t a court of law,” Althea said. “She can verbally consent all you like, but if she’s not actually willing, the ritual may not go to plan.”

Well, that was something new for me to worry about. Great.

“So, we can go through with the whole thing, but it won’t take if she changes her mind midway through?”

Althea shook her head. “No, it’s more like the ritual won’t be able to commence if she isn’t willing.” She grabbed a book off the top of her pile and flipped it open. “Nikolai’s uncle’s friend mentioned something about a cedere pactum, literally giving agreement in Latin. I thought that just meant you both had to agree to do the ritual, but I came across the term in a few other books. Since we lost all of our research, I’ve been looking into other types of spells and rituals from Eastern Europe around that time, and it’s mentioned in a few of them. It’s part of the ceremony. An important part.”

The look on her face made me think it wasn’t a part I’d enjoy.

“What do we have to do?”

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