Page 102 of A Resistance of Witches

When they stepped inside the barn, Henry was there waiting. He looked abnormally still to Lydia, standing with his hands in his pockets, face vigilant. They stood like that for a moment, taking each other in. Neither looked the way they had when they’d last seen each other.

Lydia was the first to move. She approached slowly, taking in every detail of him, the rigid posture and watchful eyes. He appeared less substantial than he had before, like something more than his size had been taken from him. She reached out and touched his face, letting her thumb caress the hard line of his jaw. His gaze dropped from hers, his chin trembling as he leaned his cheek into her hand. Then something seemed to break loose inside him. He stepped forward and wrapped hisarms around her, squeezing her so tightly she could scarcely breathe, and Lydia held him back, breathless and shaking.

“Are you all right?” he whispered in her ear.

She pressed her cheek against his neck. “Better now. You?”

“Better now.”

He let go, but she noticed the way he held on to just the tips of her fingers before releasing her, how her skin seemed to tingle where they’d touched. She wanted to stay that way, just for a moment, but—

“There’s no time,” she said, and Henry nodded. “You have it?”

He produced the book from the pack slung over his shoulder. It felt heavier than Lydia remembered, warmer. It seemed to respond to her touch, the tremor of dark magic rising off the pages like swarming flies. Lydia thought she felt a rush of something—heat, excitement,glee—rise from the book as it passed from Henry’s hand to hers.

She called to Fiona. “How much longer?”

“Just a few minutes more.”

“Right. I’m going to begin. As soon as you’re able, go back for Evelyn. Don’t wait for me.”

Rebecca stepped into the barn. “Begin what?”

Lydia held the book against her chest and imagined it embracing her back, wrapping itself around her like dark tentacles. “I’m going to bind the book to myself.”

Rebecca took another step forward. “Say that again?”

“It’s a spell witches normally use to protect our own personal grimoires. We bind the book to ourselves, and no other witch can touch it. Not ever. The binding is meant to protect a witch’s own book of spellwork, but in theory, it can be used on any book at all.”

“You can’t bind yourself to that thing,” Rebecca protested. “The last time you used it, it nearly killed you.”

“Rebecca’s right,” Henry said.

“I am not asking your permission.” Lydia said it more forcefully thanshe’d meant to. Henry and Rebecca stared at her. Fiona looked at the floor. Lydia took a breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was low and steady. “I’m going to destroy it. Now. Tonight. But I can’t do it alone, and it will take some time. I need to make sure that if the Witches of the Third Reich find us before I can finish the spell, they cannot use the book.”

“And if they kill you?” Rebecca asked.

“If I die, the book will turn to ash.”

Silence filled the barn. The rosy sunset was gone, replaced by a dull gray haze. It was Fiona who broke the silence.

“There’s no time for this.” She looked at Lydia. “Do what you need to do.”

Lydia nodded gratefully. She turned to Henry. “Henry, listen to me—”

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“No, you don’t.”

Henry smiled sadly, and the sight of it made Lydia’s heart feel like it was straining at the seams. “Yes, I do. I’ve been inside your head, remember?” He took her hand in his. “I’m not leaving.”

She looked into Henry’s eyes, and Rebecca’s, and in that moment, she wished more than anything that she could be like Evelyn, sending them away with a single word. She wished she could force them to save themselves.

“Go. Do your spell.” He let go of her hand.

Swallowing her fear, she walked to the far back corner of the barn, far away from the others. She knelt on the ground and placed the book in front of her. Cold radiated through the earth into her bones, and bits of hay and dirt stuck to her stockings. She closed her eyes and reached for the book with her mind. Sure enough, she felt it reaching back, feral and starving. She began the work of binding the book to herself, taking each tendril of dark magic, peeling it back, and weaving it into a piece of herself. It was delicate work, done not with words or potions but withpure energy. She was folding it into her and, in turn, placing essential pieces of herself inside the book, so that slowly they became one.

The energy of theGrimorium Bellumwas thick and suffocating. It filled Lydia’s throat with a taste like vomit. She tried to breathe deeply as she welcomed it to become a part of her, and the book did so greedily, with no hesitation, only hunger.

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