Page 60 of Ghoul Me, Maybe
She grabs my face like she’s anchoringmenow. “Don’t youeverdo that again.”
“I didn’t exactly schedule it.”
She exhales, head against my chest. “You scared the hell out of me.”
“Good,” I whisper. “It means you care.”
She punches my shoulder—soft, shaky. “I care so much it hurts, you idiot.”
I lean into her warmth.
I can’t feel her pulse.
But I remember it.
Mira and Lyle appear in the doorway.
“We need to start the second circle,” Mira says. “If we wait too long?—”
“I’m not leaving her side,” I say.
“You don’t have to.” Lyle tosses a satchel onto the floor. “We’re doing ithere.”
Sienna looks between us. “What’s the catch?”
Mira starts unpacking stones, twine, a mirror splinter, and three vials of her own blood.
Lyle says it flatly: “If it fails, Elias disappears. And Mira and I probably don’t walk away whole either.”
Sienna bolts upright. “What?!No. Absolutely not?—”
“I’d rather die doing something that matters,” Mira mutters, sketching the circle.
Lyle shrugs. “Ditto.”
“Then we do it now,” I say.
They nod.
The room goes still.
Then the spell begins.
The air tastes like iron.
Sienna sits beside me, her knees drawn up, hair wild from wind and sweat, watching as Mira scrawls the last glyph in blood across the floorboards. Lyle lights the final candle, his hands shaking from spellshock.
The circle hums.
So does the world.
Outside, the wind rises, dragging mist in tight, lashing coils against the windows.
Something’sthinning.
Something ancient.
Sienna jerks suddenly—like a string in her chest’s been pulled hard.
