Page 72 of Bewitched By the Djinn
It doesn’t budge.
Helen exhales sharply.
I open my eyes.
A bead of sweat rolls down her temple.
Bennet shifts beside me, his thigh brushing against mine. “Something wrong?”
Helen’s fingers twitch, the magic around us flickering unsteadily. “The curse—” She shakes her head as if to clear it. “I thought I could sever it, or unweave it, but...” She presses her lips together. “It’s not working. It’s not a normal bond.”
My stomach flips. “What does that mean, not normal?”
“I don’t know. Let me try once more.” She waves her hands wider, the threads of her magic brightening as her face darkens with strain. The power crackles and flexes—but still, the bond holds. A shudder ripples through her magic before it snaps apart entirely, sending a burst of light through the room.
I flinch. Bennet tenses beside me. Helen stumbles back, blinking rapidly.
Silence hums loud in my ears.
Helen rubs her temples. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
Bennet leans forward. “Meaning?”
Helen looks at me, then at him, her brows furrowed. “The curse is stronger than I expected. It’s deeply woven into your magic, Bennet, and into Cassie’s now too. I was trying to break it apart like unraveling a knot, but it’s not a knot—it’s fused, welded together.”
I bite my lip. “The vamp said it was like a braid.”
She shakes her head slowly. “It does appear that it was a braid at one time. But now there are no separate parts. Only one.”
I stare at her. “What does that mean?”
She hesitates. “It means I don’t think I can break it.”
Bennet sits back, his jaw tight. “There has to be another way.”
Is he upset? Does it bother him so much, being tethered to me?
“There might be,” Helen says slowly. “But not with the kind of magic I have.”
The weight of her words settles over me. This whole time, we’ve been working toward this moment, breaking the bond so we can go our separate ways. I can get back to my life and he can get back to his.
But we’re still bound, the bond apparently even more unbreakable than before. I don’t know whether the fluttering in my chest is panic or relief.
I clear my throat. “What do we do now?”
Bennet’s gaze is distant, lost in thought. Then, slowly, he reaches across the space between us, placing his hand over mine. His warmth seeps into my skin, calming me. “I’m sorry.” His hand squeezes mine. “We’ll think of something. In the meantime, we need to mask our presence from the ifrit that have been stalking us, and figure out what Uncle is really up to.”
I nod, trying to tamp down the uneasiness curling in my gut. “How?”
Helen tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I can take care of the masking, and then use deeper magic to see into Aetheria and spy on him, but it’s difficult. I’ll need time to rest and prepare, and we don’t know if we’ll learn anything relevant.”
Only in the movies would a villain just so happen to be doing something incriminating at the exact moment they were being spied on.
Bennet taps a finger on his chin. “We may be able to see what’s happening with Lord Wallace or the other visiting families too. Is he still there waiting for your marriage, or did Uncle truly ‘take care of’ the upcoming nuptials? Perhaps we can eavesdrop on the staff as well. They’re always gossiping.”
Helen’s mouth twists in contemplation. “Maybe. We’ll have limited time. It’s a lot of magic and I’m the only one who can do it.”
“If we do it when the veil is thinnest, that may help.” Bennet leans forward, elbows braced on his knees.
