Page 37 of Heart of a Witch
“Good,” she snapped and looked at the bag of supplies. I’d swiped a comb from Damian’s bathroom to get the hair.
“I need quiet while I work this,” I explained and lit the candle, smiling when the flame flickered up. It danced smoke through the air, toward our wood-beamed ceiling. I lowered my gaze to the hex bag. “Sleep demons of the underworld, bring your fear to our world. Make Damian Shaw’s sleep of horrible things; haunt his dreams until he weeps. Take his hair and my blood as a sacrifice for your magic.” I pricked my finger with a needle and let blood drop into the flame, watching it fizzle instead of dull.
One had listened.
“For as long as this bag remains under his bed, his mind is yours to twist.” The flame changed to blue, flickered, and disappeared into a thin line of smoke. “It is done.” I picked up the hex bag, feeling the darkness of the energy I’d brought into this world settle uncomfortably into my shoulders and neck, like a tension that would never alleviate.
Alex angled her head. “How do you feel?”
“Right as rain,” I lied. Nausea crept through me, threatening to reach my throat, but I kept it down. I had to. I couldn’t have them worry any more than they already did. We all must sacrifice for our cause, and I would take the brunt of it for their sakes. It was no less than I deserved.
“Good.” Cas stepped forward. “You distract Elijah and Damian at the ball, Tori. Alex and I will sneak upstairs and place it under his pillow.”
I nodded, but anxiety tingled. “Just be careful. Don’t get caught.”
Cas scoffed. “Thanks for the reminder. We were planning on getting caught, right, Alex?”
Alex clicked her tongue. “Oh yes, but now you said that, we’ll make sure we won’t.”
I was feeling too unwell to snap a quip back at them. “I’m heading to bed for a bit.”
Alex paled. “Why? Are you feeling sick?”
“No. It’s been a long day. I just need a short nap to rejuvenate.”
Cas grabbed the hex bag. “Go sleep. I’ll place an order for a new suit from the tailors. Shall I make one for dresses for you both too?”
Alex made a face. “I’ll go with you. I don’t trust your taste.”
“You can make mine,” I said and left them to head upstairs. Today had drained me. The walk with Elijah was longer than I’d expected, but at least I’d gotten into his house and grabbed the hair to make the hex bag. It was only step one in our plan, but at least I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Once I reached my bed, I collapsed onto the covers. I pulled the blankets over my body, shaking. Dark magic seeped through my body, which tried to fight it like a disease. I closed my eyes, and between waves of nausea, I found emptiness.
***
Sleep came for me in a shroud of blackness, pulling me deep into the cesspit of my mind, where dark things roamed. Shreds of magic remained there, pulled from the underworld by spells I’d used, and distorted my memories. For a moment, I understood madness. It was like looking through a filter of uncertainty, of rage with a spoonful of fantasy.
I roamed the farthest reaches of my thoughts. There, Ember waited for me. She was on the gallows as she had been that day, but her face was different. In place of my sister’s wide eyes were deep, pitiless things: the eyes of a demon. When her heart was ripped from her body, I saw what they saw, a demon posing as a human, killed. I was angry at her for doing this to us. Rage filled me, and for a second, I saw her as the problem, as the destroyer of our happiness.
No. She was my sister. She’d loved me. We weren’t the darkness plaguing the world. We had souls. I shook my head, trying to claw out of my own mind when hands shaking my shoulders awoke me with a jolt. My eyelids flung open, and beads of sweat trickled down the sides of my forehead and temples into my hair.
“Alex.”
“You were screaming.” Her wild eyes assessed me. “You’ve been out for hours.”
“I have?”
Her cupid-bow lips tightened into a frown. “Were you having a nightmare? I’ve had them too… since Ember.”
I shook away the mental image of my sister as the demon they all believed us to be, but I couldn’t get rid of the rage prickling the edges of my mind. I looked into the eyes of my sister, unable to tell her the truth: that the magic we were using was slowly unhinging my mind. “It probably was a nightmare. I don’t remember.”
She took a step back, releasing me. “You don’t have to pretend to care.”
“I do care.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Could’ve fooled me.”
I gave her a look. “I care enough that I’m here. I cared enough to orchestrate all of this.”
