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“Leda, the water-repellent qualities of that barrier are truly…” Arina stopped. Her eyes grew wide as they locked on to the elderly woman. “What are you doing here?”

“You know her?” I asked Arina.

“Yes. Her name is Gertrude, and she’s my grandmother.” Arina looked at the woman. “What are you doing on Earth? How did you even get here?”

“It’s complicated,” Gertrude said.

“You know something about the dark angel Thea’s grimoire, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“My face was on that parchment, the supposed clue to Thea’s grimoire. That was you. You put my face there.”

“Yes.”

“Because you wanted me to come here too.” Arina looked around the small sitting room. “Where’s the grimoire? Is it here?”

“In a matter of speaking.” Gertrude looked at the crystal wand attached to Bella’s belt. Thea’s wand. “The secrets of that wand—and so much more—are not in any physical book. They are too dangerous to write down.”

“Then where are these secrets stored?” I asked her.

“In here.” Gertrude tapped her head. “Thea was dabbling in magic she didn’t understand. I stepped in and offered to help her. It was with my assistance that she made that wand, an immortal artifact.”

“You know how to make immortal artifacts?” I asked her.

Athan had once told me Arina possessed the ability to craft artifacts as powerful as immortal artifacts, yet she did not require an immortal soul to make them. Maybe it was a skill which ran in the family.

“I do,” Gertrude confirmed. “There are, in fact, two ways to create an immortal artifact. The more common way is to link the piece you’ve crafted to a dead immortal soul. That is done at the time of death, which is a powerful, magical moment. That’s how most immortal artifacts are made. With dark magic. Using death.”

“But there is another way?” I asked.

“Yes. Like light and dark, life and death are two sides of the same coin. Just as you can create an immortal artifact through a powerful act of death, through dark magic, you can also use light magic. Life. The act of creation, of life, can be channeled into the artifact. Instead of linking the artifact you’ve made to a dead soul, you link it to a living soul, at the moment of life. There is great power in that as well.”

Gertrude looked at Bella, then the wand. “That is how that wand was created. Using her.”

Bella set her hand over her heart.

“Wait, you’re saying the act of Bella’s creation had so much power that it made the wand into an immortal artifact?” I asked.

“She is the daughter of a demon and a demi-demon,” Gertrude replied. “So her creation was a powerful natural force. It’s more problematic to make an artifact through life, through light magic, than through death, or dark magic. The light equation is more precise. That’s why most immortal artifacts are linked to dead souls.”

Arina had been very quiet during Gertrude’s explanation, but she finally spoke now. “You taught me that spell,” she said to her grandmother. “But you didn’t tell me what it does, what it means.”

Arina looked pretty upset with her grandmother.

“I had no idea you would actually try out the spell without my supervision,” Gertrude replied.

“You created an immortal artifact this way?” I asked Arina. “Using light magic?”

Arina lifted her arms, and two matching silver bracelets slid down her wrists: one with blue stones, one with green stones. “Two of them.”

My brain was still processing this. Very slowly processing. Two artifacts.

Arina glared at her grandmother. “I was seventeen. Seventeen. I thought I was just tinkering with magic.”

“Powerful magic.” Gertrude pursed her lips. “I should have told you the consequences of that spell.”

“Yes, you should have.” Arina’s eyes were full of fury.