Page 41 of Take You Home

Obie fights back a wince. He was hoping that Chester messed up the spell itself‍—the counterspell would’ve been much easier to create that way‍—but considering Chester’s meticulous nature, it makes sense that the incantation was flawless. “I said itmightbe different. This means you cast the spell itself correctly, but you messed up the pre-casting process.”

Dejection winds through Chester’s voice. “Oh.”

A strange twinge of guilt shoots through Obie. “That was the more likely option from the start,” he adds grudgingly. “Pre-casting is notoriously difficult with anything beyond the basics. It’s actually a subset of twisted spellcasting, and that’s one of the most complicated magic disciplines out there.”

Obie feels Chester start with surprise next to him. “Pre-casting is related to twisted spellcasting? But I thought that was just when you take two incantations and‍—well, twist them together.”

“When you combine two or more spells so thoroughly that they can’t be separated through conventional methods,” Obie confirms. “Pre-casting is a simplified version of that. The pre-casting process might look like just adding a series of magical modifiers to the main spell, but it’s actually a convoluted tangle of extremely temperamental micro-spells‍—although the Deep doesn’t recognize them as spells, so it unfortunately doesn’t keep a record we could request. That complexity is one of the biggest reasons why Ez and Roma didn’t use pre-casting during the rift-opening epidemic‍‍—too much room for error.”

“But…” Chester sounds perplexed. “But Sawyer and Naomi used to pre-cast offensive spells for me during Strike Team Kappa’s drills. They never had any problems.”

“Didn’t Bryant call them ‘baby’ offensive spells?”

Chester scoffs. “Yeah, but that’s just Bryant. They still hurt when I hit people with them.”

Obie rolls his eyes. “Effectiveness doesn’t equal complexity. If they were low-power, standard-activation offensive spells, then they wouldn’t have been too difficult to pre-cast.” He nods at the intricate incantation in front of them. “A spell like this, though, is a different story.”

“So how do we create the counterspell, then?”

“Well‍—‍”

But Obie never gets the chance to tell Chester their next steps, because at that moment, a confused‍—and much too familiar‍—voice behind him says, “Obie?”

Heart dropping, Obie whirls around to see none other than Sawyer Solomon.

14

Solomon,” Obie says, mild surprise registering on his face. “Hi.”

Hi?Chester gapes at Sawyer, his pulse roaring in his ears. It’s been six long years since he last saw his former mentor, six long years since he last heard her voice‍?—

Six long years since she and Naomi Gutierrez vanished from the Sanctum, leaving their students behind.

And, Chester notes with some confusion, she looks weirdly different now. Her skin is closer to Naomi’s light brown than her usual ebony, and her hair is far longer than she ever would’ve been caught dead wearing it at the Sanctum. Chester would be tempted to say it’s a particularly poor glamour spell, but he doesn’t see any demons around who could’ve cast it.

Sawyer smiles ruefully. “What gave it away? The voice or the human-magic glamour?”

Chester’s jaw threatens to drop. “Wait. There arehuman-magicglamours?”

Obie’s shoulders are tense, but his tone stays even. “Mostly the voice. And the glamour looks better than it used to.”

“Yeah, Roma and Ez made a few tweaks to their original spell. Worked like a charm.”

All at once, the world goesveryquiet around Chester.

Roma created a human-magic glamour spell?Roma?Sure, Chester has always known she’s an incredible spellcaster, but‍?—

But it only took her a month after leaving her friends behind to start creating spells that could be used against them?

“That’s our spellcasters for you,” Obie says vaguely, and suddenly, Chester realizes that he probably wasn’t supposed to know about the human-magic glamours. “So what are you doing here?”

“Grabbing falafel for everyone,” Sawyer says, holding up a Falafel Express bag as evidence. “Micah is especially partial to hummus fries.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”

Micah.That must be Micah Devereux, one of the demons who Bryant mentioned was there when Roma defected last month. His husband, Gregorio Ricci, was also involved.

Do the two demons live with Sawyer and Naomi? Or do they just have big fugitive lunches together, like Obie and his friends?