Page 115 of A Game Cursed and Deadly

Tei lets out a sigh so big his chest crushes against my back. “It worked. Thank goodness, Mei,” he whispers more to himself than to me.

I whip my head back. “Mei? What does Mei have to do with this?”

When Tei doesn’t answer, I flip to my cousin again. Sweat beads on her forehead. “What did you do?”

I don’t get an answer from her, either.

“For goodness sake, will someone say something here? What is going on?”

Marta simply picks up the book. The candle is gone, but the key is still there, and Marta pockets it. She treats the book with more care than she has our own family grimoire, as if it’s an even more delicate and powerful artifact, and steps closer to us.

Tei unravels me from his arms and takes a step toward Marta, too. They stand no more than five feet from each other, staring one another down.

Marta extends her arms, offering the book to Tei.

What?

“Thank you,” Tei whispers, and I’ve been with him long enough to know how much those words cost him, and yet how truthful they are.

My head spins out of control.

Marta simply nods. “Just save my cousin.”

Save my…

Tei spins toward me, showing me the book. “We’re not giving thanks. We’re gathering an offering from the Beyond. My own book of sigils.”

His book of… “And what is it for?”

He covers the distance between us in a few steps. His hand is on my face, stroking my cheek and snaking past it, in my hair. Despite myself, I sink into the touch. “You don’t need to die to end the curse, little gem.” He holds the book between us. “Because this book has a way to save you.”

chapter 56

a new dawn

teizel

The way she looks at me, like I’ve stuck a knife in her back and twisted it until I reached her heart, will live with me for the rest of my immortal existence. My little witch sits on the bed with my book of sigils on her lap, her hands planted on either side of her as if even as much as touching it could hurt her. I stand several feet away, my back against the wooden wardrobe, and as much as it physically pains me not to have her in my arms right now, she needs the space to process this, so I offer it to her.

“When were you planning to tell me?” she asks with a whisper of voice.

Her scent is an amalgam of all kinds of emotions; salt, bitter almonds, smoke. It’s the tinge of apricots and rosemary at the very end, the thread of hope that tells me she knows why I did what I did, that I cling onto.

“I didn’t want to be premature. I wasn’t sure it would’ve worked. There were many variables at play.”

She cocks a brow. “Like what?”

I sigh. No point in keeping her in the dark anymore. “Mei had to get the book from my mother. Honestly, finding out how she did it is a story I’m looking forward to hearing. Then we needed to be able to call the offering from her, not having her grave.”

Esme’s eyes widen. “The dragon key…”

I nod. “Since the keys are soul shards, I figured it would be a good way to call Mei.”

She looks down to the book in her lap. “Looks like it worked.”

I take in a deep inhale of air, but it’s not enough to fill my tight chest. “We couldn’t be sure it would, but we got lucky.”

“Is that why you held me back, when I tried to help that spirit?” Her eyes flash up to me, finding the answer before I can even say anything. “It is, isn’t it? You wanted Marta to get the boost of power.”