Page 104 of A Witchy Spell Ride

He misread my smile. “Yes,” he said, breathless. “Destruction before rebirth.”

“Funny,” I said. “That’s exactly how Ghost kisses.”

The candle nearest his elbow sputtered. He slammed the card down so hard the table jumped.

“Don’t say his name,” he hissed. “He doesn’t matter here.”

“Everything about this is about him,” I said softly. “The Xs where his face should be. The way you talk about me like I’m an object you’re moving away from him and not a person walking toward myself. You don’t love me, Briggs. You love a version of me that makes you feel chosen.”

“I chose you,” he shot back, almost childlike in his insistence.

“And I didn’t,” I said.

He rocked back like I’d slapped him. Then, mercifully, pride cuffed his tantrum. He smoothed the Lovers card with two fingers and folded his voice back into soft. “It’s just the poison talking. When I cleanse you, you’ll remember.”

“You brought chloroform to a cleansing,” I said. “If you’re going to pretend to be a priest, at least Google first.”

His jaw tightened, then loosened as if he remembered priests get angry too. He walked behind me. I stilled my shoulders so hewouldn’t feel the heat the nylon had gathered under my wrists. The knot on my right side was sloppy. The man didn’t tie boats.

“Water,” I said abruptly.

He hesitated.

“Ritual without water?” I turned my head just enough to catch his eyes again. “You brought candles. You brought symbols. You think you don’t need the element that carries memory?”

He faltered. He hadn’t planned for requirements he didn’t understand. His need to be right warred with his need to be in control, and pride chose the one that let him keep talking.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll get it.”

He turned. A tap ran somewhere, pipes old. In the seconds he walked away, I bent my whole mind to the nylon. Small wrists. Smaller. Roll bone. Exhale. Saw.The cord warmed, then softened. Pain went bright. My ring dug a groove along a single strand. One more pull and—

He came back.

I went still, let the nylon bite settle into a quiet throb. He set the plastic cup on the table and hovered again, a man faking tenderness with hands that only knew possession.

“I’ll untie one,” he said piously, as if he were granting me a sacrament. “We need your palm free.”

He reached for my left wrist. I willed him to pick the right. He didn’t. Of course he didn’t. I needed him to feel like the generous one if I wanted leverage.

“You need both,” I said, and made my voice a teacher’s, patient, condescending. “Cleansing requires taking and giving. Altar rules. Two hands or none.”

Briggs hesitated, eyes flicking to the altar like it might whisper answers. He didn’t want to ask me. He also didn’t want to be wrong. Vanity is a lever all its own.

He cut the left. Then the right.

The nylon fell away, and blood rushed back with pins. I didn’t flex. Didn’t give him fear. I kept my hands still in my lap, palms up. He placed the cup in them like a communion. The water smelled like a pipe that hadn’t been run in a decade. I raised it to my mouth and let a sip slide over a tongue that tasted like chemicals and iron.

“See?” he breathed, relief making his voice soft again. “See? Better.”

“Sure,” I said, and spilled the rest over my bound ankles.

He flinched, confused. “What are you—”

“Memory,” I said. And I twisted, slid my now-wet ankle ties against cold metal, and let friction do what friction does when it meets a woman who refuses to be held.

He grabbed for me. I let him. His thumb pressed into the tender spot near the hinge of my jaw, and I leaned into it like I was leaning into a kiss. His balance shifted, weight forward. His belly brushed my knuckles.

My right hand slid to the seam of my corset where I’d tucked the flat blade, two inches of insurance that had already nicked me once. I palmed it. He didn’t notice. He was busy pretending to be a god.