Page 20 of Battle for the Shadow Prince (A Bargain with the Shadow Prince #2)

20

Nexus

ELOISE

P hantom hasn’t been eating his food. I haven’t seen the fox in almost a week, and by the looks of the still-full bowl on my stoop, he’s moved on from this part of the woods. At least, I want to believe he’s moved on and hasn’t met a less romantic end. I clean up the bowls and say a silent prayer that wherever the critter is, he’s okay.

Later that night, Maeve arrives with a massive oblong roaster in her hands. I open the door for her and she carries it into the kitchen.

“Is that like a cauldron or something?” I ask. “Are we working on potions today?” I’m not against it, but it’s hard for me to guess a scenario where brewing a potion would help me during the challenge.

She laughs. “No. It’s Thanksgiving! It’s a turkey with all the fixings.”

When she removes the lid, the scent of roasted bird makes my mouth water. I spot red potatoes, carrots, and green beans too. “That smells so good, but you didn’t have to do this. It looks like a lot of work.”

She tosses her hot pads onto the counter and turns toward me. “You leave to descend into the vampire city in six days, Eloise. We are going to celebrate Thanksgiving tonight, and when Cassius gets here, he’s going to join us. You’ve worked nonstop for weeks. Tonight you’re going to rest, and we’re going to celebrate all the things we’re thankful for.”

My stomach grumbles, and I realize I haven’t eaten anything today but a yogurt. “You’re the boss,” I say through a tight smile. Just the thought of celebrating Thanksgiving with Damien still in that horrible place seems frivolous, but she’s clearly gone to a lot of trouble and I need to eat. “If you insist this is part of the training regimen, who am I to argue?”

She grabs me by the shoulders. “Good. You find a knife and a cutting board. I’ll get the wine out of the car.”

An hour later, I’m stuffed so full of turkey and vegetables I have to lean back in my chair to make room for my stomach. I’m also feeling a bit toasted from the wine. Toasted and sentimental. “I haven’t had a meal like this since before Grams died.” I look around the kitchen with its pale yellow countertops edged in shiny silver, its mint-green-and-white-painted cabinets, the crocheted sling with its overgrown spider plant, the wall phone with the long coiling cord I used to wrap my fingers in. “This kitchen has seen so many meals. So many Thanksgivings. Thank you for giving me one more before I go.”

“It was as much for me as for you.” The full truth passes silently between us. We both know this might be our last formal meal together.

“You’re the only family I have left, Maeve, and we aren’t even related.” I sniff, my vision going a bit blurry.

“We’re as good as family,” she says, swinging her glass through the air until her wine sloshes. “I’m closer to you than any of the Gowdies.” She takes a sip and points a black nail at me. “I swear to the goddess, Eloise Harcourt, if you don’t win this fucking challenge and return to me, I will find a medium to call up your ghost and slap you with whatever magical element hurts ghosts.”

I snort. “You’d never hurt me if I were a ghost. You’d probably send brownies to the underworld for me.”

“Probably. I’m such a sucker for you, girlie.” She rubs behind her glasses. The tip of her nose is pink. “You know, I’d totally go with you to Night Haven if I wouldn’t get us both killed on sight for being a Gowdie witch.”

“I know.”

“I had an idea though. Maybe I could send you with some Hitch and Cast potion and you can enter my dreams if you needed advice.”

I frown. “That would be a great idea if I knew for sure I’d have a stove and the tools to complete the potion, let alone a way to anchor in Night Haven.”

She finishes her wine and pours herself another. “Right. Probably not feasible. This anchor thing is the most problematic. Why aren’t your ancestors helping you with this?”

We hear the clock strike eleven p.m. in the other room, and the lights flicker. “Cassius is here.”

The shade appears in the doorway to the kitchen.

Maeve hands him a glass and fills it with wine. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

I look up at him from a face that’s grown a bit warm. “I hope you’re game for a night off because I’m not sure I wouldn’t stab myself after the amount of wine I’ve drunk tonight.”

In a blur of black, he’s across the kitchen and heaping his plate with food. “It’s been years since I’ve had a proper turkey dinner. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to have regular meals when you live and work with vampires.”

Maeve flips her black manicured nails through the air. “I thought you shades could subsist on blood.”

He gives her a flat look. “And you humans could survive on protein shakes, but it makes for a boring Thanksgiving.”

The chorus of their warm laughter fills the space around me.

So much to be thankful for. My gaze catches on the picture of my Grandpa Harcourt on the wall and Grams in her wedding dress, then skates to the pantry. If I open the door, I’ll see height markings for my grandfather, my father, and for me, dates and ages in Sharpie on the wood. So many generations, so much time at this table, in this kitchen, inside these walls. If I can take any comfort in it, it’s that this too will pass. I will either survive this challenge or I won’t. Only time will tell.

Time. “Oh my God. Time! ” I say, my eyes growing wider.

Maeve and Cassius stop what appears to be a vibrant discussion on the effectiveness of sage in deterring demons and give me their attention.

“What’s that?” Maeve asks.

I stand from the table. “Moving the anchor. Maybe it’s not about finding the right spell but about performing the intention at the right time .”

They both stare at me blankly.

“The night I called Damien using the candle, you told me to perform the ritual exactly at midnight when the veil between the living and the dead was thinnest and my ancestors could help fuel the magic.”

“That is the general advice for humans,” she says. “I had no idea at the time you could actually communicate with your ancestors.”

“I couldn’t then. But the spell worked. And then, the night I asked for the Hitch and Cast spell and the book flew down from the attic, that happened right after the clock chimed midnight. And last night, at exactly midnight, I felt anchored as I was sparring with Cassius.”

Maeve adjusts her glasses. “But we performed the Hitch and Cast spell during the day.”

“And I never chose my anchor. It just was the clock. It was already the clock from when I did the spell in the parlor to call Damien at midnight. It’s always been the clock.”

“So… you think in order to move it, you have to perform a spell at midnight… and then redirect it? But wouldn’t you have to know what spell to use first?”

I look back at the black-and-white photo of my grandfather. “I think at midnight, I need to call my ancestors and ask them for help moving it. They trained me to master the elements. There was no specific spell for lighting the candle or making the seed grow. Maybe this is like that when it comes to spirit magic. There is no spell, I just have to feel it.”

Cassius nods approvingly and looks at his watch. “We can find out for sure in thirty-seven minutes.”

I put down my wine and reach for my water. I have thirty-seven minutes to sober up.

At 11:59 p.m., all three of us stand in the parlor, staring at the grandfather clock. I am not sober. My head is buzzing and I have a case of the giggles. On a positive note, I have no anxiety about trying this.

“Ready?” I ask, although the only person who needs to be ready is me. “Here we go.”

“You can do this, El,” Maeve says supportively.

Cassius squeezes my shoulder.

The clock starts to chime, and I reach down that spiderweb within me that connects to it. “How do I move my anchor?”

The room flips to red, haze moving in and ash snowing from the sky. I’ve never had this happen so fast before, with so little effort. My great-grandfather appears near the fireplace again in all his grayscale glory, silver eyes with their hollow pinprick pupils focused on me. Grams and Gramps appear beside him, then my mom and dad.

“Hand me the ring,” I say to Maeve.

She grabs the jade ring from the sofa table and plops it in my palm.

“How do I make this my anchor?” I ask my ancestors.

My mother points at the ring and shakes her head. Then she points at the clock and moves her arms as if they were the hands on the clockface. She does it again and again until I get it. “The anchor has to be something that moves. Something animated in some way.” I’m not sure how I know that, but I’m sure.

My mother’s ghost nods her head vigorously. Grams is beside me, holding out her hand, beckoning me. “Grams wants me to follow her.”

All my ancestors turn and follow my grandmother toward the backyard, floating through the wall of the house. I grab my coat and shove my feet into my shoes, then scurry out the back door. They’re all heading toward the cemetery, still gesturing for me to follow. It’s eerie, seeing the ghosts of my family members stroll toward their graves. It’s something I never expected to see.

But when we get there, I understand. Grams points to her grave. Phantom is there, curled beside her headstone.

The fox is dead.

Really dead.

Eyes white and belly swollen with maggots dead.

“Oh no,” I say sadly. I cover my mouth and nose with my hands, both from emotion and to block the stench of the dead thing.

Maeve moves in beside me. “Is that the fox you were feeding?”

A heavy weight tugs at my sternum. I press my fist to it and moan. “Something’s happening. It feels like…” I can’t finish my sentence. It’s like I’m tethered to something heavy, something that’s arcing around me. For a second I can’t breathe. It feels as though it will tear my rib cage out. But once the weight swings into the fox, the tension eases.

My ancestors close in, gathering around the dead animal.

“Eloise, what is happening?” Maeve asks.

“The night stinks of ancient power,” Cassius says from somewhere behind us.

Gramps sinks into Phantom’s body first, and the fox’s milky-white eyes begin to clear. My great-grandfather goes next, and the dull fur starts to warm to a vibrant red. Once my great-grandmother sinks in, Phantom’s deflated abdomen fills like a balloon. My parents follow, and more ancestors—ones whose names I do not know, ones I’m sure never lived here but are somehow connected to me through blood—sink in. The red haze in my vision begins to clear as one after another, those black-and-white manifestations blend into the dead fox.

“Something that moves, that can come with me,” I mumble. “Something that no one will suspect or be able to take from me.”

Grams is the last to slip inside. Phantom climbs to his feet, maggots and a thick dark liquid expelling from his mouth onto her grave. The fox coughs, then shakes itself, blinking and flicking its fluffy red tail, more alive and vibrant than it was the very first day it crawled from the woods.

Beside me, Maeve makes a choking sound.

Phantom jogs closer and sits directly in front of me, his eyes sparkling like someone has replaced them with two priceless emeralds. Maeve and Cassius move to my sides, all of us staring down at the resurrected fox.

“The anchor has moved,” I say.

“It’s not a ring, but it’ll do,” Maeve mumbles.

“How the fuck are we going to get this creature into Night Haven,” Cassius says.

The fox lifts its chin. “Well, don’t just stand there, darling,” Phantom says in Gram’s voice. “We’re all hungry in here. How about some of that turkey?”