Page 3 of Ignited Spirits (Haunted Magic #3)

IZZY

I give him a sad smile. “Hey, sunny boy,” I whisper, relief that he’s awake and dread about having to tell him what happened warring inside me. It’s never easy to tell someone that they’re dead, and it’s even harder when it’s someone I care so much about.

Before I can explain, Luca growls, “You got your heart ripped out, you dumbass.”

He’s able to see and hear ghosts in Infernus , so he has no problem talking to his brother’s spirit. Heartbreak, devastation, and frustration flit across his face as he looks between Archer’s ghost and his mostly healed body.

Archer’s brows scrunch as he thinks for a moment. “I remember pushing Izzy aside and Lua grabbing me but nothing after that.”

“Spirits can’t remember how they died,” I tell him gently, not wanting to freak him out.

Ghosts can’t remember their deaths as a protection mechanism to keep them from getting stuck in the land of the living. For souls with traumatic deaths, the inability to remember can be hard on them.

“I’m dead?” His mouth opens and closes in disbelief.

“Yeah,” I choke out. A tear trails down my face, and I bat it away, hopefully before anyone notices.

Archer zeroes in on the movement, and his face contorts with worry. He knee walks over to me and wraps his spectral arms around me. “Don’t cry, sunshine. It’ll all be okay. I’ll find some way back, or I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life. It won’t be so bad, you’ll see.”

I let out a watery laugh at Archer attempting to reassure me. The man just died, and he’s worried about my well-being. I shake my head at him. “We’re going to bring you back. If that’s what you want, of course.”

His mouth pops open in surprise. “You can do that?”

“Apparently.” I shrug because it’s new to me too.

“That’s so cool!” He leans back and levels me with aquamarine eyes dancing with excitement. Underneath that, I can see a hint of worry that he’s trying to hide. “Will I come back the same?”

“You should, yeah. Your magic, though, will be different. Most humans never come into contact with the waters of the Styx, so we don’t know how it’ll change that aspect of you. We just know it’ll be different.”

He nods and shoves a hand through his usually blond hair that’s transparent right now. “Will I still have my wolf?”

“I don’t know,” I admit quietly.

Archer’s gaze goes unfocused as he thinks through everything he’s just learned.

After a long moment, he nods to himself, and his eyes fill with determination.

“Well, I’ve had a wolf for twenty-five years.

Most people never get the chance to have an animal, so I’ll be thankful for the time I’ve had. ”

He’s trying to look on the bright side, but I don’t want him to shove down all his feelings. He’s been through a lot, and it’s understandable to be messed up over it. “It’s okay to be upset.”

“I know. I just can’t handle dwelling on it all right now.” Archer’s voice breaks, and he looks away to hide his expression.

My heart squeezes painfully in my chest at his struggle. “You don’t have to, then. Just let me know when you’re ready to go back into your body.”

I hope he’s ready sometime soon. I can already feel the consequences of healing him trying to swallow me whole, and I’d rather do that after I know Archer is okay. I’ll never rush him, though.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Archer sits quietly for a moment before blowing out a choppy breath. “I’m ready.”

My eyebrows raise at how quickly he decided that. “You’re sure? There’s no rush.”

Cracking his knuckles nervously, Archer lifts his chin and tries to appear confident. “I’m sure. It’s not going to get any less weird if we wait, so might as well get it over with now.”

I nod and open my mouth to ask Cerberus what to do next before I realize I need to tell Archer something important. “Hey, sunny boy?”

“Yeah?”

I flick my eyes between his for a long moment before finally rushing out, “I love you.” Even though I’m not good with emotions, I still need to tell him how I feel about him before I try to bring him back.

As much as I hope it works, everything about what I’m trying to do is uncharted territory.

We could lose Archer forever. Nothing can possibly make that better, but at least he’ll have some idea of how much he means to me.

A massive grin lights up his face. “That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard. Now let’s get this show on the road. What do I need to do?” He scoots closer to his body before turning back to me. “Oh, and I love you, too, sunshine.”

I give him the biggest smile I can manage right now, which isn’t more than a half-hearted twitch of my lips. He’s still technically dead, and everything with Lua turned into a bigger mess than I ever imagined. I’m not feeling a whole lot of hope or joy right now.

“I don’t really know. I’ve never done this before.” Turning to Cerberus, I nervously rub my hands on my dirty, blood-soaked jeans. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“You have to guide his soul back to his body. Now that it is healed, his soul should sink back into it. You will have to create soul ties that anchor his spirit where it belongs. Otherwise, it will drift back out again,” Cer informs me.

I blink at them a few times because I have no idea what soul ties are or how to form them. “How do I do that?”

“We don’t know. Sorry, sagana ! I know you’ll figure it out!” Russ tells me, his optimism not really making me feel much better.

I’m supposed to just make up how to tether a soul to its body on the fly. No biggie. I’m sure nothing can go wrong with this half-baked plan.

Resisting the urge to scream at the universe, I shove my frustration down. I need to focus. “Can you lie down where your body is?” I ask Archer.

He looks back and forth between his body a few times before shrugging. “It’ll be strange, but I can do that.”

Hopping up, Archer cautiously approaches his own prone form. When his foot moves through his body, he startles but shakes it off quickly. Plopping down into a sitting position, Archer carefully lies back until he seems to disappear.

Blowing out a choppy breath, I close my eyes.

My magic works when I envision what I want to happen, so I guess that’s what I’ll do here.

I picture my magic wrapping around Archer’s soul at various points all over his body.

For each spot I try to anchor his soul, I make sure to loop my power multiple times and finish with a knot.

The more places I try to tie his soul to his body, the more drained I feel. I’m leaving pieces of my magic all over Archer. Worry about whether I’ll have enough power to heal myself after healing Archer tries to creep in, but I push it down. I can only focus on one problem at a time.

What feels like an eternity later, I finish with the last soul tie. I probably anchored it in at least fifty places, so hopefully his soul won’t randomly pop out.

That’d be awkward.

Hesitantly opening my eyes, I’m disappointed to see that Archer’s body doesn’t look any different. He’s still unconscious, and there’s no evidence his soul is back where it belongs. My shoulders slump when I realize that my attempts to tie down his soul must not have worked.

“You can sit up, Archer,” I call in a weary voice, beyond drained from all the magic I just expended to do…nothing, apparently.

When I get no response, my brows scrunch in confusion. I look over at Cerberus in concern, wondering if they know what’s happening.

Russ lets his doggie tongue loll out of his mouth and yips happily. “You did it! I knew you could!”

My eyes widen. “I did? How can you tell?”

Bear’s chest puffs up in pride as he nods. “We can see the soul ties you created. We were watching you work, and you included an impressive number of them. His soul isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.”

A smile creeps across my lips at figuring out how to anchor Archer’s soul on the first try. It slips as he doesn’t so much as twitch, much less wake up. “Oh. Then why isn’t he awake?”

“His soul has to fully merge with his physical form once more. He should wake up in the next day or so.” Cer pauses for a moment as he seems to figure out how to word what he wants to say next. “If he hasn’t woken up in forty-eight hours, then his soul has died.”

I clench my jaw as I try to stuff my heartbreak down. My heart already feels all mangled and bruised from losing Archer the first time. I don’t know how I’ll survive it happening again, but I just have to hope that he’ll wake up.

Doing my best to ignore the consequences of healing Archer trying to swallow me, I push to my feet. I look around at our ragtag bunch that looks almost as exhausted as I feel.

Other than Hades. He looks good as new, the jerk.

Scrubbing my hands over my face, I ask, “So, now what? What’s our plan to find and murder Lua?”

Bishop purses his lips. Shaking his head, he walks over and stands toe to toe with me. I get lost in his blue eyes, swirling with emotion, for a long moment.

He breaks the spell when he opens his mouth. “We aren’t making a plan right now. You need to rest and recover after all the magic you just used.”

I glare up at him. “No, I don’t. What I need is to find Lua and stop her.”

He grinds his teeth before gritting out, “That can wait.”

He wraps an arm around my lower back and hauls me against him so I can’t walk off. A part of me I refuse to acknowledge lights up at feeling Bishop pressed up against me.

“No, it can’t.” I half-heartedly shove at his chest a few times, trying to get him to let me go. It doesn’t do anything other than make him more annoyed with me.

“For fuck’s sake, Isabel. Why are you allergic to resting for even a moment?”

“Because I don’t want to think about everything!” I scream at him. “Because the more time she has, the more likely she is to take all of you from me.” My voice breaks. I close my eyes, as if I can hide from the fact that tears are dripping down my cheeks yet again.

Bishop startles me when he forks his hand through my messy and grimy blonde hair and pulls my face into his hard chest. His other hand snakes under my shirt, and he rubs up and down my back. I fist my hands in his tee, using it to ground me.

“Shh, sweetheart. I’ve got you,” he whispers against my hair as I try my hardest not to break down. At least, any more than I have.

“I’m not worried about me,” I rasp into his shirt. “It’s everyone else I’m worried about. She’ll hurt all of you if I don’t stop her.”

A hard body presses up against me from behind, sandwiching me in comforting warmth.

I know it’s Luca before he even speaks. “We will find a way. I swear to you, wildcat. But you can’t make smart decisions when you’re so exhausted, overwhelmed, and had the shit day we all just had.

With an opponent like Lua, we can’t afford to make questionable decisions.

The best thing for everyone is if we all rest before we do anything. ”

As much as I hate it, he’s right. We underestimated her last time, and that got Archer killed. The only way we stand a chance against her is to find some way to be a step ahead of her.

I open my mouth to respond, but a groan comes out instead as I feel a searing pain across my chest. With what little strength I have, I shove Bishop away from me to avoid getting blood on him.

To my surprise, he moves back without a fight. His eyes harden as he sees the bright red gash across my chest, matching what Archer had.

Clenching his hands into fists at his side, Bishop asks, “Do you have enough magic?”

If I had the energy to laugh, I would. There’s no way I have enough magic to heal my heart getting pulled out of my body. Not a whole lot I can do about it at this point, though.

I can’t force words out through the pain that’s making it hard to focus, so I settle for shaking my head. Bishop swears under his breath, and I hear someone moving around to the side of me, but I can’t turn my head to look, because my stomach is sliced open.

I do my best to swallow the scream that rips out of my throat. It comes out as a choked whimper that causes Bishop’s face to contort in fury.

Behind him, I can see the normally calm Cain tugging at his hair as he helplessly watches me.

Collapsing to my knees, I hug my arms around my middle, like that can keep my insides from spilling out.

“Here.” Levi kneels in front of me and holds out the jug filled with water from the Styx. I just blink at it, too dazed to understand what he wants. His mouth twists down in a frown. “Can you open your mouth for me, little raven?”

Not having the energy to nod, I simply open my mouth.

Cupping my chin gently, Levi tips my head back and pours some of the water into my mouth. Like last time I drank from the river, the water tastes kind of like orange cream soda.

Once he’s given me a few sips, Levi pulls back.

I have a second to enjoy the feeling of more magic flowing through my veins before it feels like someone is shoving a bunch of burning hot knives into my chest. I can’t help my scream when I feel the blood vessels in my chest rupture as something forcefully tugs at my heart.

As blood pours down my front, I can no longer keep myself up on my knees. I crumple to the ground. Briefly, I feel arms cradling me and cushioning my fall before the pain steals my vision and my awareness of anything around me.

I don’t fight the blackness and all-consuming pain that washes over me as I hope that I have enough magic to get through this.