Page 69

Penny

PENNY IS IN THE DE LUCA PHARMACY.

The second floor looks different. The floor panels aren’t sagging with age, and there’s a huge table of lush plants under the skylight. An armchair is in the far corner, and Giovanni De Luca sits in it, an animal-skin scroll in his lap. He writes slowly, his expression pained, and every time he finishes writing a word—or maybe a letter—he stops, gasping and shaking. When he runs out of ink, he opens his hand, revealing a long, bloody cut across his palm. He dips the quill into the dark red running down his wrist.

Giovanni is writing the blood oath.

Penny watches him struggle through the end. By the time he’s done signing his name, Giovanni has doubled over, the parchment rolling off his lap. Penny moves around the table to see him, and she wishes she could reach out, help him up. But everything she’s seeing has already happened, and she can’t change it.

There’s a sound below, and Giovanni sits up, his face panicked. As quickly as he can manage, he reaches for the parchment. He rolls it up, puts it in the envelope with his letter to Ellie, and seals it.

“Hollow,” he says.

There’s a rhythmic sound, like the beating of wings, and then a large crow lands on Giovanni’s shoulder.

“Take this to Ellie,” Giovanni says, holding up the envelope with all the strength he can muster.

Hollow takes the envelope and flies out of the open skylight. Giovanni looks after him, his face drawn.

There are footsteps on the stairs. Giovanni stands and quickly wraps his hand in a cloth bandage as the young Charles Barrion walks leisurely onto the second floor.

“There you are, Gio.” He looks around. “Why haven’t you shown me this room before?”

Giovanni cracks his neck once, and the gesture is so like Alonso that it makes Penny ache. “You don’t have an all-access pass to my entire life, Chuck.”

“Straight to the point then.” And from his jacket pocket, Charles pulls out a gun.

Penny gasps.

“What are you doing?” Giovanni asks.

“Letting you know that I’m serious,” Charles says.

Gio takes a step closer, a new desperation in his face. “I’ve given you every spell you’ve asked for. I’ve made your company profitable again. But I won’t go as far as you want me to.”

“Correction,” Charles says. “ I made my company profitable again.”

“Using my magic!”

“Using my ability to artfully deploy information about my enemies.”

Gio sneers. “I thought we weren’t enemies anymore.”

“I hoped that would be the case, but then you went back on your promise.” Charles considers the gun. “I’ve found a way to kill two birds with one stone. You told me once when we were young that mortals can use magic by—what was it again? I’m forgetting.”

Except Charles’s gleaming smile makes it clear that he isn’t forgetting. He just wants Giovanni to say it out loud.

“You can’t,” Gio says. “Without me, you have nothing.”

If a mortal kills a witch and drinks their blood, they can use their magic. That’s what Milton said.

Penny presses herself against the wall. “I don’t want to see this,” she says, but no sound comes out of her mouth. She asked for the truth, and Ellie is showing her.

But the timeline is off. Gio wrote the blood oath the day before Ellie Barrion died—the day before he died. But this is where Gio’s body was found. Did the police or the doctors get his date of death wrong?

Penny’s eyes find Charles Barrion, and all the disparate pieces of the story click into place. Everywhere you turn in Idlewood, the Barrions’ name is on buildings. They’re in photos of ribbon cuttings. They employ most of the town. Knowing how entrenched they are in Idlewood, how difficult would it be for Corey’s grandfather to falsify medical records to fit a story everyone already believed: that Giovanni De Luca was a violent man who would stop at nothing to enact revenge on his former girlfriend and former best friend?

Penny wants to look away, but she can’t. She has to see how this ends.

Charles grins. “I think I can manage without you. After all, you conveniently forgot to tell me how easy it is to create an exchange. A bargain with the spirit world.”

A bargain. A bargain .

Immediately, Penny flashes back to the hours she spent on SkyCat. There was that story about the witch who cursed her lover. The article said afflicted spirits could be used to make curses more powerful, but it also worked for covenants. Is a covenant a bargain? Is this the answer they’ve been looking for?

“It’s not easy to create a bargain, Chuck. It requires a huge sacrifice.” Gio gestures at the gun. “You can kill me to use my magic, but that’s no sacrifice to you.”

“You’re right. But if I kill my wife?”

Penny lets out a soundless cry, pressing her hands over her mouth.

“I knew you stole my book,” Gio says, his skin gray from fear or blood loss or both.

“Fascinating stuff,” Charles says. “I’m honestly disappointed you never used it on me. I would’ve if I were you.”

“The bargains never stop at one death. If you do this, you’ve doomed your entire family.”

“And in exchange, we will gain stability. Wealth.” Charles shrugs. “There are always more women, Gio. More people to love. You never learned that lesson, though, did you? You were always stuck on mine.”

“She would’ve been better off with me.”

“Probably.”

“You loved her,” Gio says. “How did you decide this was worth it?”

Charles grins. “Thank you for everything, Gio. I’m sorry it had to end this way.”

Then Charles attacks him.

Penny is shaking, her knees threatening to buckle. Gio holds Charles off for as long as he can, but he’s already out of energy from the blood oath. Eventually, Charles raises the gun and hits him across the temple with it.

When Giovanni is unconscious, Charles finds the cut on Gio’s hand. He tries to drink from the cut, but it’s already clotting. With blood smeared on his mouth, Charles takes a knife from his pocket and slits Gio’s wrist. Then he bows his head and takes a long drink.

Penny’s stomach roils.

Charles drops Giovanni’s hand and takes a long, deep breath. For a few seconds, his skin glows from within as if he’s radioactive.

“Don’t!” Penny screams, tears rolling down her face.

Charles places the gun in Gio’s limp hand and raises it to the man’s temple.

He pulls the trigger.

Penny is still screaming as Charles draws a circle on the floor with Giovanni’s blood. He takes off his wedding ring and lays it in the circle, whispering the words of a spell.

The Veil appears. Penny sees it as Charles must’ve seen it—all gossamer air, a black-and-white tear in the world.

Charles defines the exchange: the souls of the Barrions’ loved ones for material success. Money. Power. The dominoes are set. The bargain will be complete when the first person dies.

Penny blinks, and she’s suddenly surrounded by tall, hungry flames. She’s back in Meredith House. In front of her, Ellie lies dead on the floor in front of her, eyes open and unseeing.

Ellie’s voice comes from all around: “If only I’d known.”

If only she’d known what her husband was capable of.

If only she’d known who to run from.