Page 17

NADINE

We rushed home and got there the same time Lucas returned.

“I called Grant,” Talia said. “He’s on his way.”

“Tell me everything,” Lucas urged as we entered the house.

“The Curse Breaker Wand is in my mom’s stash!” I told him. “We were right. She had it all this time.”

We hurried into the dining room, where Chloe had left her grandmother’s grimoire laying on the table. She flipped through it quickly while I told Lucas about the clues we’d found.

“We think this grimoire could contain the spell the Executors used to force stash searches,” I said. “We can go to my mom’s grave, do the spell, and we’ll finally have the wand. Lucas, we’re so close.”

“This is great news but… how are we going to pull this off?” Lucas wondered. “I’m out of magic since last night. Does anyone else have access?”

“We have enough.” Talia grabbed her purse off the back of one of the chairs and plopped it on the table. The contents thunked , and crystals of all sizes and shapes spilled out of the bag.

Lucas’s eyes widened. “Where did you get all these? I thought we’d used up our stores.”

“We did,” Talia said. “Chloe and I went looking through Lilian’s boxes in the basement last night, hoping she had information we could use. That’s how we found the grimoire. We also discovered records of a storage unit she rented out. We went there and found these crystals. We’re pretty sure it’s all that’s left of what the priestesses had.”

Lucas picked up one of the stones—a Mortana crystal, by the looks of it. “All right, how do we cast the spell?”

Chloe’s features fell as her eyes traveled over a page in the grimoire. “I, uh, found the spell, but there’s a caveat… To pull it off, the subject has to remain conscious so we can look in their stash, which clearly doesn’t apply in this case. It’s not going to work.”

I didn’t understand. I was so certain we were moments away from finding the Curse Breaker Wand. It didn’t make sense for my mom to lead us this far if we couldn’t actually obtain it.

I leaned my hands on the table, scanning all the clues that were scattered there. “My mom sent us to Calliope for a reason. We just have to find another way to access her stash. What do we know about witches' stashes?”

“They’re individual pocket universes set on the astral plane,” Talia rattled off. “A witch can manipulate the space around themselves to conjure and subconjure items out of their stash, though there are limitations. Your stash is only so big, and you can’t subconjure a living being.”

“The astral plane…” Lucas said thoughtfully. “Talented supernaturals like Nadine and I can access our stashes when we’re astral traveling. We just have to know where your mom’s stash is, and we can get to it on the astral plane.”

I picked up one of my birthday cards, my eyes roaming over the sporadic cursive letters my mom had left behind. I reread the piece of paper where we’d written out her clues.

I took the curse you seek from Octavia Falls and hid it in a place close to my heart.

It was back at home. It had to be. There was no other place she’d have left it.

“I wasn’t wrong about where she hid the Wand,” I realized. “A person’s stash is kept wherever they feel safe, somewhere that feels like home. The Curse Breaker Wand is in the closet! It has been this whole time. We were just looking on the wrong plane!”

“If that’s correct, how do we access your mom’s stash?” Chloe asked.

Lucas tapped his chin. “Good question. When I tried to access Nadine’s stash on the astral plane, I was blasted backward. She couldn’t get into mine, either.”

“If my mom knew I was coming for the Wand, she must’ve found a way to unblock her stash for me,” I said. “She left all these other clues behind leading me here. She wouldn’t do all that if I couldn’t get to it… right?”

Lucas looked unsure. “We won’t know until we try.”

“You guys are forgetting something,” Talia said. “Even if we found the Wand in Faith’s stash, how do we get it back here? Wouldn’t it be stuck on the astral plane?”

Lucas and I exchanged a glance. I thought back to that night we astral traveled to the abandoned mansion, where we met the spirit cat and found Lucas’s stash. He’d been able to draw things from my own stash onto the physical plane.

“As a reaper, Lucas has power over the realms, which includes the astral plane,” I said. “He can move items from the astral plane onto the physical. I’ve seen him do it before.”

Lucas lifted the Mortana crystal he’d been holding. “I’ve got the magic to do it. Let’s get to work.”

Lucas and I gathered blankets and pillows from the linen closet, while Talia closed the drapes in the living room. Chloe lit a few candles and started burning cedar to cleanse and protect the space.

“Talia and I will stay here to facilitate from the physical plane and ensure your safety,” Chloe said. “Take as much time as you need.”

Lucas and I laid our blankets out in front of the fireplace, and Talia turned on soothing music. Our cats gathered around as we began our deep meditation.

The familiar sensation of separating my spirit from my body came over me. We’d been practicing astral travel for years now that it came easily to us, even without use of our magic. My skin tingled, and my spirit seemed to fly through space a hundred miles from my body.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself standing in my mother’s old bedroom. It looked different from the last time we were here. The builders had made progress on the house, and a bed, nightstand, and dresser stood in the room now. All the furniture was white, and there was no artwork on the walls. My mother would’ve hated it. She was the kind of person to lay a colorful quilt over her bed and hang pictures on every wall. I bet she was rolling over in her grave at the lack of character the house had now. Even the astral plane appeared duller than normal. The new owners had stripped this house of all its wonder. Every memory we’d had here was gone.

Lucas appeared beside me, the outline of his ethereal shape glowing. He must’ve sensed my sadness as I looked around the room. “You okay?”

“It’s just… hard being back here,” I admitted. “Her stash is like a piece of herself she left behind when everything else has been erased.”

“Your mother can’t be erased, Nad,” Lucas said gently. “She may be gone from this house, but you took her with you when you left. Even though she’s not here in person, she’s been with you all this time.”

I turned toward the closet door. “My life as a witch seems completely separate from her. She wasn’t here to watch me come into my power, but in a way, you’re right. She still got to be a part of it, because in the end, she led me here. Everything she did to set this up was to protect me this whole time, and now my mom gets to be a part of this final stage. I’m ready.”

I stepped forward and reached for the doorknob. The second I touched it, a sting like an electric shock darted up my arm. My shoulder lurched backward like I’d been punched. I stumbled back a few steps, clutching my arm.

Lucas was at my side in an instant, helping me stay upright. “Nad!”

“I’ll be all right,” I assured him, though I winced as I stood taller. “I don’t get it. She went through all the trouble leading me here. She would’ve found a way to let me through. Unless…”

A horrifying thought hit me then, and even my spiritual legs became unsteady. “Unless she thought she had more time. Maybe she never got this far before she died.”

Lucas shook his head, refusing to believe it. “We didn’t come this far for it not to work.”

“We’ve never been able to access someone else’s stash before,” I reminded him.

“I can give it a shot.” He lifted his hand, and wisps of purple magic rose from his palm. “I’m still holding the Mortana crystal back at the estate.”

“What are you going to do? You can’t just barge down the door. We’re on the astral plane—things work differently here.”

“I’ll use my reaper magic. We know I have influence over realms that other people don’t. Maybe I can get inside.”

I took a wary step to the side. “Please don’t hurt yourself.”

“I’ll be fine—” he started to say, but the moment he touched the door, a blast of blinding protection magic exploded through the room.

The blast sent my spirit reeling backward. My heart leapt to my throat, and the floor beneath me failed to catch me. I felt like I was tumbling off a cliff, diving hundreds of feet head-first, before my spirit slammed back into my body.

I gasped as I jolted upright, my pulse racing. I clutched at my heart, yanking on my shirt. For a moment, I feared I’d been sent to a different realm entirely. Hands landed on me, and I heard the muffled sound of Talia’s voice.

“You’re back at the estate on the physical plane,” she said reassuringly.

After a beat, my surroundings came into focus. I sat in front of the fireplace exactly where I’d left my body. Isa nudged her nose into my arm.

My whole body shook as I turned toward Lucas, only he hadn’t awoken like I had. He lay perfectly still at my side, oblivious to my urgent awakening. He must still be on the astral plane.

“What happened?” Chloe asked.

“My mom’s stash backfired on us,” I replied through ragged breaths. “It wasn’t too bad when I tried to get in, but it hit us like a freight train when Lucas did. It was like the first time was a warning, and when we tried again, the spell freaked. I don’t know how Lucas didn’t wake up from it. He was closer to the blast than I was.”

Instinctually, I reached for my husband, but Chloe stopped me. “Wait. He might’ve gotten inside her stash. Give him a minute…”

I held my breath, waiting for my husband to wake, but the hair on the back of my neck stood straighter with each passing moment. Ten seconds turned into thirty, which dragged into a long, agonizing minute. Oliver slowly approached Lucas with hunched shoulders. He sniffed him, then batted at the back of his hand. Lucas still didn’t wake. Oliver turned his nose to the sky and let out a mournful cry.

“Something’s wrong,” I insisted as panic set in. “Lucas!”

I shook my husband hard , but he didn’t respond. He was a light sleeper, and usually just shifting beside him would wake him up. Even on the astral plane, I should be able to break through his meditation and get him to hear me. He didn’t so much as flutter his eyelids.

Out of the corner of my eye, I witnessed Talia and Chloe exchange a desperate glance.

Chloe hunched over my husband. “Lucas!” she called as she smacked the side of his face. She was gentle at first, before smacking him so hard his head wrenched to the other side. “Wake up!”

A red welt formed on Lucas’s cheek, but his head fell limply against his pillow. Even Chloe’s aggressive assault couldn’t wake him.

“Give me every crystal you have,” I stated firmly, rolling onto my back again. “I’m going back.”

Chloe scrambled to her feet and ran to the kitchen. She came back a moment later with the bag full of crystals, along with her grandmother’s grimoire. She handed me the bag, then started flipping through the spell book. “Watch over them,” she ordered Talia. “I’m going to see if there’s any answers here.”

I clutched the bag of crystals tightly to my chest. I needed every ounce of power I could get. It wasn’t easy getting myself back into a state of relaxation, but for my husband, I’d do anything. The tingling sensation of separating my spirit from my body came over me, and I imagined myself traveling back to my mother’s old bedroom. In the distance, I could hear Talia’s and Chloe’s hushed whispers, though I couldn’t tell what they were saying. My connection to the astral plane was unstable, but I pushed myself to focus more on my spirit and less on my body.

My mother’s bedroom appeared before me, and the closet door remained latched shut. I nearly sling-shotted back into my body when I realized my husband was nowhere to be found. The room started to fade, but I forced my breath to stabilize, willing my spirit to remain in place.

“Lucas!” I called out desperately.

“Nad?” a muffled voice answered back.

Relief flooded through me—both here in spirit and back in my body. “Lucas, where are you?”

I couldn’t tell where the voice had come from. Dear Goddess, had his reaper powers transported him to some other realm adjacent to this one?

“I don’t know.” His voice remained steady, though a hint of panic bled through his tone. “There was a bright light, and I felt like I was blasted into some other place… It’s dark here. I’m trying to get back to my body, but I can’t connect with it.”

As he talked, the direction of his voice became clear. Slowly, I stepped toward the closet door, and his voice grew louder.

“Nad, where are you?”

“I’m in my mom’s bedroom on the astral plane. Lucas… are you inside my mom’s stash?”

“Um… maybe. That would explain the tight space.”

A knock rapped at the closet door. I closed the last few feet in an instant. I knocked back, and I heard Lucas sigh in relief from the other side.

“How did you get in there?” I asked.

“I touched the door handle, and the magic must’ve blasted me through the doorway. I can’t get out. Nad, I’m stuck.”

“Try opening the door from the inside,” I suggested.

The door handle rattled, but it appeared to be magically locked. “I’m trying, but I can’t.”

Even in death, my mom’s stash was still magically protected.

“Let me try something.” I closed my eyes and tuned into the power of my mother’s spell. I could feel the power pulsing throughout the room. I tried to siphon the magic for my own, to dissolve the protection magic around her stash. The power shuddered, but with it I felt the entire spell tremble. I had the horrifying realization that if I tried to dismantle this spell, I could very well destroy her stash completely, effectively wiping out everything inside—including my husband.

That wasn’t a risk worth taking, so I had to try something else. I didn’t want to demolish the whole spell, only break through the protection magic standing between Lucas and me. If I couldn’t siphon the magic, perhaps I could overpower it with force.

“Stand back,” I ordered, though I wasn’t sure how much room Lucas had in there.

I pedaled back a few steps. Magic from the crystals I held back at the estate swelled through my body and funneled into my spirit. I formed a battle spell that surged throughout my whole being. Aiming my palm at the doorway, I blasted the spell forward like a firehose. The power blazed brighter than any spell I’d created before, slamming into the doorway so hard it would’ve leveled the whole house on the physical plane.

Here on the astral plane, it did nothing but bounce off the doorway, like it was hitting into a shield. The spell took everything I had in me, and it was like I hadn’t cast it at all.

I tried again, desperately commanding my spell to break down all barriers around my mother’s stash. I ordered the spell to shatter the protection magic in place and blast through the doorway. I gave it my all… and still the results were of no consequence at all. No matter how hard I tried, my desire to achieve the spell wasn’t enough.

I dropped my arms, gasping as the magic ebbed away. It wasn’t adequate. We simply didn’t have the magic to break through this.

Pure devastation twisted in my guts. It was one thing to come this far and lose the Curse Breaker Wand. It was another entirely to lose my husband along with it.

“I can’t get through,” I told Lucas in a broken voice. I stepped toward the doorway again, splaying my hand over its surface. I imagined Lucas doing the same from the other side. “Years ago in one of my first lessons at Miriam College, Professor Carlisle said that snooping into someone else’s stash could have dire consequences. This must be what he meant.”

“We’ll find a way out of this, Nad,” Lucas pressed.

I sniffled. “I can try opening the door again, but there’s a chance I’ll get stuck in there with you.”

“Don’t!” Lucas demanded. “We’ll try something else.”

“I’ll think of something,” I choked out.

The promise felt entirely hollow. I didn’t have enough information on how this magic worked, or whether or not this entrapment was permanent. We were told not to mess with this type of magic, and we didn’t listen. I’d had no idea the weight of the consequences our professors had warned us about, and now I wasn’t sure how to fix it.

I dropped to my knees in front of the door. My parents had raised me to solve puzzles, a skill that my mother knew one day I’d need. This was just another puzzle to solve. I just had to be clever.

Only this time, I feared that my ingenuity had run out. I tried to hold back the tears, but they were already welling in my eyes. I could even feel the warmth of their sting on the physical plane.

We’d gone against the rules of the game. My husband had tried to use his magic to solve a puzzle that was built for me . We cheated, and now the broken bits of that puzzle lay scattered out in front of us with no solution. Lucas’s spirit could very well be trapped here, unable to return to his body, and his physical form would remain a shell until his organs gave out. He’d be taken from me just as everyone I ever loved had gone before. My parents and beloved grandmother were gone, along with my children. Now it was my husband’s turn.

It was a sick, twisted reality we lived in. I’d begged my husband not to die, and his ending wouldn’t come with death, but I may very well lose him anyway. Although he said I didn’t lose people—that I brought them with me—his memory could never compare to having him with me in the flesh. How could he be so foolish to say my mother was still with me, when her absence was the reason we were here in the first place?

Tears leaked from my eyes. I needed her here right now in a way I never needed her before. In the past, it was the little girl inside of me that craved her company. I just wanted to be cradled and protected, for her embrace to heal a part of myself stuck in the past.

Now, I needed her here for the sake of my future, because a life without Lucas was not one I wanted to live. We always promised each other we’d move on if we lost one another, but I wasn’t sure anymore that I could actually go through with that. I couldn’t walk out of here without him and return to a broken coven alone. I couldn’t raise our son on my own. He was my light, my rock, and my family . When all felt wrong in the world, he was there to show me the good.

Lucas and I could always pull each other out of a hole. When he was having a hard time, I could wrap him in my arms and assure him everything was going to be all right, and he believed me. When I felt hopeless, he’d cling to the final threads of hope that I couldn’t hold on to myself and drag them back to me. Together, we had discovered who we were and supported each other through every painful step of our growth. All I ever wanted was to keep on growing with him. Even though there were parts of me that could stand on their own, the best parts of me were the ones I shared with him.

I wished I had an answer to give him, but this time, I didn’t know how to tell him that I couldn’t see a way out of this.

“Nad,” Lucas called softly from the other side of the door. “You still there?”

“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere,” I promised.

“Do you believe me when I say your mom’s still with you?” he asked.

“I wish I did.”

“Ask her what to do,” Lucas encouraged.

I scoffed. “She’s not going to answer. I’ve tried to contact her a million times.”

“She may not show up in a séance, but she’ll show up in your heart,” Lucas said. “Magic or not, you’ve still got your intuition. If your mom left you any solutions, then they’re inside of you.”

I wanted to believe Lucas so badly . I wanted to trust that my mom was still with me in ways I couldn’t understand. I knew her spirit was still out there, but she remained realms away, and I couldn’t reach her.

We’d been caught in a bind more times than I could count, and each time we’d found a way to pull miracles out our asses. Lucas wanted me to turn inside of myself, but this time, we were playing with volatile magic beyond our current capacity. There were no creative spells to pull off, no loopholes to play with. My mother’s stash was inaccessible, and even if I could overpower it, I didn’t have the magic to do so. She had protected the Curse Breaker Wand from the priestesses all these years. To get to it now, and reach my husband, I needed her .

“There’s nothing inside of me, Lucas.” My voice squeaked as I tried to hold back the sobs and failed. I sank all the way to the floor, my back pressed against the closet door. I curled my arms around my knees and dropped my head. “I have no answers.”

A brief silence settled over the room, then Lucas breathed a solemn sigh. “I’m not asking you to have the answers.”