Page 28 of These Unhallowed Halls (Equinox Seasons Duet #2)

Eighteen- And In The Time Of Darkness Rises A Soul Made Two, Bound & Everlasting

Caleb

W e landed back in my office, Temperance and Lizzie spilling out across the floor as I hit it hard with my knees.

It had hardly been the most precise bit of magic I’d ever done.

I was still ringing like a damned tuning fork as I braced myself on my hands and knees, breathing as if I were sucking in tar.

The world around me wobbled, only dim fragments of what I was seeing making any sense.

Yes, I knew we’d made it back to my office, but my skin, my being, still felt off. I wasn’t sure if I was going to vomit or pass out. I had no time for either.

Hauling myself across the floor, I searched for where Lizzie had landed, with Temperance no doubt holding her tight.

My eyes burned as they tried to focus, and as they did, I found gray flecks marring my vision.

The debris from the ceiling and mirrors must have scratched my glasses.

I could think about that later. Right now, I needed to stabilize Lizzie.

“Caleb, do something.”

On cue, Temperance’s voice oriented me, and I shifted to the left, pulling off my glasses and shoving them away so that I could try to inspect Lizzie.

More and more clarity as the seconds went on, and I immediately noticed that her color was off.

Lizzie looked too pale, and I touched her forehead with the back of my hand.

Clammy and feverish. That was a sign of illusion magic, something that had gotten inside her head and caused enough damage to knock her unconscious.

“Well, what’s happening?” Temperance sounded so desperate, terrified. “What the fuck is wrong, Caleb?”

“I’m not sure. The mental manipulation of the tent. I think this is something similar. We need to call back her essence, get Lizzie firmly back in the realm of the living. Like before.”

“On it.”

Temperance got up and ran to get the supplies, my brain only processing the sounds of her moving, because now that I was taking in more of what Lizzie looked like, I was crumbling.

She was hurt, with cuts on her skin, smeared blood.

Bright red blood. A flash of my mother’s face superimposed over Lizzie’s, and I choked back a scream.

No, no, no. This isn’t happening again.

But the wood floors were gone, replaced by a muted gray carpet. The coffee table and couch were not the ones from my office, but those that sat in my old house. The ones that had been splattered with blood when those men had slit my parents’ throats.

My hands shook as I tried to wipe it away, get it off her face. “No, no. Too much. There’s too much. I can’t…”

Nausea pulsed in my guts as the world spun.

I heard the door breaking in again. My parents were telling me to run, but I couldn’t get away.

And then there again in their grips—my mother and father’s pleading eyes, wet with tears.

I could hear it, the way that man had told me he was going to butcher them.

We were witches, foul, heinous creatures to him, and his little fucking friends were going to kill them.

I was going to watch them die—right now.

“Caleb!” Something was shaking me, and I blinked, looking over to see Temperance kneeling on the floor next to me, jars and flasks around us. “I know this is a lot, but I need you to fucking focus, okay?”

I stared at her, glancing back at Lizzie and still seeing ghosts hovering at the corners. “I’m not sure if—”

“I am. Come on, Caleb. Do this. Don’t let Lizzie—She needs you.” Temperance took my hand and put a small glass container against my palm. “I’ll do what I can, but you have to tell me the steps.”

Nodding, I gripped the jar tighter, grounding myself to the moment with the feeling of that glass against my skin. I was here. I was in the office. Lizzie needed me. I was here, in the office, and Lizzie needed me.

“Okay. Umm, unstopper that. We need the base solution. And get a bit of Lizzie’s hair to really anchor the magic.”

Temperance worked quickly, and we blended and heated the ingredients for the tonic faster than I thought possible.

The truth was, we made a damn good team.

With the mixture ready, we each took one of Lizzie’s hands, and I started the Latin incantation to draw her back to us.

Temperance spoke the words after me until our voices mingled, creating a melody that wove through the air in gold threads.

We were a choir of intent, calling to our girl and offering up everything we had to ground her in the present.

My body ached, my shoulders drooping as the spell claimed energy I wasn’t sure I even had, but it embroidered itself into intricate knots that settled over Lizzie, this version of the working so much more intense than before. It solidified, sealing around her as Temperance and I finished the words.

Silence hung in the air as we waited for something, anything. I watched the frozen form, eyeing Lizzie’s chest for a sign of that first solid breath. She was still so cold, that damned tent wanting to keep the dark magic hooked inside her.

“Come on, Lizzie,” I growled, conjuring up more energy from nowhere, shoving it into the tapestry of gold that wavered in and out of reality above her. “Come on! Come back to us!”

One, two, three seconds passed…

“Gah!” Lizzie bolted upright, swinging wildly.

Jolting back, I clutched my shirt as Temperance launched herself forward into Lizzie’s arms. She clung to her, wrapping her arms around her neck and burying her face in Lizzie’s mussed-up curls that’d come undone from her usual braid.

I could breathe a bit easier now, but a weight settled on my chest. We’d gone in there, and Lizzie had almost died.

Hell, we all had. I’d waited to use the resonance spell when I should have just blasted that fucking tent from the get-go.

And we weren’t any closer to putting a stop to the carnival either.

“I thought I lost you.” Temperance’s voice was muffled, but then Lizzie pulled her back, smiling through the exhaustion at her.

“Me too. That, umm, sucked ass.” Lizzie bobbed her head tiredly, breathing hard as her eyelids drooped. “I don’t think we were ready for that.”

“No. We weren’t.”

Two sets of eyes hit me as I sat on the floor, my arms draped over my knees.

I stared blankly at the fancy mahogany trim, the stained glass window with a clear view of the campus beneath the ornate colors.

The rain from earlier had stopped, but it was still so grim, so gloomy outside, and part of me wondered if that was because of me.

I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if I trailed a black cloud permanently overhead, a pariah that infected the world around him.

“I nearly got you killed.”

The words were already out when I glanced back at the girls. They both narrowed their eyes at me, Temperance leaning back from hanging on to Lizzie. She slid her hand across the floorboards until her fingertips met mine, sliding between the digits and holding my hand.

“You got us out of there. And you did say we should get more power. This isn’t your fault. If anything,” Temperance sighed, “I shouldn’t have been so afraid of the soul weaving. Sometimes, there are more important things than your own happiness. Right?”

I cloaked myself in impenetrable armor since the moment I walked out of the police station those twenty years ago.

After I’d lost my parents, I vowed never to let anyone that close to me again.

It wasn’t worth the pain, because invariably they’d all leave me one way or another.

I kept my exchanges with people superficial and scarce.

And yet from the moment I saw these two women before me, I knew something big had happened. Hell, I knew everything had changed completely.

“Sometimes, Temps.” I smiled, my vision shimmering as my eyes burned.

“But not always. I…I get your reticence to perform the ritual. I won’t give up what we have here either.

I won’t. I don’t think I could. I never planned for this, but you two have become the most important people in my life. I won’t lose you.”

I could feel the wetness on my face, but I just didn’t give a shit anymore. I’d believed all my tears were used up the night of my parents’ funeral, but I’d found new ones, and I couldn’t hold them back.

Lizzie’s brows rose as this look of something akin to awe washed over her beautiful face.

She looked to Temperance, and they both turned back to me, crawling across the floor until they surrounded me, one of them straddling either leg as I collapsed back against the edge of the coffee table.

I couldn’t hold it all in, the span of emotions and thoughts that powered through me—furious and dedicated as a freight train.

So, I just broke down.

What was truly the shock of the season was that there were actually people there to support me through it.

Yes, I’d had a handful of people in the past who would be there on the hard days, but something no one talks about is that as you age, friendships and relationships just change.

Some will stand the test of time, some won’t.

I knew I cut myself off from people, but I’d be lying if I said some people had really fought to be around me.

Becoming an island was damn easy, actually.

Time stretched for a while, an amorphous thing that passed by without fanfare or spectacle. So, after the worst of it was over, I looked up into two gorgeous sets of eyes and found the strength to nod.

“There’s nothing that makes the grief go away,” Temperance said, cupping my cheek as she perched on my right knee. “It’s always there, but it can be more manageable when you’re not alone. And you’re not alone, Caleb.”