Page 81 of Twisted Ties

I peer at Winnie’s midriff. I’m sure that blast should have torn her in half.

“Do you think she’d put one on me?”

Winnie smiles with sympathy. “It only works on blood relatives. It has to be interwoven with love by a blood relation.”

I sigh and sink into my seat. “Maybe my aunt placed one on me.”

“Maybe. But they only last a couple of months at a time.” Winnie wipes at the windscreen. “So, are we going back to Arrow Hart?”

I chew on my thumb. “No, the cemetery. I’ll know if Barone’s there.”

Winnie glances at me but doesn’t argue and I direct her. I won’t let myself be so stupid a second time. This time I’m staying tuned into that sense, even if Winnie’s proximity has bells ringing in my head, the noise making it ache. It’s better than being attacked again by that man.

“Was he–”

“Renzo Barone, yes,” I confirm.

“And you knocked him to the floor? Woah, Rhi, that’s …”

“You were the one who blasted him away.”

Winnie grins. “Sometimes the simplest spells are the best. That’s what Grandma always says. She says people are too quick to overlook them in search of more complex, powerful ones. That they dismiss the spells so often used by mothers and their children, when really they can be the most effective.”

I nod. Only the magic I’d used to bring that man to his knees wasn’t simple. It wasn’t complex either. Crimson magic. It had his eyes gleaming, gazing at me like I was a goddamn angel.

The memory has me shifting on my seat with unease.Was I going to kill him? I had every right to, didn’t I? And yet the idea of it makes me sick.

I stare out of the window, watching as my home town thins and the old cemetery, perched on the brow of a dusty hill, comes into view. A permanent wind sweeps through the place, wearing away the few gravestones that litter the plot, so that it’s impossible to know who lies where.

Not that I’d ever forget where she rests. Even though I haven’t been back since the day she was buried. The image of it is sketched into my memory. Not something I’ll ever be able to erase.

“Can you feel him here?” Winnie asks as we draw up into the small parking lot at the base of the hill. A rusty sign announces the cemetery, and there’s one other car parked up beside it. I don’t recognize the make or registration number. I don’t think it’s anyone from town, but I can’t feel any magicals other than Winnie.

Gingerly, we climb out of the car, locking Pip in the back despite his angry squeaks, then follow the path up the hill, both on high alert.

We pass a new grave, the earth still disturbed, the grass having not yet reclaimed the space. Another has fresh wild flowers resting in a vase against its stone and a third has a string of plastic ones draped over a cross. All the other stones are unloved and clearly unvisited. Guilt swims in my chest. I should have come sooner. I should have left flowers every chance I had.

“Where’s her grave?” Winnie asks and I point to the far side of the plot. We weave our way through the stones and as we draw closer, I stop in my tracks.

I’m wrong. There’s a third grave adorned with flowers, a bunch of red roses, resting next to the stone. A stone whichonly bears her name because I couldn’t afford anything more.

“What is it?” Winnie says, her voice strained.

“Roses. On her grave.”

“From Barone?” Winnie frowns.

I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”

“Then maybe they’re from one of your aunt’s friends.”

“She didn’t have any friends, Winnie. It was just her and me.”

Winnie gulps and swings her gaze around. “You want to leave?”

I shake my head again. I want that locket.

I march ahead, that wind agitating my hair and blowing into my face.