Page 50 of Will It Hurt?

Aisla

If anyone were to ask me what it was like to kiss the woman who’d tried to kill me, I’d say it was appalling. Revolting. Absolutely repulsive.

I’d also be a grade A fucking liar.

I’d kissed her. The very woman whose fingers had gripped my neck and squeezed with lethal intent just forty-eight hours ago. Hell, her taste still lingered on my lips.

Stupidstupidstupid

I scolded myself as I hopped off the table and zipped my jacket all the way up to the top of my throat. Damn if she didn’t smile as she watched me erect a flimsy barrier against her wandering fingers.

But that wasn't fair, was it? My fingers had wandered, too, delving into the soft, thick hair at the base of her neck and holding on as though my life depended on it. And the noises I’d made…

So. Fucking. Embarrassing.

I breathed a sigh of relief when she turned away to retrieve her fallen vest.

Without her eyes studying my every move, I stepped up to the spellbook and placed my palm on the cool leather.

The magick stirred before my fingers even brushed the surface.

A crackling sensation danced along my skin, tiny static shocks prickling at my fingertips.

The air smelled different this time, unlike the dark ash that usually emanated from my skin at the first instance of a spell.

I pulled the scent into my lungs, trying to identify it.

Ozone.

Sharp and static like the air before a storm.

Strange—very strange.

As I lifted my fingers from the cover, the front page fell open with a sharp thwack , making me jump.

A gust of air burst from its pages, thick with the scent of old that clung to everything in this room.

The pages within fluttered wildly, whipping back and forth as though invisible fingers were rifling through them, searching.

It came to an abrupt stop with a muted whoosh.

I stared at the open page, my jaw parted in awe.

Maaya Veli

Jinn stared over my shoulder.

“Has that—” she asked, and I shook my head quickly.

“That’s never happened before. Ever. ”

“And the smell—”

“No.” I gulped, looking down at my fingertips. “Never before. ”

“It was impressive,” she stated. “Perhaps the spellbook wanted to show us something?”

“It’s not sentient,” I reminded her. “It takes cues from its handler.”

She moved to touch the page then seemed to think twice of it.

“Is this the spell you were looking for?” she asked, eyeing the printed letters.

“Yes.”

My voice had gone whisper-soft.

The ability to control objects—especially one as powerful as our coven’s spellbook—was something we had whispered about as children. A kind of mythical ability that wytches of the past had celebrated but had slowly faded with each new generation.

It had to be a fluke—a one-time thing. Because surely, I would’ve realized I possessed this ability before the ripe old age of thirty.

“Try it again,” Jinn said as though she was reading my thoughts. And perhaps she was. I shot her a bemused look before taking a breath and pressing my fingers onto the page.

A beat passed, then another.

Nothing.

No gust of wind. No flipping pages. The corners barely even lifted.

Disappointment trickled through me.

“Interesting.” Jinn shifted slightly so that her chest brushed my shoulder. “What does it say?”

I tucked my hair behind my ears as I bent low to study the spell.

“I know Mayam means magic,” Jinn said, startling me. “What does the other word mean?”

“How did you know that? ”

“I’ve had my brushes with the language over the years,” she said with a shrug. “I’m a lot older than you, in case you need the reminder.”

I eyed her warily before turning back to the spell.

“ Veli means gate or barrier. This is a spell to get to the other side,” I explained. It was certainly no coincidence that the spellbook had flipped to this exact page.

“So the spell does exist,” she murmured thoughtfully.

“I never said it didn’t,” I countered. “Just that I didn’t know if it did.”

“Now what?” she asked as I tucked my escaping curls behind my ear again. “Can it be done?”

“It’s not so simple.” I worried the edge of a hangnail as I read the instructions.

“It never is.”

“You don’t understand,” I said, trying to focus on the old language. “It’s not as simple as an online tutorial. Step one, this. Step two, that. I have to decipher it.”

“I see.”

I continued to untangle the words in my mind.

“This is a serious spell,” I murmured.

“I should hope so.”

“No,” I shook my head. “This is forbidden magick… Which is likely why we were never schooled about its existence.”

“What makes it forbidden?”

I winced as I bit a little too deeply into the hangnail.

“Any magick that requires a blood sacrifice is forbidden,” I explained.

“A blood sacrifice like a goat or a virgin?” Jinn asked, amusement curling the corners of her lips. “I thought we’d moved past those centuries. ”

“Absolutely not a live sacrifice.” I shook my head. “I’m a vegetarian, for fuck’s sake. I’m not about to kill a goat. I don’t even know where I would get a live goat!”

“I could steal one for you,” Jinn said. “It would be fairly easy.”

“Thanks for the offer,” I quipped with a note of sarcasm. “But the sacrifice they’re talking about is my blood.”

“Yours?” Jinn echoed. “How much of it?”

I read the inscription with a sigh.

“Enough to soak a spirited sickle.”

“I see.”

I glanced over at her. “Do you?”

“Not at all. What does that mean? Hundred mils? Two hundred?”

I tried to imagine two hundred milliliters of my blood creating a dark puddle on the ground. A shudder ran down my spine.

“That’s a lot of blood,” I whispered.

“Thinking of upping your price?”

“No,” I said, pushing her away when she got too close to the spellbook. “But you better leave a bloody huge tip.”

“Anything you wish, little wytch.”

Ugh. She needed to stop calling me that. Each time she said those words, her voice dipped just a little and the endearment landed on my skin like a caress, making my belly tighten.

But Jinn wasn’t the most pressing battle I faced. As I studied the spell, each instruction became more convoluted than the one before.

Except for the diameter of the spellcasting circle—which was supposed to be the breadth of my own span —the rest of the instructions were beyond vague. If I were a cartoon character, little question mark-filled bubbles would have appeared around my head a long time ago .

An unbroken boundary: mark the soil in the breadth of your own span

Feed the blade with your own essence, enough to soak a spirited sickle

Rest under the moon’s silver gift a bowl of still waters, waiting, watching

The sight-givers, the dream-weavers—scatter them to breathe life into the rite

Let the mirror drink of the anointment, then seek the veil where shadows stir

And it all ended with…

Come, come, speak their name to come home

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath, wondering if it was a sin to blaspheme in my sacred covenstead. Probably. But at least there were no elders around to slap my wrist.

“That’s not what I’d like to hear,” Jinn commented.

“Sorry,” I said instinctively and hated myself for the knee-jerk courtesy. There was no need to apologize to her for being unsure of a spell.

“There must be someone you could ask,” she said. “Someone who could help with this.”

My head began to pound. I placed my palm against my forehead, fighting the oncoming headache.

When I spoke, a sigh accompanied the words. “We have an elder here. In town. But…”

“But what?”

“She asked never to be contacted. She wants nothing to do with us.”

“I see.” She met my gaze. “So we should respect her wishes?”

“ Mmmm .”

I reached for my phone and began taking a video of the inscriptions .

“What are you doing tomorrow night?” I asked as I tried to capture each detail under the dim light in the room. A part of me was afraid that the old book might turn into dust if I turned the flash on.

“Probably agonizing about getting Belle back. Why?”

I glanced over my shoulder. “Fancy going to the cabaret?”