by Sarra Cannon
“Mom?”
She nodded and opened her arms to me. I fell into them like a child, sobbing with joy.
“I can’t believe it’s really you,” I said. “How? Where have you been?”
“We have so much to talk about,” she said, taking my hands as we parted. “But we should get to safety first. Where can we go?”
“We’ll go back to my house,” Rend said. “We can get there through the Hall of Doorways. Can you make the shift?”
“I’ll do it,” Mary Krista said.
I smiled and reached for her hand. I hadn’t even realized she’d made it through the doorway with us, but I was glad she was here. After what happened, there was no way the Mother Crow would have let her live.
“Thank you for everything,” I said.
“I owed you at least this much,” she said softly.
She turned to the closed doorway and placed her hand on its surface. She whispered strange words I couldn’t quite make out, and the door itself began to glow with a shimmering light.
When she stepped away, she nodded to Rend.
“Anyone who wants to join us at my house is welcome to stay,” he said.
“We should be getting back to Harper’s castle,” Mordecai said. “There have been some strange things happening there lately, and I want to make sure Harper’s protected at all times. But please, call on us again if we’re needed. We’ll be here as soon as we can.”
“What kind of strange things?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing for you to worry about now,” he said, giving me a brief hug. “You just concentrate on beating this thing, okay? I’ll try to come back and check on you tomorrow.”
“Thank you. All of you,” I said.
The four demons who had come to help from Harper’s castle left to go back through the Peachville portal through the roses by Brighton Lake, leaving me, Silas, Connery, Rend, and the three crow women in the library.
“I would like to go back to our small coven,” Mary Tate said. “After Mary Allen betrayed us, I’m afraid the rest of our group might have been harmed, but I want to see if they’re still there or if they’re out looking for us.”
“We can’t risk the time to go with you,” Rend said. “But you are free to leave if you feel it’s necessary. Just promise me you won’t tell anyone where we’ve gone for now. If you find the rest of your small coven and need a place to hide them, go to Venom. I’ll leave instructions with Marco to help keep you all safe until we can meet up.”
Mary Tate nodded, and Mary Krista took her hand.
“I’ll go with her,” she said. “We’ll head back to Venom once we know if they’re safe.”
The two women said goodbye to my mother, shifted into crows, and flew up the stairs.
“Let’s go,” Rend said. “The faster we can get to my place, the faster we can start coming up with a plan to end this.”
I nodded and took his hand in mine, following him through the crow door into the main Hall of Doorways. It only took us a few minutes to get back to Rend’s door, and once we walked inside, I felt as though a weight had been lifted.
Even though the trip had been short, I was thousands of miles away from the Mother Crow now, thanks to the magic of the doorways. I was safely in the Alps while she was stuck in New Jersey, and the distance from her made me feel separate from her for the first time since the stone had been placed in my chest.
“How’s Katy?” I asked. “Has there been any change?”
“When I looked in on her earlier, no, there was no change.” Rend said.
I swallowed back anger, not wanting to allow my thoughts to turn dark. Not now that I’d found some level of peace.
But what reason was there for holding Katy in this sleeping spell now? Why put her through this torture?
We walked into Rend’s bedroom to find her still there in exactly the same position as before, her eyes closed. I sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hand in mine. She was cold as ice, but there didn’t seem to be any other sign of illness or deterioration.
“I wish there was something I could do to—”
I gasped and pulled the Mother Crow’s journal from the back of my jeans. I’d stashed it back there as we ran through the portal, but now I furiously flipped through the pages, searching for any sign of a sleeping curse.
The book was written in a mixture of foreign languages that I shouldn’t have been able to read, but as I turned the weathered pages, I felt intimately familiar with this book. The handwriting might as well have been my own.
“What’s that?” Rend asked, reaching for the book.
I pulled it away from him quickly, before he was able to touch it.
“This is the Mother Crow’s personal journal,” I said. “It’s cursed so that if anyone besides her touches it, they will die instantly. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told. I don’t want to risk it.”
“But then how can you…”
His voice trailed off as he realized why I could hold this book and not him or anyone else. The distance between us might have made the Mother Crow feel separate, but the fact that I was still holding this cursed book in my hands made the reality of it clear.
We were connected now, and she was a part of me.
“Where did you get it?” he asked. “I take it she didn’t just give it to you as a gift?”
A hint of a smile crossed his lips, and I looked up at him, loving him even more now than ever.
“I stole it,” I said. “I was actually just about to get away with it and get the hell out of there when you guys woke her up.”
He made a face. “Bad timing,” he said. “We were trying to be stealthy about it, but there were more guards than we expected.”
“I’m glad you came for me,” I said. “If you hadn’t shown up, it’s possible Mary Krista and I wouldn’t have been able to get past the guards at all.”
“Do you think the sleeping curse might be in her journal?” he asked.
“That’s what I’m hoping,” I said.
I flipped through the pages quickly, as if some part of me understood exactly where to look.
Finally, the right spell appeared, and I breathed deeply. An evil spell written in a hauntingly beautiful script handwriting.
“This is it,” I whispered.
I read through it quickly, searching to see if it was a permanent spell or something that could be undone by anyone.
Goosebumps broke out along the skin on my arms, and I turned to Katy.
“Et nunc absolvo vos de somno surgere,” I whispered.
For a long moment, nothing seemed to happen. There was no change in my friend. I closed the book, tears forming in my eyes.
But then, she moved her head, and her eyes fluttered open.
“Franki?” she whispered.
“Katy.” I flung myself onto her, pulling her up and wrapping my arms around her.
Slowly, she hugged me back, still groggy and disoriented.
“What’s happened?” she asked. “Where are we?”
“Do you remember anything about the night you were supposed to come to Venom?” I asked. “Being attacked at the apartment?”
She shook her head. “I was attacked?” she asked. “By who?”
“The crows,” I said. “My family. They were trying to get to me, so they used you. They put you into this sleeping curse.”
Her eyes widened, and she tried to stand. “How long have I been like this?” she asked, her voice in a panic. “We’ve got finals. Everything rides on this, Franki. And my parents must be freaking out by now.”
Worrying about final exams was so far from my mind right now, but for Katy, it was still the most important thing.
“It’s been a few days,” I said, placing my hand on her arm to calm her down. “Finals haven’t started yet, so there’s still time, and I already texted your parents. They think you’ve just been studying a lot.”
She took a deep breath and let it out, her shoulders r
elaxing, but then her eyes locked on the stone embedded in my chest. Her hand fluttered toward it and pulled back.
“What is that?” she asked, terror in her trembling voice. “Please tell me they didn’t actually get to you, somehow? You’re okay, aren’t you?”
I glanced up at Rend, shaking my head. This wasn't going to be easy to explain to someone who was already disoriented.
“She’s going to be fine,” Rend said. “We’re just glad you’re awake. You have no idea how worried we’ve been. Come on, if you think you can walk, let’s all go downstairs and get something to eat. It will make you feel better.”
“Coffee,” she said. “Lots and lots of coffee.”
She took my hand, and I helped her stand up. Her legs wobbled at first, but she soon got her balance and walked normally.
As soon as we stepped into the hallway and headed toward the grand staircase, she stopped and put her hand on her heart.
“Dear God, where did you say we are again?”
She glanced over at the large windows overlooking the snow-capped mountains and reached out to grab the railing.
“Are we in the mountains?”
“This is my home,” Rend said. “You’re safe here.”
“Holy shitballs. This is where you’ve been living?” she asked me, slapping my arm. “You didn’t tell me your boyfriend lived in a freaking castle.”
I laughed. God, it felt good to have Katy awake and teasing me all over again.
It made me feel normal again for just a little while.
As we made our way down to the kitchen to join the others, I pushed the journal into the back of my jeans again. I needed to find time to look for the transfer spell, but I also wanted to bask in the joy of spending a little time with the people I loved most in this world.
My best friend. Rend. My half-brother. My mother. It was like a dream come true, except for the damn stone that was now permanently attached to my body.
“Katy, there’s someone very important I would like for you to meet,” I said as we walked into the kitchen. “This is my mother, Mary Kathryn.”
“You can’t be serious?” she asked, throwing herself at my mother who laughed and opened her eyes wider. “You have no idea how exciting it is to finally meet you. How long was I sleeping if you managed to find your mother? Are you sure it’s only been a few days?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” I said. “And I’ll tell you everything just as soon as you’re settled and have had some food.”
Silas had already started cooking, and the kitchen was filled with the wonderful smells of bacon and pancakes. I had no idea what time it was here in the Alps, and I didn’t care. Breakfast—especially one with no sleeping drugs in it—sounded amazing.
The six of us sat around Rend’s large dining table to eat a few minutes later.
Under any other circumstances this would have been an amazing breakfast, sharing stories and laughing together. Getting to know my mother.
Being happy.
But as I reached up to touch the black stone embedded near my heart, I realized that unless we found a way to break this connection, I might never know true happiness again.
An Offering
Rend
We ate quickly, sharing a little bit of small talk with Katy asking a ton of questions about Franki’s mom, but I couldn’t help but notice Franki’s hand kept touching the stone in her chest.
We were running out of time, and we needed to talk about what we were going to do.
But what could we possibly do now? I’d been trying to stay focused on one thing at a time. Rescue Mary Kathryn. Get Franki safely home.
But now, we were down to the impossible task of trying to figure out how to kill the Mother Crow without killing Franki.
And I had no idea how to pull this off.
When everyone finished eating, I suggested we all sit down in the living room together to talk.
“What’s going on?” Katy asked. “Why does everyone look so serious?”
Franki glanced at me, and I could tell she didn’t want her friend to know the truth, but what choice did we have? We couldn’t very well just send Katy home thinking that everything was happy and good here.
“You guys go on into the living room,” she said. “I want to talk to Rend for a second.”
The others disappeared into the next room, and I stepped into the main part of the kitchen with Franki.
“I don’t want to get Katy any more involved in this than she already is,” she said. “Now that I know she’s going to be okay, I think maybe we should just send her home. Let her think all she needs to focus on is studying for finals. She doesn’t need to be a part of this.”
“It’s your choice,” I said. “But if my friend was going through something like this and didn’t tell me, I would be furious and hurt. She’s a part of this, whether you want her to be or not.”
Franki looked down at her feet for a moment before nodding.
“Okay, I’ll tell her the truth, but I just want to make sure she stays safe. If this comes down to a fight in the end, or if we can’t figure out how to save my life, I don’t want her anywhere near me when the time comes, you understand?”
“I do,” I said. “Come on, let’s go figure out our next steps.”
I led her into the living room where the others had each taken places on the couch and the side chairs. Franki and I stepped in front of the large fireplace.
I took her hand as she explained to her best friend exactly what the stone in her chest meant. Katy broke down into sobs, and Franki’s mother held her as she cried.
Franki joined them on the couch, the three women holding onto each other for a long time before Katy finally spoke again.
“What are we going to do?” she asked. “Can’t we just kill that bitch before the transfer happens? What kind of madness is this? I don’t understand how someone can be so evil.”
“That’s exactly what we need to discuss,” I said. “We need to go through every possible option. The more creative, the better. I don’t care if something sounds insane or stupid in your head, say it out loud. We need to think through every possible angle here.”
“And no, we can’t just kill her before the transfer,” Franki said. “If she dies, I die.”
Katy cursed and closed her eyes. When she finally opened them, she looked at me.
“You said she was going to be fine,” she said.
“She is. We have to believe that, Katy.”
“Well, this doesn’t seem fine to me,” she said. “If the spell can’t be broken and we can’t kill her without killing Franki, what does that leave us with?”
Franki took the journal she’d been looking at earlier out of the back of her jeans and flipped through it.
“This is the Mother Crow’s personal journal,” she explained. “She wrote down all of her most important spells in this book, and I managed to steal it before I left. But please be careful not to touch it, or it will probably kill you.”
She threw a warning glance at Silas, who nodded.
“What does it say about this transfer spell?” he asked.
“That’s what I’m looking for now,” she said. “Here it is.”
She ran a fingertip back and forth across the page as she read, and when she finally looked up at me, she shook her head, her shoulders going slack.
“What the others told me seems to be true,” she said. “The only person who can release the spell or put an end to it is the person who created this stone and activated it with their spirit. The Mother Crow.”
“But if you’re so closely connected to her that you can hold that book, maybe you can reverse the spell, too,” Silas said. “Does it explain how to reverse it?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll give it a try, but I don’t think the Mother Crow would have ever let me leave the village with this book if it was going to be that easy for us.”
She stood, the book open in one hand, and placed her free hand on her chest.
> “Sacrificium tuum, quod non requiratur,” she said.
When nothing happened, she tried again, closing her eyes and speaking the words more confidently.
I waited, holding my breath and praying that the effect was simply delayed, the way it had been with Katy.
No one spoke. We all kept our eyes locked on Franki, waiting.
After a long while, she opened her eyes and shook her head.
“It has to be the Mother Crow,” she said. “And by the time there’s enough of her inside of me to reverse this spell, I’m afraid there will be nothing of me left at all.”
She sat back down, a look of pure terror on her face.
My heart nearly broke watching her. She was losing hope. I could see it in her eyes. Instead of looking for answers, she was already thinking about the end. About what would happen to her once the Mother Crow had taken over.
But I refused to give up so easily. There had to be a way out of this.
“Okay, so we get creative,” I said. “Does anyone have an idea? Anything that might help us convince the Mother Crow to release Franki from this spell?”
“She’s a woman motivated only by her own desires,” Mary Kathryn said. “She’s not going to be threatened into giving Franki up. Not the way you tried to threaten her back at the village. She’d let her entire line die out before she’d give up the opportunity to have a young, powerful body of her own again.”
“Then we need to figure out what matters more to her than getting Franki’s body and her power,” I said.
“Her body has been decaying for several decades,” Mary Kathryn said. “That has to be one of her top priorities, if not the very top. Immortality and power are the only things that really matter to her, and without a healthy body, she has neither.”
Franki stood and started pacing the floor behind the couch as we continued to talk through ideas. She opened the journal of spells and flipped through it again, and even though I was listening to what everyone else was saying, I kept my eyes on her, wondering what thoughts were going through her head.
Connery suggested taking the crow village by force. Threatening to kill everyone, including the Mother Crow and Franki.
