Page 107 of Possession

He watches me again, maybe hearing the hardened resolve in my voice. “What did he say to you?” Simon asks.

“Enough.” I pause a beat, wondering if I’ve pushed my only friend too far. “Will you help me or not?”

“I’ll help,” he says. “But I’ll need a large, open space. There might be something like that in the back.”

I nod, and the two of us quiet as we continue walking. The eyes of the shoppers seem to follow us, as if to tell me something. Is it to stop, to warn me of my recklessness? Or do they want me to hurry along?

“Why don’t you just get a wand?” Simon says, interrupting my thoughts. “I didn’t even know you were interested in magic.”

“I’m interested in protecting myself.” I mutter under my breath, “And only men in your stupid club can get wands.”

“Maybe the Grand Mage—”

“I’m sick of relying on other people. I want to be able to help myself for once,” I say, exasperated. “Can’t you understand that?”

He grows quiet. “Yeah,” he finally says. “I can.”

I glance at him, then quickly away. There’s a story there, but it’s clear he doesn’t feel comfortable sharing. Sometimes it strikes me just how little I know about Simon. He reminds me of friends from school, whose relationship never strayed from details about tests or homework.

It isn’t for a lack of trying on my part; I ask personal questions, but he only lets me in on surface-level thoughts. He’s personable, funny, and always has something to say, but he’s somewhat of an enigma.

There’s a lull in conversation as we head into an employee’s only area. Simon surveys it for a moment, before nodding and turning back to me. “Do you have anything she touched, any piece of her body?” He rolls his eyes at the look on my face. “Did you think I meant an eyeball? I’m talking about hair.”

“Oh, no.”

“This won’t be easy then. It’s kind of like throwing a line out to sea and hoping a fish bites. At the very least, I’ll need you to describe her to me. Put some bait on the hook.”

“Well, her name is Cera,” I tell him. “She’s blonde, kind of tall.”

“Sounds hot,” he notes.

“She’s a murderer, remember?”

“Oh, right.”

“She’s very… intense.” I pause for a second, remembering how she grabbed my arm. Aris was there to protect me last time. If I make her angry now, what’s to stop her from repeating what she did to Sergei—and this time, to me?

Simon seems to read my mind. “Are the two of you, uh, friendly?”

“I think she’ll hear me out instead of immediately going to kill me,” I say after a moment.

“Lovely.” He shakes his head and starts to shuffle around, dragging his foot.

I watch and realize that he’s making a circle. I saw Cera do something like this before, but Simon doesn’t take the time to draw intricate patterns; apparently, to him, only the shape is important. It’s come up several times in different types of summonings now. Can shapes have special meanings? I’ve heard of sacred geometry, along with crystals having energy and special properties. It sounded bogus to me before the Institute, but maybe there’s merit.

“Can only humans be summoned this way?” I ask, curious.

He glances at me briefly. “Are you referring to Aris?”

Jaegen, actually, but he doesn’t need to know that. “I’m not interested in trying it,” I say. “Just wondering if it’s possible.”

“Well, yeah, that’s how they trapped Aris in the first place.”

“What?”

“They summoned him to a concentrated area, by a nearby person—you—and stuck him inside. Don’t you remember?”

Yes, I remember.

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