Page 243 of The Broken Aztec Princesses

I didn’t know how much time Bells has left and we’d found nothing but theories that didn’t connect. This was our only hope so far.

Violet printed two copies of the pages Zi sent. I set them down on the table and went to grab our food. I heated up the breakfastburritos James left for us, and brought them back into the room. We ate in silence as we started looking over the pages.

“Aunt Nat is going to Cade tomorrow morning. I want to head over to Cade’s before lunch to tell him about Bells, so he’s not blindsided if Aunt Nat mentions it. Maybe around ten thirty. Wanna go with me?”

“Of course,” I answered.

As if there was anything that could stop me from following her to the ends of the earth, if necessary. If we didn’t have a pup on the way, I’d consider quitting just so I could spend every moment with her.

“Goddess, what the heck was this woman doing?” Violet whispered under her breath.

“Huh?” I asked, wondering what made her whisper that.

It all looked pretty bad to me.

“I think this is why Vesta couldn’t use her magic in Montana.” Violet showed me one of the pages and I flipped through my stack, until I found it and read it.

“This is a really big spell. How could she keep it going for so long?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe that’s why the pack was so broke, though,” she suggested.

That was possible. I hadn’t understood why the pack didn’t have any reserve funds, when they sold as much wine as Bells had on order to ship out, before it blew up. “But, it makes sense. This spell blocks everything. It blocks magic users. It blocks scents outside of its radius. I bet it’s what stopped the guardians from being able to sense her. Vesta said Martha had been gone for years.”

“How did she find her, then?”

“Because Martha was inside the circle herself. When she got injured by Hugh and Vesta could smell her after she shed blood? Remember what Elim said? When he checked the pack borders,he could smell scent markers while he was inside, but the moment he walked across it, they disappeared. It’s almost like my shield but over the entire pack.”

“Except, your magic is natural. There’s nothing natural about this.”

“Yeah. What a despicable woman. I don’t even want to imagine where she got all the blood she needed to keep it going for so long.”

I looked at the diagram in the picture and pulled out my phone.

“What are you doing?”

“This symbol here looks familiar,” I answered, pointing at the diagram. “I’m trying to see if I caught it on video.”

“Video?”

“When we found her secret room. I recorded the whole thing just in case.”

“Just in case, what?”

I shifted at her question, feeling a little silly voicing it out loud.

“In case something happened.”

Violet stared at me, trying to figure out what I meant before she giggled, and I felt the blush on my face.

“We watch too many horror movies,” she laughed. “But, maybe it will come in handy. Let me see?”

I put the phone between us and pressed play. We were only thirty seconds in when I paused it.

“That one.” I pointed to the corner of the video. It was a little blurry, but the shape of the diagram was clear. I folded the page and set it aside. When the next piece of the altar became visible, I stopped it and began flipping through the pictures, trying to find it.

“Oh look, this one with Bells’ bracelet,” I pointed out, then held out one of the pages. “It’s to isolate her from her loved ones.”

“Poor Bells,” Violet sniffled, and I kissed her temple.

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