Page 97 of A Dusk Of Stars

There’s one symbol with three of them and one symbol with just one. They’re on the opposite sides of the schematic, breaking the circle of the bloodlines’ symbols in half.

My eyebrows raise and then pull down. No way…

“Increase, decrease,” I mutter to myself.

My eyes rounding, I freeze, stay like that for a second, and then type, “Library, now,” to Alaric.

I keep sitting there, not knowing what to do with the excitement that’s flooding me.

Minutes go by in absolute silence.

“I think I’ve got it,” I say to my friends as soon as they appear from among the bookshelves and walk up to my desk, Raven blinking at me and Alaric frowning.

“What?” he mouths, although there’s no need, as the two of them are already taking their seats around me.

I slide the book closer to them, open on the bookmarked page. “The ritual, what it’s supposed to be. I think I know.”

Raven gives me another blink.

“And?” Alaric asks with bated breath.

With rushed movements, I lean a little forward and trace my finger along the bloodlines’ symbols. “So it really bothered me, why the bloodlines’ symbols are just repeating like this.” With my finger, I draw a line from one squiggly symbol to the other. “But then I came up with a possible interpretation of this set of symbols and it finally hit me.”

And I just keep looking at them with this growing smile on my face, until, after a moment of silence, I realize I haven’t actually said it. “Increase, decrease.”

“Now everything’s crystal clear,” Alaric says with gentle mockery in his voice.

I let out a laugh. “Sorry, let me try again. So if you work through the top symbols from right to left,” I explain, “you’re increasing the central symbol’s power. If you work through the bottom symbols from left to right, you’redecreasingit.”

“Um,” Alaric says, but with genuine interest, “say what again?”

It makes my heart pound, the very thought that I could be right. It’s in a low, excited voice that I say, “It’s a ritual for blocking Baldur’s power.”

Alaric’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh.”

“Yeah, I know,” I say, leaning back in my chair with a smug smile on my face.

Raven just looks at the symbols for a second. “But how do you…”

“Yeah, I don’t know exactly what to do,” I reply, turning serious. “But I need to find three items, three spells, or three separate rituals even, representing the three bloodlines.”

***

As usual, what shocks me out of sleep the next morning is the buzzing of my very own demon bracelet. I groan, pushing myself up in my bed just as my phone starts ringing on the nightstand.

“Urgent meeting,” a cold, serious voice sounds from the other side.

Lorcan.

Frowning, I hear him hang up and pull my phone away from my ear with this fear flooding my body.

I spring out of my bed and rush to the secret order room, finding Alaric and Raven already standing in front of the door. As soon as she spots me, Alaric opens it, the three of us exchange nods and walk inside, finding Lorcan standing next to his chair, waiting.

Where’s Bane with my coffee?

No, Anna, focus.

“What is it?” I ask as I walk up to the table.

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