Page 119 of Fallen Heirs

I wanted all four of us together in the same space, but things had been all over the place. First with me partially desiccating after the spell I’d performed to save my father and being put in a room to recover, then Ore needing a recovery space too, then the same with Alena. At least Tal’s room was right opposite mine so we hadn’t been that far apart.

I reached Alena’s door and listened outside, not wanting to knock if she was asleep.

I heard the turning of pages, a pen scrawling across paper, her shifting and a chair creaking.

Definitely still awake.

I knocked on the door and her voice rang out, telling me to come on in.

I opened the door and stepped inside.

As I closed it behind me, I took in Alena looking as sexy as ever in her turquoise satin pajama shorts and tank with the gold trim, her hair all mussed indicating that she’d been running her fingers through it repeatedly. She sat in an armchair over on the other side of the room by the window and adjacent to the bed. Her knees were pulled up and an aged-old book rested upon them. She had a pen in her hand and I noted that it had been chewed.

“You should be resting,” I reminded her, as I crossed the room to her.

“I’m sitting down.”

“Sleeping, Alena. Certainly not doing heavy reading—in the literal sense too.”

“It’s another one of my mom’s grimoires. Well, it’s part journal, part grimoire, really. She recounted everything about her use of her own magic in it, not just spells, but her own concerns about it too. There was a whole period, according to this, where she started to go a little dark and she stopped practicing for months on end.”

I sat down on the corner of the bed just a couple of feet from the chair. “What are you searching for?”

“A way to stop Lenora. A limitation to the magic she possesses of my mom’s.”

“And?”

She closed the book and rested it on her lap as she looked out at me. “As we know, the more she uses it, the more damage she’s doing to her body, because she’s not a celestial being. The problem is, that could take weeks or even months to come to pass if she only uses it in bursts like she has been so far. So the damage she could do in that time is unimaginable, even via bursts because it’s celestial magic we’re talking about.” She pushed out of the chair and put the book down on it. “If we attacked en masse, she’d have to use more of it, more than mere bursts. But she could kill every member ofObsidianin the process.”

“I agree, it’s not a feasible option.”

“Right. Now, in this book, my mom, when she was going through her dark period, researched ways in which she could get rid of her magic entirely.”

“Seriously? Abigail Rose without her magic?”

“Yeah, it was a really bad time for her. Shortly after my dad’s death.” She grimaced. “I just had no idea, she never showed it to me, never even mentioned that was how she was feeling.” She sucked in a breath. “But her doing that, always keeping things locked up tight is part of what led to her taking her life that night.”

“It’s certainly not helpful. As I’ve come to recognize personally.”

“Something I’m relieved about, sweet thing.” She sat down beside me and laid her hand on my thigh, stroking softly and sending a lovely warmth through me. “So, I considered one possibility and that’s siphoning enough of the magic to reduce her power level so me, Elliot, and Saryan can take her down together. But as a Nephilim, I don’t think I can. It could overwhelm me, with my human side being a factor.”

“You don’t need to save her for Orpheus. He understands. He knows what needs to be done. I just spoke with him and he’s making his peace with it. She almost killed him, Alena. There’s no forgiveness for that, especially when she showed absolutely no remorse, when she never has for any of her vile actions alongside Constantine. Besides, she’ll die anyway from wielding magic not meant for her.”

“Actually, there’s a way I can save her.”

“You can?”

“In that volume, my mom detailed a time when she considered lending Elliot her magic to wield and she found a way to protect him from the damage of it. I mean, it never came to pass and he doesn’t know about it, but from all the research I’ve done, the spell seems viable.”

“Let me see it.”

She hopped off the bed, went to the book, then flipped through it, finding the right page, before handing it over to me.

I took it in, the intricate wording and complicated phrasing, the binding elements, every little detail. And then I saw the price.

“No,” I said, closing the book and putting it down beside me.

“It’s not viable?”

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