Page 52 of Fallen Angel

“No, the flame knew to bring us down the staircases before. This must be the way.”

Hannah waited a moment, then felt her blood boiling with frustration again. She stomped her feet against the floor. “There’s nothing here.” She prodded the solid wall, then slapped her hands at her side. “Why would Mara be in the library? The spell didn’t work.”

Callan’s face twitched with worry, but instead of responding to Hannah, he hovered his hands over the floor.

“Let me find my lost desire, the one where flames did sway.

Show me now, the proper path, reveal the truest way.”

A square outline illuminated on the floor and a metal handle appeared at its edge.

“It’s a door?” Hannah asked.

“A hidden door. Mara must have enchanted it.” Callan reached for the handle, but Hannah clutched his arm.

“Wait. What are we going to do? We don’t have a plan.”

“The plan is to steal back the grimoire and end your curse.”

“That’s not a plan.”

Callan placed a hand on Hannah’s freckled cheek. “You do not have to worry,” he said. “I have a plan.”

He kissed her. There was an urgency in his kiss that worried her. What was Callan about to do? He pulled away and yanked open the door.

Beneath lay a winding stone staircase. Callan lowered himself inside. “Come on,” he whispered.

Hannah was careful to close the trap door above her quietly. They descended into an underground cave.

“I do not care how you get them here, just do it!” Mara shouted.

“Apologies, Mistress,” Nathaniel’s voice echoed. “But how do you propose I find them? Without a Siren…”

“They are witches from the sixteen-hundreds. They shan’t be too difficult to differentiate.”

Hannah and Callan paused on the last step. Hannah peeked from behind the pillar. Mara and Nathaniel stood in the open, cold space before a fire that burned in the middle of the slate floor. Candles illuminated the otherwise dark and damp cave.

How did Mara discover such a cave beneath the library? Did she create it? Had it always been here? Hadshealways been here?

Mara flipped through her grimoire. “If I am to tip the scales from good to evil,” Mara continued, “then now is the time to strike. This world does not yet know of magic. They would not know what was happening to them. I can already taste their fear. It would be seamless. Easy. Like a blank canvas asking to be painted black.”

Callan rolled back his shoulders and, without warning, stepped off the last ledge.

“Callan, what are you doing?” Hannah whisper-yelled after him. He ignored her. Despite being uncertain whether Callan wanted her to stay hidden or not, she was not about to let him face the Devil alone. She took a breath and followed him, trusting he had a plan.

Mara perked up at the sight of Hannah and Callan. Her surprise switched to a delighted smirk. “Those must have been some swift farewells,” she said, her voice taunt and smug.

“There shan’t be any farewells,” Callan said. The candlelight illuminated his warm skin.

“Is that so?” Mara asked.

“I have come to give you what you desire,” he said.

“Callan, what are you doing?” Hannah asked under her breath.

“I will serve you—allow you to compel me once again—in exchange for breaking Hannah’s curse. Allow Hannah to live past her eighteenth birthday, only to be reborn when she dies naturally, years from now, as an old woman, ready to pass on.”

Hannah’s mind reeled. If only he knew the sacrifice Raven made so that he could be free of Mara. While compromising Mara’s spell allowed Raven to be reincarnated, she willingly died and entered into this curse so that Callan would no longer be shackled by darkness. It was her bargain with the black magic being cast upon her. By surrendering himself to Mara, he was undoing what Raven wanted.

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