Page 132 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
“You’re so full of shit—he was right about all of you.” Minna rubbed her hands together slowly, reminding Beatrice of when Astrid rolled the bloody threads into a ball in her palms. “I didn’t want to do this, but he was right. I have to.”
Minna began chanting the words of the auto-writing spell.
Fine, while she did that, maybe Beatrice could figure out how to get them both out of here—
But something was wrong. The spell was being said inside her own chest. Taurus was there, his voice reverberating against her lungs, mixing with Minna’s higher voice.
Beatrice’s own lips began to move. She pressed her fingers against her mouth, but she couldn’t stop the spell from slipping out between her teeth. “Bent canth ilno trill—”
Minna was helping him take over her body.
Maybe that had been his plan all along. He obviously couldn’t read her thoughts, or he’d already have seen the cursed sigil in her mind, so he needed her to write it down.
But she wouldn’t. If she had to throw herself against the marble walls until she knocked herself out, she would, and no matter what, she wouldn’t imagine—she wouldnotimagine—no, she wouldn’t—
Her hand cramped, and she looked down. Somehow, she was holding an old-fashioned fountain pen, dripping with dark red ink.
Minna kicked a notebook toward her, sliding it through the dust on the marble floor.
Fine. They wanted her to auto-write? She’d fake it, then.
She’d fake it so well that Taurus would believe it, and somehow she’d get Minna out of here if she had to grind through the stone walls with her teeth.
Dropping to sit cross-legged, she picked up the notebook. “I don’t know why you want this, but okay.”
She drew a square and then fit a slim oval into it. A peaked roof—the crypt, with Minna inside it. Maybe if she could draw a door crumbling to dust—
But the chant kept going, kept sounding inside her chest and,no, please, no, she wouldn’t—she wouldn’t
she wouldn’t imagine the pen slipping into the lock she wouldn’t—
no she couldn’t she wouldn’t—
A girl’s laugh bounced off the walls, and Beatrice’s eyes flew open.
She’d fucking done it, hadn’t she?
Yes. She knew she had, could feel the spent, empty place in her core. Looking down, she saw the full sigil, captured on the page. She’d drawn the sigil of the lost twin, the one that held the long-ago-stripped-away Velamen power.
Her fingers flexed and clutched, but she couldn’t hold on to the notebook—it was ripped out of her hands, flying across the small space into Minna’s hands.
Now Taurus had what he needed. Now Minna would be able to complete the tattoo.
It wouldn’t make any difference now if Beatrice tore the book away from her—Minna had seen it. That was all she needed.
The gun whined frantically. Minna glanced over her shoulder. “He’ll get to hug me,” she said almost apologetically. There she was again, the true Minna, the one Beatrice couldn’t lose. “It’s my first tattoo, Auntie Bea.”
“Please. Don’t do this.”
Minna grimaced as she pushed the needle against her skin. “It kinda hurts more than I thought it would.”
Of course it did. It was more than a tattoo—it was the curse that would bind Minna to him.
A rumble rose below the whine of the tattoo gun.
Taurus. Beatrice could feel him. The coldness. The sheer fury of him.
Minna blinked quickly, a tear streaking down her cheek. But she smiled. “He’s getting stronger.”
