Page 88 of Ignited Spirits
Levi walks through the rift first, followed by my wolves. Bishop waits with me. When I raise an eyebrow at him to go through, he shakes his head. “You first, sweetheart. I don’t like you being the first one or last one anywhere.”
“You’re wildly overprotective, St. James,” I grouse.
He smirks at me. “Yep, and it’s not changing anytime soon.”
At least he’s honest, I guess.
“We can go with you through the rift,sagana!” Russ’s exuberant voice sounds in my head.
My lips tilt up as I look down at myfamiliaris.They’re in their rottweiler form, which I’ve started to think of as their stock look, even though I know it’s not. I just see them most often like this.“Hey, guys. It’s always a good surprise when you show up.” I pause for a moment as I think about something. “Where is it that you guys go when you’re not with me?”
“Everywhere,”Cer rumbles.
“Here and there,”Bear comments noncommittally.
“To eat ice cream!”Russ’s enthusiastic voice cheers.
I snort at the three responses that sound in my head at the same time. The only thing I really know now is that my hell dog enjoys ice cream. Or at least one of his heads does. “So, do you guys wanna come with us? We’re going to talk to Anya, or I guess, Melinoe, as you know her.”
The three heads nod.“We will go with you,”Cer tells me in his signature gravelly voice.
With that settled, I walk through the rift and out into the familiar shop. A wave of nostalgia washes over me when I’m hit in the face with the familiar smell of medicinal herbs.
I’m back at the place where I spent so many years, and everything is the same as I remember it, from the counter where I stood for hours at a time, to the shelves lined with glass jars, to the various plants along the top shelves.
While it’s the same, I’ve changed. A lot.
I’m not the same Izzy that used to work here. I’m not the same girl who thought the council finding out about my magic was the end of the world or who dreaded finding her mates. I’mnot the same person who used to daydream about fading away, because I have so goddamn much to live for now.
“Isabel?” Anya’s weathered voice calls, breaking me out of my thoughts.
“Hi, Anya. Or Gran. Or Melinoe.” I pause uncertainly. “What am I supposed to call you?”
She chuckles, the sound raspy. “You can call me whatever you want, but Gran would be the most natural. Not that I don’t love seeing you, but why are you here?”
I grin at her blunt question.
“We need your help.” I turn around, looking for whoever has the journal. Archer pulls it out of his pocket and hands it to me. I open it to the right page and pass it to Gran. “We need to make this potion and figured you would be the right person to ask about it.”
She nods but doesn’t bother pulling down the spectacles perched on the top of her hair. I guess now that her secret is out, she doesn’t have to pretend to be affected by old age around me.
After reading through the spell, Gran pales. She flicks her gaze up to mine, her eyes shining with trepidation. “What do you need this spell for?”
I hesitate, worried Gran is going to tell me my plan is too unsafe. It is risky, but it’s less risky than letting Lua drain the earth. Sighing, I decide to just be honest. “It’s the spell Lua is using to drain mages. We want to use it to drain her.”
Her eyes go wide before she glances between the spell and me a few times. “This won’t work for what you want. It’s an old mage spell that requires mage magic to activate it and will currently only work on mages.”
My forehead wrinkles as I try to figure out what’s going on. “What? But it uses acuraartifact to work. And Lua’s currently using it.”
“She isn’t the one using the spell,” Gran informs me patiently. “And the potion doesn’t require anycuraartifacts to work. It’s an old-world spell that strips a person or mage-enchanted object of its magic, effectively killing them.”
I’m just incredibly confused now. “Okay, but how does that relate to the Styx blade? Levi looked through Giles’s memories, and they’re definitely using the potion to drain magic and the blade to help Lua store the stolen power.”
Gran thinks on it for a moment before asking, “Do you have a blade from the River Styx?”
“Yeah.” I resist the urge to pull it out of my dress to show it off. I’m still worried I’m going to accidentally kill someone with it.
“Then why do you need this potion so badly? Can’t you kill Lua by removing her soul with that blade?”
