Page 16 of Immortal Sins
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An oversized t-shirthooks around my ankle, and I shake it off with a scoff. Jeremy’s cluttered room has somehow become our rebel base. You’d think the wolf would have learned to pick his clothes up off the floor, but nooooooo.
Thursday night rolled around too quickly.
“Lydia and I checked the cabin this morning for active enchantments, and the place lit up like a fortress. The horn must be there. The seedling bloomed. I’m ready to cast the upside-down spell,” I say to the group.
Jeremy and Lydia are sitting on the bed, as usual, while Brie swivels in the desk chair. Flynn sneers by the door like he’s repulsed by the mess.
Lydia checks the spell’s ingredients one by one on a piece of parchment. “We should split. Two of us will go with Jules while the others make sure Oz is still in his office.”
Flynn steals the list from Lydia’s hands. “I’m with the mortal. I want to know what else the dragon is hiding.”
Brie tilts her hip to the side. “If I didn’t know any better, I would believe the rumors.”
“What rumors?” Flynn asks.
Tongue tucked below her right canine, Brie grins and takes a dramatic pause. “That you’re encroaching on crown-land.”
Flynn glances up from the parchment with a grin—feral and dry. “Must suck to reside in neutral territory.”
Brie flips him off.
Lydia packs up the cauldron and spell gear. “It’s settled. Brie and Jeremy can go to the office and keep an eye on Oz.”
“I’ll go.” The mermaid answers, her pointed gaze fixed on the wolf. “Alone.”
Jeremy growls in response.
Lydia, Flynn, and I hike from Night Hall to the trail that loops closest to Oz’s cabin. Ferns sprinkle our path with the earthy scent of fresh dew while melted snow rustles down the streams and brooks from the mountain. My boots leave deep imprints in the mud. Spring at Dark Falls comes quicker than I’m used to, but it’s also messier, like most things about this damn school.
Once we arrive within view of the cabin, Lydia holds Cole’s Fae grimoire open to the right page, and I unpack the ingredients. Flynn sets up the cauldron.
I’ve prepared the spell and studied the steps. Compared to the work Cole and I did last quarter, it’s going to be quick. Either the upside-down spell will allow me to see through the ether, or I’ll go down like a rock.
After offering the Fae seedling one last meal, I pluck the one-petal flower off its body, and the whole plant curtsies in reverence.
“Creepy,” Flynn says, inches from my face.
The proximity startles me. “Shh.”
He holds his palms up in front of him and gives me an inch to spare.
With a decisive nod, I crush the petal inside the mortar and stir it into Lydia’s cauldron. She adds in mistletoe and honey, along with a dash of lizard blood. The liquid turns bright red, and I scoop it up with a small silver ladle.
“Here goes.” I raise the potion to my lips.
Darkness thickens around me, and in an instant, Lydia and Flynn melt into the background.
The thick brown bark of the trees stretches into a blotch of muddy colors. I’m walking both in and on a cloud—a dream within a dream—shapes and sounds slightly askew.
The woods, the sky, my own feet…the whole world is murky as hell. Light blooms in patches around the cabin like my eyes blended with a thermal camera. I paw at the space in front of me.
“Are you okay?” Lydia holds me steady, her slender, feminine hand holding mine tight.
The cabin flashes in and out of view in synch with the rapid beats of my heart. Fluorescents prints appear on the wet grass in front of me as though my eyes are seeing every single footstep—human and animal—that was ever taken in front of the cabin. It’s too much information and colors for my brain to process. I blink rapidly and grab my forehead. “Whoa.”
A large, hot hand settles at the small of my back as Flynn asks, “What do you see?”
