Page 18 of Ghost With the Most
“Nice locket,” she said coolly, eyeing the object around Ramsay’s neck. “Let me guess. Soul anchor? Little side hustle in death magic?”
He was sweating now, his perfect hair clinging to his forehead, the glamour around his face fraying like old silk. “Stay back,” he warned.
Zelda ignored him. “You know, it’s always the men with antique jewelry and unresolved daddy issues.”
I moved while he was distracted, darting to the side and flanking him. “You should’ve destroyed the locket,” I said. “You should’ve let Beau go.”
His gaze snapped to me, frantic now. “I needed him. You don’t understand. I was this close… I could feel the veil thinning. With Beau’s tether, I could’ve broken through.”
“To what?” I demanded. “What the hell were you trying to get to on the other side?”
He hesitated. Just long enough to look haunted.
“My wife,” he said, voice cracking like old paper. “She died last year. Sudden. Unfinished. Gigi promised if I could open a channel, if I had the right anchor?—”
“You killed someone,” I said, stepping forward, fury burning hot under my ribs. “You used Beau like a key to the afterlife! Do you know what that does to a soul? What it costs?”
His expression twisted. “It was supposed to be temporary.”
Zelda scoffed behind me. “That’s what they always say. ‘It was just a little necromantic tethering, officer.’ ‘I only borrowed his soul.’”
I ignored her. My focus stayed locked on Ramsay as he sagged slightly, the magic in the locket dimming in his hand. The fight was leaking out of him. Not remorse. He didn’t have the guts for that. Just exhaustion. Maybe shame.
“Open the locket,” I said, lifting the obsidian shard. “Let him go.”
He looked between the two of us. For one strange, silent moment, I saw something real flicker behind his eyes. Not grief. Not madness. But something worse. Hope.
Then he flung the locket into the air and made a break for it.
“Oh hell no,” Zelda said, and launched a containment spell like a hand grenade. The room bloomed with pink light, and Ramsay went flying into the nearest bookshelf.
The locket hit the ground with a clatter, and I dove. I could feel its pull, sharp and instinctive, like gravity gone feral. It thrummed through the floorboards and up my boots, vibrating in my molars like a tuning fork held too close. Something ancient lived inside that charm now, something that shouldn’t have been awakened. The moment my fingers closed around it, the world tilted. Heat surged through my chest, and a sound like tearing denim ripped through the air, echoing from every wall. The sound of a soul unhooking. Untethering.
Beau.
And then silence.
I sat there, panting, the locket now cold in my palm, my obsidian shard cracked in half beside it.
Zelda walked over and crouched beside me. “You okay?”
I nodded slowly. “I think... I think he’s free.”
She looked at the locket, now dull and lifeless, then at the wreckage around us. “Well,” she said. “That’s one way to serve justice.”
Zelda stayed crouched on the floor, her fingers moving fast, smearing glowing runes across the wood in a language older than fire. The glyphs bled gold, then violet, and then burned a hot white that made the edges of reality twitch. Sweat beaded along her hairline. Her mouth moved faster than her hands, whispering incantations under her breath with the speed and sharpness of someone who couldn’t afford a single syllable out of place.
The room buckled with residual energy, the air charged and cracking like a summer storm held in a bell jar. Static danced across my skin, a prickling warning that something foundational had shifted. Everything smelled like scorched ozone and spellfire, undercut by the coppery tang of unraveling magic. The wallpaper, already peeling in tragic floral motifs, began to blister at the edges, curling as if recoiling from the magic saturating the air.
And then Ramsay started to peel himself up off the floor.
“Ivy!” Zelda barked without looking up. “Don’t let him get away.”
I blinked and then pivoted into motion, my Converse slipping just slightly on a floor that was now humming like a live wire. But Ramsay wasn’t going to get very far.
He skidded on the warped wood floor, face pale and drawn, sweat freezing to his temples as the temperature dropped another ten degrees. His breath fogged in the air, hands trembling like a compass needle with nowhere to point. He wheeled around, breath coming in ragged puffs. “You don’t understand,” he hissed, voice cracking. “I was close. I could’ve breached the veil. She was there, I felt her. My wife…”
“Don’t,” I said flatly, my voice cutting sharper than I intended. “Don’t you dare pretend you did this for love.”
