Page 34 of Cherish

The Bloodletter gives me an arch look. “Can you, now? Even though everyone has said over and over that two souls cannot be separated once tied together?” She shifts her opposing knight to mirror my moved one.

I return her look with interest, and I can’t help wondering what she’s getting at. I know that when souls mate, they’re tied together, except… “My mating bond with Jaxon was severed.” I ignore the twinge at the memory of that painful separation as the Bloodletter’s eyes narrow. Intriguing.

I look away from the board, spend a minute taking in the restrained opulence of her sitting room as I give myself time to consider my next words. This is too important not to think through.

“Granted, our mating bond was an engineered bond, but still. The question is, would a spell performed by a time wizard not result in an engineered bond as well?”

When she doesn’t immediately answer, I start to move my bishop. But before I touch the more powerful piece, another glance at the board has me going for the pawn in front of my queen instead. I move it two spaces forward, then meet her gaze.

“And you think it did?” She moves her pawn to capture mine.

“I do.” I use my knight to take her pawn. “But that’s not the right question, is it? What I need to be asking is: Do you know how to undo it again?”

“Of course I do,” she answers, and I can tell she’s as startled by her words as I am. As if to offset the unscripted moment, she moves her untouched knight into position, putting pressure on both of my revealed pieces. “However, their bond was created with dark magic. It’ll take something very, very powerful to break it.”

“How powerful?”

She inclines her head. “You’re still asking the wrong question, Grace.”

“Right.” I take a deep breath and consider thoroughly before trying again. “It isn’t about how much power is needed. It’s about what it will take to capture that power,” I tell her, grinning as I reach out and take one of her knights with mine. “Luckily, I am just as relentless as my grandmother.”

She leans back in her chair and studies me, the board—and our game—forgotten.

Eventually, though, she nods and says, “I can see that you are, Grace. So I will warn you that two souls bonded by dark magic for this long may be impossible to break apart—”

I start to interrupt, but she waves a hand for silence.

“I saidmaybe impossible, Grace.” She sighs. “It will definitely be more dangerous than you believe. But I know if I don’t tell you, you’ll do something even riskier trying to find out.”

“I would do anything to save Mekhi,” I say, crossing my arms.

She nods. “As you should.”

My eyebrows shoot up. Well, that was unexpected.

“What?” she asks. “I assure you, loyalty is a trait I value greatly, Grace.”

“As you should,” I repeat back to her, and I can tell I’ve impressed her. “So what will it take to break this bond?”

“Celestial Dew,” she says as though the answer was as simple as sipping a soda. “One of the twins needs only drink it. Now, the getting of it is a whole other matter.”

I can’t help it. My heart races with unexpected hope. Celestial Dew is an item, and my friends and I are very good at fetching items from impossible places. How hard could it be? “Where can we find this Dew?”

“Near the Bittersweet Tree, of course,” she answers. “But first, you’ll need to go see the Curator and make an impossible trade for the location. The Bittersweet Tree vanishes and moves by the whim of the stars, and only the Curator knows the location at any given time.”

An old idiom pops into my head, making me want to jump up and blurt out that I need to see a man about a dog, but I don’t think my grandmother would get the joke. Either way, this doesn’t seem as hard as she was making it sound earlier. Of course, if I’ve learned anything about this world, it’s thateverythingis harder than it seems.

“So first we need to go see this Curator—” I begin.

But the Bloodletter cuts in. “No, first you need to go to the Shadow Queen and make a bargain. You will trade the elixir—which may or may not work but is her only chance to save her daughters—in exchange for her healing Mekhi.”

I shake my head, getting up to pace the room. “Wouldn’t we have better luck making the deal if we had the elixir first?”

“She has an army and home-field advantage, Grace. What do you think?” She turns in her chair to watch me walk back and forth between a small love seat and a bookcase on the other side of the room.

She’s right. There’s nothing stopping the Shadow Queen from simply taking the elixir and then not helping Mekhi at all. Hell, after what happened the last time Hudson and I were in the Shadow Realm, she’s as likely to kill us all if given half a chance.

The Bloodletter’s gaze softens ever so slightly as she considers her next words. “I have to warn you, Grace. Celestials are immensely powerful. This item will not be easy to collect. You may not survive—none of you. And there is a war coming to this world, as I’m sure Artelya has told you already. A war we have a better chance of winning with you in it.”

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