Cody didn’t answer, too busy looking into Terric through the Sight spell in ways I couldn’t see. Well, I could see them, but I wouldn’t be able to puzzle them out the way Cody did.
“I see the Close spell that was used on him,” he finally said. “You might as well go do something. This will take me a minute to get a grip on it.” He closed his eyes, his lips moving as if pulling words from a long-forgotten text.
Terric looked up at me. “Go. Apologize to your mom. You know she’s worried.”
Since my other option was to stand there while Davy and Hayden glared at me, I went. Took me a couple of minutes to find her. She wasn’t down in the basement where the Blood magic well rested, hidden beneath the old marble. She wasn’t in the kitchen, or outside, or in the main part of the inn. I finally found her at home—the second-story addition on the inn where we had lived when I was younger and where she and Hayden were staying now.
I didn’t have to knock on the door. It was open.
“Mum?” I walked into the living room, across the honey brown wooden floors and throw rugs, into a space I knew as well as my childhood dreams. She was standing at the window, looking out, a locket in her hand.
I knew that locket, though I hadn’t seen it for a long time. It held a photo of her and my da from their wedding day.
“Who sent you here?” she asked.
“Hayden,” I said. “And Cody. And Terric. So: everyone.”
“I don’t want to hear the words they want you to say.”
I paused. It would be easier to go back. To turn around. There were so many things broken inside me, so many holes Death had chewed through my humanity, I was flailing for solid ground. The last thing I needed was to fight with my mum, or worse, to hurt her.
“So this is me,” I said. “And these are my words I want to say. I’m sorry for . . .”
What should I apologize for? Dying? Coming back to life? Being broken? Being willing to do anything to take Eli down, even if that put Terric at risk?
“Everything, I suppose,” I said. “Dying, it . . . rattled me, and I wasn’t all that steady to begin with. I know I’m alive-ish for a reason. Terric and I are the only ones who can take out the people who are trying to kill our friends. So I’m doing whatever it takes to see that it’s done. Finishing this fight.”
She didn’t say anything. I waited there as long as I could. Death magic twisted in me, painful, hungry for the life in front of it. Her life.
“So, we’ll be out of here soon. Love you, Mum.” I turned to go.
“Shamus,” she said, and I stopped in the doorway. She finally looked away from the window and turned toward me. “We aren’t done talking about this, understand? When we’ve helped Terric, and when you’ve taken care of whatever it is that is going on, you and I are going have a nice, long talk. For years.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “Sure, Mum.”
She crossed the distance between us and gave me a hug.
I clenched my teeth and gently wrapped my arms around her while Death magic stabbed at my brain.
“Good,” she said. “Now go finish this fight. We’ll talk later.”
• • •
“All right.” Cody opened his eyes. “Terric, I think you’ll want to be standing.”
“Hayden told me to sit.”
“That’s because I thought you’d be on your ass when we got done with you,” Hayden said. “But if Cody says stand, stand.”
“I’ll stand beside him.” Dash walked across the room and stood next to Terric. “I won’t get in the way unless you fall.”
“You could get in the way, a little,” Terric said.
Dash blinked back his surprise, glanced at me. I raised an eyebrow briefly. Yeah, that sounded like flirting to me too.
Maybe memory-less Terric had some advantages.
“Well, let’s start with getting back your old memories before we make any new ones,” Dash said.
“Fair enough,” Terric said.
“Shame.” Cody motioned me over. “Stand right here in front of Terric. I’ll stay at your right, and, Hayden, you can be there on his left. I’ll guide Shame’s hand through the spell. I don’t think a Closer cast the spell. Or if it was a Closer, he was sloppy. Too many inconsistencies. It’s no wonder there are holes in your memories, Terric.”
“Hurray?” Terric asked.
Cody nodded. “Not exactly cheer-worthy. Cleaner spells are easier to follow. This one’s . . . rough. Hayden, let me know if you see anything I’m missing.
“Your job, Shame, is to concentrate on what you want the spell to do—UnClose him—as you and I draw it. When the glyph is done, you’ll fill it with magic, his mind will unlock, and . . .” Cody snapped his fingers. “He’ll get his memories back.”
I glanced at Terric. “He might be oversimplifying things a bit.”
“Not my first ride at the carnival, Flynn,” he said. “Get cracking.”
“Is there a way to erase the bossy parts of him?”
Cody snorted.
I shook my hands, cleared my mind. The thing none of us was really talking about was that my control of Death magic was in the gutter right now. If we got through this without me killing someone just to ease the pressure and feed my hunger, I’d consider it a raging success.
I held up my right hand, ring and pinkie finger tucked loosely against my thumb, index and middle finger pressed against each other and extended.
“Closing,” Cody said, “is intention. It’s about the spell and the function of magic, but it’s also about the Closer’s intention. Know who did the Closing and why, half your work is done.”
“We don’t know who did the Closing,” I said.
Cody put his left hand on my shoulder, placed his fingertips on the back of my raised hand. “Sure we do,” he said.
“Sure we do?”
“Who?” Dash asked.
“Eli Collins.”
“Eli Collins ain’t no Closer,” Hayden said.
“I know,” Cody said happily. Yes, happily. The jerk was enjoying this. “That’s our break. That’s what we’re going to use to our advantage. Because I know his signature and could forge it blindfolded.”
“This,” Cody said, applying pressure on the back of my hand to raise my fingers level with Terric’s forehead, “is our beginning. Let’s take it to the end.”
Chapter 24
SHAME
It took an hour, with Cody’s fingers guiding mine, Hayden’s occasional interruption to tell us to angle the glyph one way or another, and my keeping my mind as clear and clean and focused as I could manage.
Holding Death away from every beating heart in the room was exhausting.
I was breathing hard after the first fifteen minutes. By the hour mark, I was covered in sweat, shaking, and so hungry I’d pulled Eleanor and Sunny up on such a tight leash they were almost standing in the same space with me. Only Hayden’s arm around my waist was keeping me on my feet.
Terric seemed to be doing pretty well so far. But then it wasn’t the prep for this spell that was going to knock his teeth out. It was when I poured magic into it.
“Almost done,” Cody said. “Just tie that line into the diagonal arc. Yes, that one.” He paused. “Okay, Shame, I think you have it, his UnClosing. Hayden, do you see anything we missed?”
He took his time looking through the glyph I had carved, a glyph that hovered in a milky white light in front of me like the flight paths of air traffic control over La Guardia.
“It’s good,” he said. “For what it is. Eli is no Closer. I wouldn’t know how to make it better.”
“So, cast?” I asked through my teeth. I was glad they were being extra careful, but I was counting down the seconds of consciousness here.
Terric was the one who answered. “Cast it, Shame.”