Nora squeaked. Catherine drew her closer. I felt the fear roll off both of them in waves.
Scarlette started laying out jars, arranging each one just so. “It works like this,” she said, speaking to us but really just narrating her own actions. “The circle keeps us anchored. The herbs blunt the edges. The blood does the rest.”
Moab spat into the grass. “Always with the blood.”
“Always,” Scarlette agreed. She pointed to my arm, where the shamrock tattoo was still crusted with old blood. “Yours first, Toolie. Then Catherine. Then whoever wants to follow.”
Maeve made a disgusted noise, but didn’t leave.
Mama Celeste fished a bone needle from her pocket and beckoned me forward. I didn’t hesitate. After everything, what was one more scar? She pricked my palm, then Catherine’s, then smeared both with a handful of salt and herb. The sting was sharp, almost electric, and for a second I thought my heart stopped.
Celeste’s eyes went black, pupil swallowing iris. She held our hands together over a bowl, let the blood drip, then whispered words in a language I didn’t know. The wind picked up, scattering the candle flames. The grass outside the circle rattled, alive with invisible feet.
I looked at Catherine. Her lips were blue, but her eyes were clear, fixed on the sky above.
“Don’t let go,” I said.
“Never,” she whispered.
Moab stood sentry at the edge of the circle, knife drawn. Scarlette kept working, adding more powder, more salt, burning old scraps of paper, and tossing them into the bowl.
“Why does it smell like piss?” Moab muttered.
“Because you’re standing next to a graveyard, and you’re an asshole,” Scarlette shot back.
Even Mama Celeste smiled at that, a quick flash of teeth.
I felt the world tip. The shadows around the headstones got deeper, black eating at the edges of everything. The mist thickened, curling around our feet, sneaking up over the stones, and winding through the branches. The air was cold and dry, and I felt every rib, every stitch of pain from the last week.
Mama Celeste intoned, “The Veil is thin. Speak your truths. Leave nothing behind.”
I looked at Catherine, then at the others. “If we do this,” I said, “we don’t go back. Not to the old world, not to the old rules. Whatever waits for us on the other side—it’s ours, not theirs.”
Scarlette nodded, solemn. “That’s the point.”
Moab kept scanning the tree line, eyes never resting. “If we have to fight, we fight.”
Maeve sneered. “You always want a fight, don’t you?”
Moab looked at her, not smiling. “It’s better than waiting to die.”
Silence. Even the wind quit. The only sound left was the hiss of the candles, the tick of cooling sweat on my skin, the pulse in my wrist, slow and regular.
Mama Celeste drew a pattern in the air, fingers trailing blue sparks. “It’s time.”
Scarlette handed out slips of paper, one for each of us in the circle. “Write your name,” she said, “and one thing you never want to lose.”
Catherine watched me, then wrote her own. Nora did, too, tongue poked out in concentration. Scarlette finished hers in two seconds flat.
Mama Celeste collected them, one by one, then burned each slip in the flame. The smoke curled up, thick and sweet, leaving a taste of something like clove on my tongue.
“The circle is set,” Celeste announced. “Now we wait.”
We waited. The world hung in the balance, the stars pulsing overhead, the wind dead, the air so clear I could see my own reflection in the black of Catherine’s eyes.
That was when the noise started in the trees. Not loud, but heavy. Bootfalls, and the sound of something breaking through the bramble. Moab went rigid, all senses tuned to kill.
“They’re coming,” he said, voice notched up a half-step.