“I just wanted to make something clear, cupcake,” she told him, and his eyes widened fractionally as she grabbed him by the collar of his T-shirt, stood on her tiptoes, and pulled him down into a kiss.

His mouth was warm against hers: amazingly, he did not flinch or try to pull away. Of course, he might simply have been stunned, but Kami chose to enjoy the moment anyway, his body bowed down toward hers and hers arched up toward his, forming an easy natural curve.

For a moment things were sweet and simple, and then Kami leaned back and looked into Jared’s eyes. “I’m Determining the Relationship,” she told him in a low voice. “We’re going out. I refuse to be broken up with.”

She didn’t give him a chance to respond. She patted Jared on the shoulder, ignored Ash’s startled face and his startled feelings coursing through her, and walked back to the other side of the room, to Holly and the book. Holly’s face was the picture of dismay.

“That was very subtle,” she said, in a low voice. “And I—I think I found something here, about the spell for sharing power.”

Kami forgot that she was carefully not looking at Jared and devoted all her attention to the book, abandoning her page and laying it flat so Ash and Jared could see the spell and the picture.

“It says here it’s temporary,” said Ash. “We can cut it off any time we like. And there shouldn’t be any hearing each other’s thoughts, just—an emotional connection, which honestly is a lot less invasive than what we’re already dealing with.”

You flatterer, said Kami.

I can’t help being honest with you now, Ash said. I’m afraid it’s not that charming.

It wasn’t all that charming, Kami reflected, all confusion and distress, his every uncertainty and imperfection rained down on her with none of the guards she and Jared had built up between them and none of the way she and Jared had formed their faults around each other, their jagged edges fitting up against each other. Before they were linked, Ash’s enormous surface charm had been able to smooth out every interaction they had, made her forgive more easily or think of him as a safer, more attractive option when she was trying to make choices. Charm had made everything a lot easier, but this insight was probably better, if they were going to be real friends.

It’s a nice change, said Kami, and let him feel that she meant it. Do you want to make the link with Jared?

The spell looked simple enough to do. It was the pictures that shocked and frightened Kami: the knife, and the rope.

You’re not surprised, she said to Ash.

She could feel his calm resolve. He wanted to do the spell, and his comfort with all the weird wild world of magic seeped through her, stilling her own fears even as it made her slightly uneasy somewhere in the back of her mind where Ash had not yet invaded.

I expected it, Ash told her, so peaceful. A spell is like a promise. All words work best sealed with blood.

Chapter Eight

Visited upon the Sons
a Thousandfold

They did the spell that night.

It was better this way, Kami told herself. They had come to a decision, and there was no point wasting time worrying. They would do it, and deal with the consequences, whatever those consequences might be.

You are not being very soothing, said Ash.

It was as if they had changed places. She could feel his resentment of her fears, and she could feel his resolve. Ash wanted to be useful, to be wanted and loved, wanted it with such passion she could see why he might become a tool in anyone’s hand. She tried not to come too close to that need of his, as if it was a black hole that might swallow her. They tried to avoid the dark unlovable corners of each other’s hearts.

I know this is our best option, said Kami, which was all the comfort she could give.

She stood at the door with her father and looked inside at the room. Lillian’s bedroom was dim, tall candles creating tiny islands of light in a murky sea. Ash was sitting on the bed, which was draped with white sheets, and Jared sat on a low stool at the opposite side of the room.

Kami’s soul shriveled slightly at the idea of taking romantic action in front of her father, but she was determined to determine this relationship, so she left the doorway and walked over to where Jared was sitting. When he lifted his face to look up at her, she leaned down and kissed him.

“Hi there, dream canoe,” she said. She got hold of his arm and sat on his lap, drawing his arm around her—which he allowed, although she supposed the lack of resistance could mean he was in shock—so she had her back to whatever expression he made.

Sadly, she could still see the expression her father was making.

“Do you have any tattoos?” Dad asked Jared suspiciously.

“No!” said Jared, and added hastily, “Sir.”

Her father looked like he had further questions for Jared, and Kami did not have high hopes about the answers—history of violence, check; poor academics, check; leather jacket, check; motorcycle, check; despoiling his innocent daughter, no check but not for lack of trying—but then everyone’s attention turned to Lillian Lynburn, standing at the door to her balcony. Moonlight streamed in on her long fair hair and the long sharp knife in her hand, surrounding them both with a silvery halo.

Kami pressed her back into the warm solid line of Jared’s chest.

“It’s a pity that Rob has our Lynburn knives,” Lillian said. “But any knife can be cursed or blessed.”

“Right, but can any knife be disinfected?” asked Jon. “Specifically, was this one?”

Lillian smiled thinly, holding her knife up to the moonlight so the metal glittered. She looked ready to use it, and Kami presumed she was.

Nobody else was coming. When asked if they wanted to see the Lynburn boys cut up and tied up, Holly had weakly claimed that she was absorbed in studying, Angela had said a flat no, and Rusty had assured them all that he would be washing his hair.

“You want to come downstairs with me, Henry?” Jon asked sympathetically.

Henry Thornton was standing in one corner of the room and looking pale, but he shook his head. “I’ve never seen this kind of spell performed before. I’m very interested to watch.”

Jon lifted his eyebrows. “Okay. Note to self: sorcerers are freaks every day of the week. Are you sure you want to stay, sweetheart? Or do you want me to stay with you?”

Kami looked up at her father. Dad looked back, his gaze steady: she knew he would stay if she wanted, and hold her if anything went wrong. And she knew that magic was new and strange, more terrifying to him than her.

“Nah, Dad, I’m good. Please leave me in this hotel bedroom with my handsome boyfriend. And several of his relatives, and a very sharp weapon.”

“Clearly I went badly wrong somewhere when raising you,” said Dad. “Well, best to go down before Tomo gets into the vodka.”

He pulled a lock of Kami’s hair gently, then fixed Jared with a deeply suspicious stare, which he maintained until he had backed out of the room.

The door closing softly behind him seemed to be the cue for the sorcerers to act. Lillian drew the knife up to her face, leaning the sharp edge against her forehead and her lips as she murmured. Ash got up, his nerves fraying the edges of Kami’s nerves, like two exposed wires sparking together. Kami tried to be calm and spread calm to Ash, and she felt Jared tense slightly more against her body.

“Good luck with your horrifying blood-and-knives spell, pumpkin blossom,” Kami said, unlooping his arm from around her waist and standing up so he could. She dropped a kiss on the side of his mouth as she did so.

Jared paused and then said, “Thanks.”

That was almost encouragement, Kami thought. She didn’t even know where the dumb terms of endearment had come from, except from her inherent terror of being serious about anything, but they appeared to have the effect of a stun gun on Jared. They worked when nothing else had worked, and she had to use what she had.

Kami wondered if she should count it as a victory that he did not seem to be actively attempting to foil her plan of going out with him. Of course, he wasn’t actively participating in it either, so maybe it was a draw.

Lillian ran her blood-red nails along the shining surface of the knife.

“Kneel down,” she told her boys, “and bare your arms.”

“Good thing I wore a wifebeater,” said Jared, looking back to exchange a brief smile with Kami. “Because there is no way I’m doing this shirtless.”

Ash undid the button of his shirt cuff, rolling it up well past his elbow. Jared went over to the table beside the door and picked up the small coil lying there, unwinding the thin rough length of rope quickly between his hands.

“Be careful not to cut along the artery,” Lillian commanded. She walked over to the end of the bed, where Ash sat, and handed him the knife.

Ash looked up at her, face na**d and unguarded in the moonlight, obviously seeking reassurance. Lillian met his gaze for an instant, her face calm and still as a statue’s, touched by moonlight but not emotion. She turned and walked back toward the balcony door, where she stood outlined, an impassive silver silhouette against the glass.

Ash knelt slowly on the rug at the foot of the bed, in the circle of lamplight. Kami could sense how alone he felt, as though the circle of light was an island far away from anyone, because nobody cared enough to cross the floor and go over to him.

Compassion flooded Kami, so overwhelming and warm it felt for a moment like passion. Ash’s face and heart both turned to her, as toward the sun. He looked like a young poet with his gilded hair and rumpled shirt, and his eyes bright with hope.

Kami lost sight of Ash for an instant as Jared walked across the bedroom rug toward him, casting a shadow on Ash’s face. She looked at Jared and saw him looking back at her, just a glimpse of his cool eyes for a brief instant before he glanced back at Ash, and she knew with a sinking feeling that he was putting the way Kami had leaned forward and Ash’s uplifted expression together. He towered over the kneeling Ash.

“You all right?” he asked Ash, voice gruff with discomfort at evincing any evidence of concern.

Kami found herself smiling at the same time as feeling a pang. It felt viscerally wrong, being in this position, slightly intimidated by Jared from the outside when she should not be outside at all. She should never be surprised by his lurking secret kindness, because she should always be wrapped in it.

It had been months since she had linked with Ash: months and months since she had broken the link with Jared. It should be something she was used to by now.

But she could feel Ash’s fondness for Jared too. She smiled at Jared’s back, then saw the knife in Ash’s hand and stopped smiling.

Ash swallowed and said, “I’m all right. I’m only worried I’m going to forget the lines.”

“It is not the words that matter,” said Lillian. “It is the intent. And the blood, of course.”

“Thank you, Aunt Lillian,” said Jared dryly. “You always know just what to say.”

A faint smile crossed Ash’s face. He offered Jared the knife.

Jared knelt down, rope wrapped around his fist, and took the knife in his free hand. Ash took a deep breath in the hush and offered up his arm, veins long twining lines of pale blue under his skin, so white it was almost glowing in the low light.

Jared turned the knife with a flick of his wrist that looked disturbingly expert, laid the point against Ash’s arm, and drew the keen edge along his skin. The skin parted, simple and easy, and for a moment the blood was beads of red against white.

Until the gleaming drops turned into a stream, then a river, of red.

Kami felt the pain strike through Ash, saw his expression contort and heard the low sound of pain he made, before he buried his face in Jared’s shoulder. Kami saw the shudders run through his kneeling body.

Jared’s hand, the one holding the rope and the knife, hovered over Ash’s hair in an unfulfilled gesture of comfort.