3
For better or worse, the grimoire had change of address labels to order.
The book came to me when called from the pendant, and it returned to its static oasis when banished.
Both of which made me highly suspicious.
The grimoire wasn’t known for doing what it was told, and I hadn’t had luck forcing my will on it either.
“Are you going to spend the whole trip scowling at your boobs, Dollface?”
A moth-sized cackle reached me as Clay’s fan club of one encouraged his bad behavior.
Hand rising to my throat, I touched the pendant through my tee. “I’m not scowling at my boobs.”
A loud sigh told me he had plugged Colby in so he could broach more adult topics.
“Now you’re fondling yourself. Ace not doing it often enough for you?” Scooting forward, he pressed lips to my ear. “P.S. That’s not the problem, and we both know it. I’ve got permanent blind spots seared onto my retinas from walking in on you two lust birds in the kitchen. With the twine. So, spill. What’s wrong? You’ve been twitchy ever since we left.”
Guilt thickened my tongue, but I couldn’t admit the whole truth to Clay. Anything he knew, the director could compel him to confess. As a servant, he had no choice but to answer his master. Bad enough he knew about Dad and the grimoire, but that I couldn’t help. All my grandfather needed to learn was that I possessed contraband dark artifacts. Let alone that they could amplify one another.
“I brought the grimoire.” I lifted the necklace, ready to skate the truth. “I spelled it into this pendant.”
Better to give up the grimoire’s location than to confess to my stash of dark artifacts.
“That’s a neat trick.” His eyebrows winged higher. “You must have been working on that for a while.”
“That’s what Asa and I were doing earlier.” Skate, skate, skate. “I needed a second set of hands.”
“From what I’ve seen, that’s the last thing either of you need. You’re already like octopuses. Octopi? Whatever.” He flicked my earlobe. “Eight-armed grope machines that leave suction cup marks all over each other.”
“I’m not thrilled to have a new accessory, but it seems prudent.”
“You’re worried your dad isn’t being transparent about his reasons for visiting you.”
“No one is worried about Calixta breaking out of the swamp, which is weird, but okay. I get that the only way out for her is through the self-sacrifice of a relative, which leaves Dad and me. It’s a safe bet neither of us will off ourselves to set a total stranger free to wreak havoc, but I expected more than a solid eh across the board. It makes me wonder, you know?”
Out of everyone, I was the most concerned about her future potential for mayhem. Maybe the only one.
“Perhaps it was an excuse,” Asa offered. “Given the lethal nature of the animus vow, he knew it was cruel to show himself when he couldn’t survive the confrontation with his father. Perhaps he allowed himself to be swayed into visiting you, by telling himself someone ought to warn you off Calixta.”
Calixta Damaris, former High Queen of the Haelian Seas, and my grandmother.
As rough as my childhood had been, I had to wonder at Dad’s, if he was content with leaving his mother to spend eternity in a watery cage. Between that, and Aedan’s upbringing, I was pretty sure I should get my tubes tied before I risked adding to the catastrophe of being related to me.
“I’m not sure I do,” I admitted, “but I want to believe that.”
“We all do.” Clay tweaked my nose. “For your sake.”
“But I can’t.” I shifted forward in my seat. “What does that make me?”
Immediately, I began worrying the stone through my shirt, proving the compulsion on the pendant had a hold on me. Fantastic. It was burrowing into my subconscious, begging me to use it. The worst part? Not knowing if it was the tactile nature of the djinn’s former vessel urging me to rub it or simply the grimoire taunting me.
I didn’t want the grimoire digging its claws into me through prolonged exposure. The cage ought to contain it, but ought to was flimsy when it came to evil books bent on worldwide destruction seeping into your thoughts and influencing your actions.
“Until we know his motives,” Asa said, “it would be foolish to trust him fully.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t be psyched to have your dad back.” Clay settled back. “Who wouldn’t be?”