The Blood Spell (Ravenspire, #4)(100)
Blue lifted her hands and examined the blood that had dried on her palms. Her blood and Dinah’s. The same combination that had bonded Dinah’s blood to the volshkyn leaf in the kitchen.
That’s how Mama had done it. She’d bonded something to the wraith using Blue’s blood. Something that drove the wraith into the Wilds, where the lock was waiting to seal it away.
Maybe that’s why Blue’s magic had exploded when the wraith was near. She hadn’t been reaching for the monster. She’d been reaching for her own blood. For the magic that was compelling her to finish destroying the creature.
That gave her food for thought. She’d felt no compulsion to touch the dancing fern leaf that had bonded with the walla berry juice. No need to touch the gate where her blood had bound the spell that locked the wraith away.
What had Mama bound to the wraith itself? Something to weaken it so they could get it into the Wilds in the first place? Something to make sure if it escaped, Blue would be able to help track it down and deal with it? Whatever it was, Blue wasn’t going to ignore the magic that had ignited in her blood.
She had to trust that she held the key to destroying the monster. Now it was a matter of figuring out where the key was hidden. She turned to Lucian. “Help me gather a sample of everything that’s stored in here.”
“Everything?” His eyes widened.
“Everything. I need to make a potion to destroy the lock on the door, and I need to make a weapon to use against the wraith.”
They pushed the wooden chests in the center of the floor together to make a long worktable. Blue barely thought about where she was standing. She was far too busy cataloging her ingredients and putting them into groups—those that would bond well together and those that didn’t bond well with anything she currently had in stock. When it was organized, she rolled up her sleeves and got to work.
Hours passed. Blue’s stomach rumbled, a reminder that dinnertime had come and gone. She fought back a yawn as Lucian curled up to sleep on a stack of empty burlap bags. Blue couldn’t afford to fall asleep. Not when so many lives were at stake.
Blue’s eyes were gritty with exhaustion, and her muscles were stiff and sore by the time she had a potion capable of melting the door’s lock. She also had several other experiments resting in jars—bolla root and thresh with a dash of silver, carpa leaf and dancing fern with copper and fria stone, and a noxious-smelling stew of black moss, feringut, rose lead, and myrrh. All of them were decent weapons if she wanted to briefly paralyze the wraith or knock its power down a notch, but none of them would do what she needed.
None of them would kill the wraith.
“Is this ready?” Lucian held up the jar that contained the acid she’d made for the door lock.
“Put gloves on,” she chided. “And then yes, go pour it on the lock. Once the door opens, leave it open, but don’t go anywhere without me.”
The alluminae was fading, which meant they’d been trapped in the cellar for a full night and most of the following day. The wraith might already be ravaging the city, but Blue thought Dinah wanted something different than to use the monster to destroy Falaise de la Mer. She hated the royal family. Blamed them for imprisoning the wraith and somehow ruining Dinah’s life. Perhaps the fae in her blood had allowed her to use the wraith for her own ends. Perhaps she’d been a friend to the witch turned wraith. Perhaps she’d sacrificed too much to the wraith, but the creature had been imprisoned before it could uphold its end of the bargain with Dinah.
It didn’t matter why Dinah hated the royal family. All that mattered was that she wanted revenge with every fiber of her being, and the betrothal ball tonight would be the perfect way to get it. All the royals, anyone of influence who was also involved in imprisoning the wraith, would be under the same roof. What better way to exact vengeance than to turn the wraith loose on them all while they danced in celebration of Kellan and his soon-to-be bride?
The idea of Kellan choosing a girl from one of the head families sent a pang though her heart, but she ignored it. She had a wraith to destroy. Her broken heart would have to wait.
How was she going to kill the monster?
She closed her eyes and thought through all her options. She’d tried every combination of compatible ingredients. Used her blood to alchemize them. They were solid potions, but if these were enough to kill the wraith, Mama would’ve already done it years ago.
She needed something that could dissolve the thing. Acid, maybe, though transporting that safely would be difficult and throwing it at the wraith was an imprecise delivery system. The wraith could dodge most of it. It could splash onto people around the creature. It could wound it, but not kill it, and then Blue would’ve only made it angry.
No, she needed to kill it from the inside out. A poison. Something strong enough to destroy a fae.
But she didn’t have a poison strong enough to kill a fae. Unless . . .
Her eyes flew open, and she stared at the group of items she’d moved to the side because they weren’t compatible with anything else.
Would they be compatible if she used her blood? There was only one way to find out. Pulling the jar of syphur weed and the satchel of mink’s foot herb to the center of her makeshift workstation, she carefully shook out a pinch of each into a small bowl. She added a dash of yaeringlei oil to act as a conduit and then scratched open the wound on her hand so she could squeeze out a few drops of blood. The mixture immediately bubbled, smoke rising to sting Blue’s eyes. Hastily, she backed away, lest she breathe any of the poison into her lungs, and waited for the bubbling to stop. When all was silent again, she crept forward and looked into the bowl.