The Blood Spell (Ravenspire, #4)(104)

Instantly, she doubled over, the jar falling to the floor where it smashed into pieces. The poison was fire scouring her veins, blistering her from the inside out. It was heat and knives and agony. She fell to her knees, her dress tearing on shards of glass. The agony blazed through her, seizing her lungs, her throat, her mind.

She threw back her head, the muscles of her neck straining as she tried to unlock her jaw to release a scream.

She was dying. The poison was eating its way through her, and she’d never get a chance to tell Kellan she loved him or hug Grand-mère one more time or kill the wraith.

She had to kill the wraith.

“Please,” she whispered, her voice a faint breath forced through lips stiff with pain.

A different fire ignited within her—a storm of magic that rolled through her like a thunderclap, gathering the agony that blazed in her veins and pulling it into the center of her chest, a ball of furious torment that tumbled and churned.

“Blue!” Grand-mère shouted, her voice a distant shadow behind the tremendous thunder of Blue’s heart as her magic fought the poison for control.

Hands reached for her. Curses surrounded her as Grand-mère’s shoes crunched through glass still stained brown with the poison’s residue.

“What have you done?” Grand-mère cried, her wand raised and pointed at Blue, as if somehow she could transfigure the poison out of her body.

The storm in the center of Blue’s chest grew, pressing hard against her bones until she thought they’d snap. And then the storm exploded outward, sending jagged bolts of magic and pain through Blue’s veins. Her fingers ached. Her toes curled. And her hair stood on end.

When the blood in her veins settled, sluggish and swollen with poison, Blue drew in a shaky breath.

It was done. She’d set her feet on a course that couldn’t be reversed. Her skin was cold as she grasped Grand-mère’s outstretched hand and rose to her feet.

“My child.” Grand-mère moved to hug her, and Blue stepped back.

“My hand is still bleeding,” she said. “Don’t touch me until I’ve bandaged it. I don’t want you to be hurt.”

“You put that poison in your blood, didn’t you?” Grand-mère’s tone was a slap, but tears shone in her eyes. “Made yourself a weapon because you’re going to offer yourself to the wraith.”

Blue carefully bandaged her hand and cleaned up all traces of the blood and poison that remained on the kitchen floor. “It’s the only sure way to kill the monster.”

Grand-mère abruptly left the room. Blue turned and found that she’d placed Mama’s golden dancing slippers on the table. Taking the volshkyn leaf out of her pocket, she quickly wiped a bit of her blood from the towel she’d used to clean the floor onto the leaf, split it in two, and then bonded it to the inside arch of each shoe.

She was banking on the volshkyn’s remarkable ability to be drawn to what had been bonded to it. It would help lead her to Dinah if for some reason Blue was wrong about Dinah showing up at the ball.

Grand-mère returned to the kitchen, her eyes swollen and red. Quietly, she said, “I’m proud of you, Bernadina de la Cour, and your parents would be too. You’re brave and smart, and I’m counting on you to be both tonight.” She moved closer, her fierce gaze pinning Blue in place. “You use that courage to lure the wraith and let it drink. And then you use that beautiful brain of yours to figure out a way to survive it. Promise me you’ll try.”

Blue swallowed hard against the rising lump in her throat. “I’ll try.”

Grand-mère nodded once, one tear spilling over onto her cheek, and then she said, “Then let’s make you fit for a prince’s ball.”

Blue took the dancing slippers and walked with Grand-mère out onto the path that led from the cottage to the farmhouse. Pepperell rose from his bed on Grand-mère’s porch to follow them, winding anxiously through his mistress’s legs. Lucian stood beside a large pumpkin, a pile of medium-size rynoir branches, and a bouquet of gorgeous yellow roses. He held two squirming white mice in his hands.

Grand-mère turned. “First let’s take the twists out of your hair.” She waved her wand, and all of Blue’s curls sprang free, lifting to form a halo around her face.

“Now for a dress.” The wand pointed at the yellow roses, and Grand-mère muttered something under her breath. The flowers rose into the air, drifted over to Blue, and surrounded her. They began spinning, slow and stately at first, and then faster and faster, dancing around Blue until ribbons of petal-soft yellow flowed in streamers from the thorny rose stems to wrap around the dirty, ragged dress Blue was wearing. Grand-mère pointed her wand at the heavens and twirled it. Starlight fell from the sky in long, shimmering strands of silvery-white and spun around Blue.

When Grand-mère’s wand dropped, Blue stood in a dress of golden-yellow silk that left her shoulders bare and hugged her tiny waist. The skirt bloomed outward, like an upside-down rose with delicate tiers of icy-silver-white lace tucked beneath each petal.

Grand-mère’s wand held one more wisp of silver-white on its tip, and she aimed it at a pebble on the ground. The rock floated upward, bathed in starlight, and became a diamond hairpin that nestled in Blue’s thick black curls above her left ear.