The Blood Spell (Ravenspire, #4)(97)

The cut on her lips stung, and Blue reached for it. Maybe she could use her blood to bind Dinah to something awful. Something that would destroy her. She glanced around for inspiration and nearly fell to her knees as Dinah collided with her.

The older woman wrapped her hands around Blue’s throat and squeezed. “If your papa didn’t want to lose his life, then he shouldn’t have helped your mother and the queen ruin mine. Where is the spell to open the wraith’s gate, Blue? Tell me, and I’ll spare you.”

Blue’s throat burned. Her chest constricted, lungs begging for air. She clawed at Dinah’s wrists, digging in and drawing blood.

Dinah threw her to the floor. “Where is it?”

Blue coughed, drawing in ragged gasps of air. “I don’t have it. No one does. Mama didn’t write it down because she knew someone like you might come looking for it one day.”

“Liar.” Dinah leaned down and snatched Blue’s hair in her fist. Yanking on it, she forced Blue to look into her eyes. “The answer is here. Valeraine was too smart an alchemist not to leave her spell with someone. Knowledge of the ingredients would be the only way to shore up the gate’s defenses if they failed. Where is it?”

Blue spit blood in Dinah’s face. “Even if I knew, I’d never tell you.”

“Then you’ll die.”

“Better me than the thousands the wraith would devour if it got free.” Blue raised her chin and reached for a sense of peace as murderous rage settled over Dinah’s face. She would die without begging. Without flinching away from the sacrifice that was necessary to keep those she loved safe. And at the end of it, she’d be with Mama and Papa again. Holding on to that bright spot of hope, Blue kept her gaze steady as Dinah drew a dagger from a sheath at her waist.

“Oh, I’m not going to kill you yet,” Dinah said as she stepped away from Blue and toward the kitchen. “I’m going to kill the little friend of yours who’s waiting for you in the root cellar.”

Blue shot a glance down the hallway toward the kitchen. “Who—”

“And when I’ve fed your precious little Lucian to the wraith, I’ll head to the castle and kill your beloved prince and princess next.”

Blue’s heart seemed to stop beating, and the air refused to leave her lungs.

Lucian.

Dinah turned on her heel and stalked toward the kitchen. Blue scrambled to her feet, her knees shaking as the bright, blinding light of terror rushed through her. Not Lucian. Blue couldn’t bear the thought of losing her friend to Dinah’s treachery. Taking off at a dead run, Blue caught Dinah in the kitchen. Sprinting past her, she threw herself in front of the door to the root cellar.

“You aren’t going to hurt him.”

Dinah simply smiled. “What’s going to stop me?”

Dread sank into Blue, and she pressed her back against the door as if her body would be enough to stop Dinah from reaching Lucian. She should’ve made more potion. Given him some. Simply warning him to stay safe had been a terrible miscalculation.

Dinah tapped her dagger against the counter. The ingredients Blue had included in the fake spell were strewn across its surface, including a small leaf of volshkyn. “Do you know, I almost admire your ingenuity?”

Blue glanced around, hunting for a weapon. Papa’s apron hung on a hook to her left. To the right was the dish rack with a few bowls and mugs still set out to dry from the Chauveaus’ breakfast.

Dinah picked up the ingredients one by one—thresh moss, bolla root, yew, myrrh, and bergamot, along with the small volshkyn leaf. “This created a good protection spell, though carpa leaf would’ve been better than bergamot, don’t you think? And adding the volshkyn . . . that was inspired. Guaranteed to give me hope.”

She threw the ingredients at Blue and rushed toward her.

Blue twisted to the right, grabbed a mug, and dashed it against the counter. It burst into pieces, leaving the jagged shard of a handle in Blue’s grasp. Dinah slammed into her, trying to reach the doorknob. Blue slashed at her with the pottery, slicing through the woman’s sleeve and into her arm. Blood welled, and then Dinah was grappling with her, trying to stab the hand that held the pottery with her dagger.

Blue threw herself at Dinah, ramming the bony part of her shoulder into the woman’s stomach. Dinah’s breath wheezed, and she slashed at Blue with the dagger. Its blade bit into Blue’s chest, tearing open a small wound.

Blue pressed a hand to her chest, but the blood was already spilling faster than she could stop it. Dinah shoved her away from the door, and Blue grabbed the woman’s wounded arm for balance. They went down in a tangle of limbs, and the weapon Blue had been using flew out of her hand.

“Just tell me where it is, and I’ll spare you and Lucian,” Dinah snarled as Blue slapped her hands against the floor, hunting for another shard to use.

Her hand, covered in her own blood and blood from Dinah’s wound, hit something sticky, and she pulled back, leaving a bloody handprint on the volshkyn leaf.

The leaf sizzled, its edges curling up as the blood bubbled into tiny crimson beads, danced across the surface, and then sank into the thin veins that ran through the leaf.

Beside her, Dinah gasped and then lunged for Blue, knocking her onto her back.

“How did you do that?”

Blue swallowed hard and put every ounce of fury she possessed into her face. “Go crawl off and die.”