The Blood Spell (Ravenspire, #4)(90)

Careful to include every detail from the moment they’d entered the Wilds, Blue told the story of finding the children’s bodies, trying to arrange Ana so that she looked peaceful, and then suddenly finding herself reaching for the wraith until Kellan tackled her and held her back.

Grand-mère reached her arms across the table. “Let me see your hands.”

Blue laid her hands in her grandmother’s and sat quietly while Grand-mère examined them. When she got to the small cut on Blue’s index finger, she stopped.

“When did this happen?”

Blue frowned. “While I was trying to fix Ana’s dress. I guess I caught it on a thorn or something beneath her. I’m not sure—”

“Your magic turned from a buzzing to a firestorm after you cut yourself?”

Blue nodded slowly.

“And that’s when you felt like you should touch the gate?”

“Not just the gate. The wraith itself. I thought if I just touched it, I could destroy it. And it seemed to be waiting for me to do that because it looked right at me. Came straight for me. I don’t think it ever looked at Kellan once.”

Grand-mère pulled her wand and waved it over Blue’s hand, muttering under her breath.

“What is it? What do you see?”

Grand-mère lowered her wand. “Nothing. I thought if there was some kind of curse on you, some spell that would cause you to be the wraith’s next meal, then we’d have a clue as to who was behind it all. Only one person with a motive has been close enough to you lately to have cursed you.”

Blue considered her words. “You think Dinah could be behind this?”

“You don’t?”

“I know she’s a disagreeable person, but it’s a big leap from disagreeable to murderer. Kellan told me her guardianship document held up under our verification process, so while she’s difficult to be around, I can’t accuse her of anything else.”

Grand-mère made a noise of disgust. “I don’t believe for one second that she was friends with my daughter. Certainly not close enough for Valeraine to give guardianship to her instead of to me. Maybe she did a good job of it, but Dinah faked that guardianship agreement, and it must be because she wants something. But what could you possibly have that she wants?”

A chill scraped over Blue. “A recipe. She wants one of Mama’s old potion recipes. Something with a rare ingredient.”

Grand-mère’s eyes sharpened. “Does she, now?”

“She made me go down into the root cellar to look through Mama’s things.”

“Oh, Blue.” Grand-mère grasped Blue’s hands tightly. “I’m sorry.”

Blue blinked away the sheen of tears that gathered, and said, “I took some old parchment from the closet in Mama’s old bedroom here and created a potion that I passed off as one of Mama’s. Added volshkyn bush as the rare ingredient. Dinah was thrilled, and we haven’t had to search through anything else, so I think she was satisfied.”

“So maybe she was looking for something to sell, like she let you assume.” Grand-mère turned Blue’s hands over again and looked at the healing cut. “Or maybe she was looking for a very specific old potion, and once she realizes she didn’t get it, she’ll be furious.”

Blue’s breath caught in her lungs as terrible possibilities unfurled before her. “You think she wants the spell Mama used to lock away the wraith? Why would anybody want that?”

Grand-mère looked grim. “I think we have far too many coincidences here not to acknowledge it as a possibility. Of course, she won’t find the spell. Valeraine never wrote it down. Wouldn’t even tell it to me in case someone thought to force it out of me.”

“But that also means that if the person who is feeding the wraith figures out the spell’s ingredients, we won’t know how to reverse their spell. We won’t know where to start.”

“Oh, I think my granddaughter would know where to start.” Grand-mère turned Blue’s hands over again and looked at the cut. “I’ve always wondered something.”

“What?”

“Your magic helps you find ingredients that want to be used. Helps you instinctively know how to bond them into something new.” Grand-mère lifted her eyes to Blue’s. “Magic is in our blood.”

Blue’s heartbeat thundered in her ears. “And you think when my blood was exposed to the wraith that it wanted to bond with me?”

“Have you ever had anything strange happen when you’ve bled on your ingredients?”

Blue flashed back to the dancing fern leaf in her basket. The one that had mysteriously bonded with the walla berry juice without the usual alchemy she used to combine them. She’d cut herself right before harvesting them. “In my basket on the porch.”

Blue explained what had happened as they hurried to the porch. Grand-mère lifted the leaf and examined the deep purple veins where the walla berry juice had fused with it. “You bled on this?”

“I must have. I’d cut myself, and there was blood smeared across my palm.”

Grand-mère held the leaf up to the light and then said softly, “You know what this means?”

Blue shivered. “That my blood not only calls to plants but somehow performs alchemy on them too?”