Page 96 of An Oath at Midnight

“I don’t know. Maybe I can talk to him, or see what he saw? It has to be there, right? All of it. Including who hurt him.”

Bram straightened. “Okay, but how?”

I chewed my lip. It was risky, but it was all I had. “I’ve heard of a spell, it’s…it’s forbidden, but—”

“No,” Bram said.

“We don’t have any real leads, B, we’re coming up against brick wall after brick wall. I’m just saying we get our hands on the spell. I don’t have to use it, right? It can be a last resort, an insurance policy, if all else fails.”

He gripped the side of my chair. “And what happens if you get caught?”

“I won’t, and I’m pretty sure I can use it like a blueprint, use the bare bones but change the spell to suit me. I can make it my own, then I wouldn’t be breaking any rules, right?” It was a technicality and we both knew it. But I wouldn’t let my coven suffer because I failed to do my task, not after all my sisters had been through to get us this far. I’d do whatever it took, they’d done the same, and I wouldn’t let all the risks and sacrifices they made be for nothing.

Bram’s fingers brushed my arm. “Where’s the spell?”

He wasn’t going to like this. “It’s in an ancient book. It’s dark, so dark it can’t be kept at the library or the council chambers…” I took a steadying breath. “It’s at Shadow Falls.”

Bram cursed viciously. “You meddle with that kind of darkness, and the council will come after you.”

He was right, of course, but it was a risk I was willing to take. “I’ll cover my tracks. I can do it, you know I can. I need you to trust me.”

“I fucking do, and you know it. But this?” He shook his head. “It’s too dangerous. If they come for you, you’ll either end up in Umbra Sanitarium…or worse.”

“Agatheena said I can straddle darkness and light, and if I can do that—”

“I don’t give a fuck what Agatheena said. It’s not her head on the chopping block.” He stood and moved to the bed.

I followed and pressed my hands to his chest and pushed. He sat, and I moved in between his thighs, threading my fingers in his hair. “What can I do to ease your worries?” Because I needed to do this, and I needed Bram with me.

He pushed his fingers through the belt loops of my jeans and pulled me closer. “Nothing, and I won’t get in your way, as long as you make me a promise.”

“What promise?”

His obsidian eyes held mine. “You only use that spell as a last resort, like you said.”

“I promise.”

He shook his head. “That’s not all of it.” He tugged me closer. “If you’re forced to use it, and for some reason it doesn’t go our way…if the council comes for you? You have to let me keep you safe, even if that means I get you the hell out of Roxburgh and we never come back.”

I dragged in a breath, but he was right, if the council came for me, we’d have to run. If we didn’t, I’d be locked up, or worse. I’d be put to death and my body placed at Shadow Falls with all the other dark witches.

I wouldn’t use the spell lightly, and I’d use every precaution. I wouldn’t tip the scales into darkness, I was sure of it, but if Bram needed my promise, he had it. “I promise.”

* * *

Bram

We flew over the barren forest, the trees brown and sick or dead. The evil from the falls was so potent it poisoned everything around it. This place had been used as a burial ground by witches for centuries. It was where they put the witches who’d gone dark. Their covens didn’t want them in their cemeteries, tainting the earth and their magic. So they brought them here.

Both Willow and Iris came here during their trials, and both nearly didn’t make it back out. I wanted to tell Magnolia no. I wanted to fly away from here and not let her walk into that cave. But that wasn’t how we did things, or at least it hadn’t been before I’d fucked everything up. Mags and I had always been either all in or all out, together, and I was more than familiar with the determined look in her eyes—she’d do anything to save her coven, which meant, like it or not, we were here at this fucking twisted place, because she would come here, with or without me.

We landed on the stone path, and the roar of the falls left no room for anything else, not that there was anything. No wildlife, not even demons came here.

“This way,” Mags said and straightened the bag she’d slung over her shoulder. She walked ahead, her lips moving rapidly, chanting a protection spell over and over again. We both knew it wasn’t going to do much, but she was hoping it bought us at least a few extra minutes when we walked in there.

The crones who haunted this place couldn’t be stopped, not easily. We’d need to be on our guard, and we’d need to move fast.

The path led us behind the falls itself, a furious wall of water on one side and stone on the other. The spray of water hit my overheated skin and the stone beneath our feet was slippery as hell. I grabbed the back of Magnolia’s shirt, terrified she’d fall as we carefully made our way to the cave opening.