The witches in question nodded their acceptance and rushed off, scurrying through the gravel.
I watched as Sarah gave all the other witches under her command orders. She turned back to me.
I was still holding the contract in my arms. Weirdly, somehow, I hadn’t dropped it, even when Max had grabbed my wrist. I’d kind of forgotten about it, to be honest. It was so damn light. More than that, it felt right as it pressed against my skin, almost as if it were some long missing limb that had finally returned to me.
Sarah got a strange expression as she stared at it. Her lips pulled wide, and yet her eyes sparkled as if she was seeing something she’d always wanted to witness.
“You got it, then? Max’s soul.”
I blinked hard. “It’s the contract that holds my family to McCain’s curse,” I corrected.
“It’s also what keeps Max alive – keeps him separate from McCain.”
I blinked hard. “But… how can you put a man’s soul inside a book?”
“It’s complicated magic. It sounds like Mary, the woman who started all of this, knew more about magic than McCain.”
“What do you mean?”
“It means she knew full well that McCain could never come good on his curse and control the McLanes as long as a scrap of his soul – the good part of him – was separated from his whole.”
I shook my head. Honestly, I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to comprehend what she was talking about. It would be complicated on the best of days. I was still furiously rubbing the stone as I tried to fight back the pain and nausea that was always pushing against me.
Perhaps she could sense that I wasn’t following, because a placid, kind smile spread across her lips. “It’s kind of hard to explain,” she conceded. “But think of it this way – our souls are doorways into the future. I don’t believe, like some people, that we only have one future, one destiny. I believe our actions affect where we’ll end up. But I believe our souls help in that decision. I believe there are some experiences we seek out, some things we need to experience each lifetime. And there are some experiences our souls will attract us toward, some doors only they have keys to open.”
On that particular description, such a rush of nerves escaped over me, it felt as if I’d been plunged into electrified water.
I stood so straight it was like someone had tried to roll me flat. “Sorry?”
“When Mary partitioned a section of Max’s soul and trapped it in that book, she blocked it off from McCain. And he desperately wants it back. Because he can never have the future he truly wants without that scrap of his soul.”
Again, I wasn’t following. That sensation raged through my stomach – that one that told me this was important. In fact, it was key. “But I don’t get it. If that scrap of his soul was so important to McCain, why didn’t he just grab it back? I mean, it was damn clear that he was connected to Max. Connected enough that he could, at times, take Max over. Control him.” As I said that, a truly sick feeling descended through my gut. I remembered the times the shadow would pass across Max’s face. Whenever he mentioned my powers, whenever I’d used them – McCain would shine through.
“Because McCain can’t. He simply doesn’t have the power. He can’t fight against the contract. In order to regain his soul, he would have to destroy the contract. But do that, and he’d lose all power over you McLanes. And he needs you seers to guarantee his perfect future. As a sorcerer king, it’s my belief that he’s given up his ability to chart a path forward. That’s why he needs seers to figure out what will happen next. He’s trapped, incapable of deciding anything more than that which he decided upon before he lost his soul.”
I shook my head again. It was a reflexive move, to be honest. Because a part of me was starting to understand. “So you’re saying McCain can’t destroy the contract?”
“Correct. To do that would be to destroy his hold over you. And yet, you cannot destroy the contract – because that would destroy Max’s soul.”
I swore under my breath. “So what do we do?”
“There are certain rites we can cast on the contract, certain spells we can do to plumb its secrets. But to be honest, I don’t think it’s going to be key.”
There was that word again. Key. How ironic that most of my adventures had ended and started with keys. Heck, in many ways, I’d entered this magical world with the keys that opened my grandmother’s house. Perhaps it would be fitting to exit the world with the keys to Max’s very soul.
“So what do you think is going to be key?”
“You. I think you have a connection to Max McCain, whether he realizes it or not. Not only can you read his emotions, and not only do you know how to push his buttons, but he let you in further than anyone else. He also needs you. No matter what he does, he won’t act in a way to kill you.”
“Comforting,” I said as I brought my wrist up and indicated the massive bruise spreading across it, into my thumb, and down into my arm.
“That’s superficial.”
I stopped myself from saying it didn’t feel superficial.
I got her point.
“So how does this all fit together? The soul, the contract, his connection to me?”
“I can’t give you that answer. Chi, I want to. But you’re the only one who can get through this,” Sarah repeated again, voice quiet.
I wanted to sigh, flop back, plant
