“That packed a punch.”
“What if I choke?” I asked. “What if I freeze just as the craglorn tries to suck me dry? What then?” I raised my eyebrows. “I would be a wrinkled prune.” I made a slurping sound, then smacked my lips. “Bam. Dehydrated.”
“I don’t think it works that way,” Boone said, making a face.
“I don’t really want to find out. Anyway, I can’t just hold up my hand, shape it like a pretend gun, and go pew pew! I’m pretty sure I would be insulting the entire Crescent bloodline by pretending I’m an extra in Star Wars.”
He snorted, and my head shot up. He was stifling a laugh, which wasn’t helping my mood.
“Boone!”
“Hey, you said it.” He held up his hands in mock surrender. “What do you need me to do?”
“Be quiet. That would be a good start.”
Focusing on the challenge ahead, I turned the pages of the spell book, allowing my thoughts to mull. The fae had been trapped here a thousand years, so there had to be a clue in there somewhere, right? The Crescents were epic badasses who’d have to have faced off with them before. This book was the coven’s answer for a Bible. There had to be an origin story in here somewhere. I was just missing it in my naivety.
I wished there was a page labeled craglorn one-oh-one. It would make my life a lot easier, but I knew this was one of those ‘life lesson’ moments. If I got through this, I was so making a cute graphic with an inspirational quote slapped on it. Hashtag adulting.
Glancing at the clock on the mantle, I saw it was one a.m. Boone was slouched on the couch beside me and hadn’t once complained. His eyelids were drooping, so he was either trying not to drift off or he was a total weirdo who slept with his eyes open.
“Stop lookin’ at me like that,” he mumbled.
“Like what?” I smiled sweetly.
He rubbed his eyes and sat up.
“Okay, I think I’ve got this down.” I took a deep breath. “I can create a magical net to trap the craglorn, but I need a place to anchor it to. Since I’m essentially a newbie, I should probably use the hawthorn in the forest. It’s powerful, can help me control my magic, and will act as a lure. Then we just need a way to finish off Mr. Craggy for good.”
“Mr. Craggy?”
“Mr. Craggy.” I thought for a moment. “How do you kill a fae? I mean, can we just cut off its head?”
“You want to decapitate a craglorn?” Boone’s eyebrows shot up.
“Yeah?” I began to feel uncertain.
Boone opened his mouth and shut it again, looking uncomfortable. He wanted to say something but was too pussy to say it.
“Spit it out,” I demanded.
“Aileen… She used magic and only magic.”
“You think the only way to kill it for good is to use magic?” I snorted. “Stands to reason.” I opened the book again.
“You might be able to hurt it but not mortally.”
“Then we make a magical dagger!” I turned around the page I’d found and showed him. Some long-dead ancestor had drawn up schematics for a weapon to protect against the fae, and it sat before me, the thick book of spells finally revealing something I had a shot at understanding. Besides, this witch’s handwriting was completely A-plus material. I’d give her a gold star.
“A dagger?” Boone peered at the book, clearly not understanding. His shapeshifting juju was instinctual, and I suspected it was linked to his emotions more than anything, so recipes and maths equations were likely beyond him. In a magical sense, not a flunk out of year seven maths scenario.
“There’s a way to charge a dagger with the power required.” I pointed to the page, running my fingertip over the words. “Saeclum naeniam. Is that Latin?”
“Yes, I think so.”
Tracing the lines of the pentagram inked onto the page, I wondered who’d written it. Whoever it was, thank goodness they’d chosen to immortalize their spell.
Picking up my mobile phone, I opened a web browser and copied in the words I couldn’t make out.
“Saeclum naeniam, a spell for the subiit deserta,” I said, then read off the clumsy translation that had appeared on Google Translate. “Dissolve incantation, a spell for the forlorn. This has to be it! You called them the ravaged and the lonely.”
“Yeah, but…”
“But what?”
“Are you sure you can handle all these spells?” Boone asked with a frown.
“I have to. There isn’t any other way around it unless you have an idea. The floor is open. Take the mic if you want.” He shrugged, so I went back to plotting world domination. “Aqua fons… Spring water… Cruach Phádraig… Is that last part Irish? This is confusing.”
“Cruach Phádraig,” Boone said, correcting my messy pronunciation. “Croagh Patrick.”
“What’s that?”
“Croagh Patrick is a mountain to the west of here,” he explained. “The peak of St. Patrick. It’s a holy site.”
“Then there’s a spring at the mountain that can charge the dagger,” I said excitedly. “If it’s a holy site, then it must be the key to the spell…” My expression faded as I saw the look of fear that tinged the corners of Boone’s mouth. “The boundary…”
“I can't go.”
“Then I’ll go alone.”
“Nay, Skye…”
“No biggie,” I said when in reality, I needed an adult diaper. “It’s a test, is all. This is my first outing as a Crescent Witch. We’ll figure the Croagh Patrick part out later. Now we need a dagger.” Where the hell was I going to find one of those? There wasn’t time to order from eBay. “Wait, I found the book under the floorboards. Maybe there are more hidden compartments. Give me a hand.”
I began scrambling across the floor, bashing my fist. I knew it was fruitless because I’d tried the same thing the other week when Boone had told me the truth about Aileen. I’d ripped the cottage apart and found nothing.
“I don’t think there’s anythin’ there,” he said, watching me crawl around the floor with
