Bloodline Diplomacy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 3) - Lan Chan (thriller books to read .txt) 📗

“You might care one day,” I said, giving in to the worst of my fear.

“And you might one day learn that I don’t change my mind often.”

“Like that’s a good thing!” I protested.

He trailed the back of his fingers along the column of my neck. There was a knock at the door. It said a lot that Raphael didn’t simply materialise. He bent his head to see into the room. “We’re ready,” he said.

I hopped off the bed immediately. Kai huffed. As much as I adored him, nothing would hold me back today. I practically ran beside Raphael to the room that had been set up for Nanna’s unbinding.

When we arrived, Astrid was there with Matilda. Astrid was meant to be guarding the human, but they were engrossed in a conversation about the best way to dispatch a vampire who had succumbed to bloodlust. Basil and Nora were arguing about where I would live if this was successful.

All of the conversations ended when they saw me. I tried to block out the reassuring looks everyone kept giving me. There was no way this couldn’t work. I was adamant.

With Nanna’s consent, Raphael had already put her under. She lay inside a circle Matilda had drawn in salt on the polished marble floor. “Are you ready?” Matilda asked me. Kai squeezed my hand. He and Raphael were here in case something backfired and Nanna needed immediate medical attention. I pushed away my uncertainty and nodded.

Matilda sat down outside of the circle at Nanna’s feet. The circle she’d drawn was perfectly symmetrical. That’s what was wrong with it. Nanna was not a symmetrical kind of person. “Can I have the backpack?” I asked Nora. She handed it over to me. I took out Sophie’s bag of magically imbued salt and reshaped the straight lines inside the circle. I took care not to disturb Nanna. I took care not to even look at Nanna. My hope was balancing on the finest edge. I couldn’t afford for anything to shatter it.

After I was done with the salt, I retrieved the other ingredients from the backpack. Peter had helped me collect sprigs of every herb known to man from the kitchen and walled gardens. I tied them together with string belonging to the wood nymphs. Now I crushed the leaves of the herbs between my palms. The scent of sage, rosemary, and bay filled the air. I placed them around the circle. Inside, the layer of blue magic sang.

I was smiling as I sat down just above Nanna’s head. “You remember how we practiced it?” Matilda asked.

I nodded. “Let’s do this.”

The Ley dimension that I accessed from Seraphina was something else. A cosmos of lights exploded around me. I wanted to explore the origins of all those stunning lights, but I forced myself to focus on the tangle of blue in front of me. “Take your time,” Matilda said. I drew on everything I learned from meditation and reached out to the first string of power. When Hilary had transferred me knowledge, she had given me the solution to the unbinding. Nanna was held together by the threads of both hedge and bone magic. The threads of life and death. She was stuck in limbo. It would take both to bring her back. The spell also required the aid of at least one other low magic user. After all, Hilary had been grand mistress of the Soul Sisterhood. She had hoped I would have an association with them despite their attempts to murder me.

Matilda started snipping. She worked with such precise strokes that I finally understood why she and Giselle were the best of the Sisterhood. I followed along behind her as she split the strings that held Nanna’s soul bound in limbo. It was at the halfway mark when the first signs of danger occurred.

Nanna’s aura was sunflower yellow. It started to emerge beneath the strings of blue. Unfortunately, it tried to use the gaps Matilda had made to escape her body altogether. I latched on to her and dagged each part of her back. Bit by agonising bit, the binding around her lifted. It was no wonder nobody could figure out how to do this. Earth magic was always about balance. I could never have done this without the assistance of another Earth-magic user. That was sort of the point.

My attention locked on the final bit of string that Matilda held up in front of me. It was the one that was darker than the rest. “This is yours,” Matilda said. I reached out for it. As soon as my magic touched it, Hilary’s presence filled my mind.

“Be sure,” she said. She wasn’t referring to Nanna. I cut the binding using both hedge and bone magic. The air howled around us. Nanna convulsed. Her aura fluctuated. It had been suppressed for so long that it seemed unsure how to behave. Its first instinct was to flee. I dragged it back, but it fought with me. It never occurred to me that Nanna should not have been alive. I whimpered at the thought.

What if Nanna should have gone long ago?

“Let me help you, Blue,” Kai said against my ear. He sat down beside me. His green smoothed over Nanna’s erratic soul. It calmed hers in a way I never could. A shudder rolled through Nanna’s body. And then, against all odds, her eyes opened.

I dropped back into the physical world of Seraphina. I could barely breathe as Nanna rubbed her eyes. “What in the world is that smell?” she said.

Unaware of anything but what we had been doing, I looked at the circle that was now a scorch mark against the marble. The herbs had been crushed and burned during the ritual. Nanna had always hated the scent of bay leaves.

She brushed the salt off her clothes and glanced around the room. I held my breath. She smiled at Raphael and then Kai. It