She’s not wrong. But would it kill her to be nice to me? I’m literally the only thing separating her from certain death. I pull out scissors and cut through the tape on her wrists that we used for securing her bracelets. If I pull it off with a little more force than necessary, making her hiss, well, that’s my small revenge for her betrayal.
“If you try to hurt us,” I tell her, “there are several dragons stationed outside the cabin. Their order is to kill you immediately if you exit the cabin without us.”
This isn’t even an exaggeration. We needed something to hold her once the bracelets come off, and the death threats seem to be the only thing that work with her.
“Yeah, yeah,” she drawls, but she glances toward the window all the same.
Together, we prepare the room for the ritual. The guys push back the scant furniture while Alice and I set out the representations of the elements. Then I pour the salt in a double circle while Alice sprinkles crushed charcoal in between. My chest tightens at the sight of her muttering to herself—I’ve seen her set a circle so many times. It’s a familiar scene in a completely new environment, and I can’t help but miss my old home just a little, despite all the crap that happened there.
With the circle complete, we all step inside, and I seal us in. Then Alice and I sit on the floor, cross-legged, with Aiden, Ty, and Jack kneeling behind my back. I put the words of the spell that Alice has written for me on the polished wooden boards between us and check to see if there’s anything I hadn’t memorized yet.
“If you fuck this up,” Alice growls, “I’ll kill you.”
I grind my teeth, then force myself to unclench my jaw. “If I fuck this up, you’ll be a drooling vegetable for the rest of your life. Shut up.”
“Ouch,” Ty says.
Jack snickers.
It’s exactly the kind of remark I needed, loosening the tension in the room.
I blow out a breath. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
The guys put their hands on my arms, opening up for me. I scoop up handfuls of their magic, a process so familiar now that it’s over in a blink. I resist the urge to linger with them and bask in the glow of their power. Instead, I form a ball of pure white magic inside me, holding it all in my chest. Alice watches us with an avid, hungry gaze, and I wonder whether she can see how beautiful it is. I feel oddly protective of my men’s magic, so I gather it closer.
Then I tentatively reach out to Alice, holding out my hand. She pauses for a second, then stares right into my eyes.
“What will I remember?” she asks, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Will you make me forget you? Will I even know I have a sister?”
My throat closes up, and I have to swallow convulsively to get my words out. For a brief, spiteful moment, I think about giving her a snarky, cold answer, but I can’t bring myself to do it. “You’ll remember the good times. And that I’m a useless witch with no power, but that I love you very much.”
She blinks several times, then closes her eyes, hanging her head. She silently offers me her hands, palms up, and I take them, then lean forward to lean my forehead against hers. Peering down at my notes, I let some magic into my voice and recite the memory spell.
Alice resists my mental attack for a mere second before letting me in. And then I’mthere, inside her memories of me, of the last week when she desperately tried to find me, first to save me, and then—gods, this hurts so much—to kill me. I feel the fear she experienced when the vast shape of a sea dragon swam up from the depths, her desperation as she and Cameron tried to best him. Her triumph when the beast finally stopped thrashing in the water.
With careful words, I erase all of that, substituting far safer memories. I only give her the bare bones of ideas, trusting her mind to form concrete impressions around them. If I push too hard, give her too much information all at once, this could all go to shit. Our brains are such complex, wonderful machines, tampering with them, whether with chemical or magical means, can be potentially fatal.
But I have to add the idea that Cameron suffered a boating accident, knocking himself out and drowning while she couldn’t reach him in time. It’s a flimsy explanation, but it’ll have to work.
Then I dig a little father back into her memories, trying my best to avoid any personal issues, conversations with her husband and her children. Even now, I don’t want to invade her privacy. I find the moment she decided to come looking for me, after I told her I was using magic. I tone it all down—her anger at me, her resentment. Her emotions hurl themselves at me with awful intensity, and I clench my hands involuntarily around Alice’s fingers. She clutches me back, letting out a low moan. I wonder briefly if she’s in pain, if this mental cleanse is hurting her, but I can’t stop now.
I come to the most crucial part of the entire procedure—giving her the reason for how things will unfold from now on. It’s a rocky solution at best because it’s vastly different from what actually happened, but I do my best to give her brain directions.
In the end, I set myself up as a complete loser. I convince her that all my bragging about using magic had been a lie, and I’d only called her to get her attention. That I’d wanted her to think better of me, instead only succeeding in making a fool out of myself. She’ll be disappointed in me but not surprised. The rest of the family will be only too glad to believe that I was a powerless idiot who couldn’t stay in her place.
For a brief moment, I consider implanting another idea: that she should break away from the coven and set out on her own with her husband and boys. I want her to get out from under our family’s influence so badly, more now that I know how deeply rooted those relationships really are. That parents would poison a relationship between sisters is terrible.
But in the end, I don’t do it. It’s a path she has to choose on her own, and I can’t mess with her free will like that, no matter my opinion. I can only hope that she’ll be able to forget about me, be content with sending Christmas cards and the occasional phone call to chat about the weather.
With as much care as I can muster, I pull back from her, releasing my stranglehold on her mind. Alice gasps, then slumps forward into my lap.
“Allie?”
I push her shoulders up to peer at her face, afraid that I injured her, maybe permanently. But she’s just sleeping, her face looking younger in her sleep, less troubled and tense.
“Did it work?” Jack asks quietly as they help me lay her on the floor.
I lean forward and kiss Alice on the forehead, a final goodbye. “I hope so.”
