My eyes widen, even though I have no idea what a blood bond means.
“Not like a full bond, where our lives are connected or anything. Just a link. It’s like a permanent friendship bond. I’ll be able to find you if I need to, and vice versa. Given everything going on, I kinda feel like this is a good idea anyway.”
I sit next to Janet and read the spell she’s chosen. There are words in Latin and symbols I can’t tell the meaning of. I’m really useless here.
I’ve never dealt with this kind of magic before because it’s not something I’m even capable of. “How does it work?”
“This one is a secret link. The secret is the thing that bonds us. If any one of us even gets close to spilling the secret, we’ll know it. No one will die if the words come out of our mouth, but there will be pain, and if you want to add a tongue lock, we can.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” I say. This is already overkill as it is. Ensuring the secret can’t go beyond us three does make me feel better about sharing it, though.
Lola drops to the floor by my knee, looking up at the ragged pages of the old spell book.
“So, we perform the spell, and then what? Do we do that creepy swapping blood thing from the movies?” I ask.
Lola snickers. “Sort of, but not exactly. We each need to add a drop of blood for the spell, but we don’t, like, cut our palms open and shove them together or whatever.”
“Okay, good.”
“I’ll do the spell,” Janet says. “We drop our blood into the bowl, and then you tell us the secret. It’s best if you do it as succinctly as possible, even if there isn’t context. Just the heart of what the secret is so the spell doesn’t get confused and snitch on us for saying some arbitrary information that’s only kinda relevant to the secret.”
“Got it.” That makes sense.
“After the spell is over, you’ll explain it all and we’ll talk it through.”
“We’re allowed to talk about it even after the spell is complete?”
“As long as we’re in this room, yes. The moment one of us leaves, the pact is complete and the secret is sealed.”
“You should know you’ll be part of this too, Candice,” Lola says. “You’ll be bound not to tell this secret to anyone else either. Even Jarron.”
“Right!” Janet says. “But that’s what makes the blood bond great. Me and Lola will both be able to approve your sharing. So, if someone begins to share the secret, we’ll feel the pull of the bond, but we can choose to accept the remission of the secret so that no harm comes to the sharer. If we were to do just a secret vow, no matter what, we couldn’t share the secret without another ritual. But this way, we can make exceptions if all three of us agree. If one person doesn’t—well, that’s when the pain will come.”
“So, basically, if I want to share this secret with anyone, even Jarron, I need your permission?”
Janet nods. “But we will give it.”
“If we think it’s in your best interest.” Lola crosses her arms and squints at me.
Oh boy. I’m second-guessing the complexity of this. I could just tell them and trust them with it.
But also… “Through this bond, we’ll be able to find each other?” That’s extremely intriguing to me. “How does that work?”
“We’ll have a tiny magic link that you can tug on to find us. It might be tricky for you since you have no magic, but it’s possible. May just take some practice.”
I press my lips together, considering the implications of this. Quickly, my mind is made up. This is a fantastic idea. “Let’s do it.”
Lola sighs but takes her place in our circle around the book. Janet lights a set of incense and begins a short chant in Latin. Then, she pulls out a pin and pokes her thumb. A tiny bead of dark blood pools.
She holds it over a wooden bowl and waits until it drips.
“Lola,” she whispers.
Lola hops forward, and hovers close over the bowl. I realize that the needle Janet used could carve little Lola’s body up, so it’s unsurprising that she uses her own nail instead. Her drop of blood is smaller than Janet’s but still probably large for her body. She hops back to her seat and seems entirely fine, though, so I accept a new pin from Janet and follow suit.
There’s a tiny sting as the point pokes through my skin with a pop. Bright-red blood pools and then drips into the bowl with the other two.
Janet chants again, and the bowl begins rattling.
