Page 32 of A Soul’s Awakening

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I remembered bits and pieces of our ride back to the house. Alex, having never driven a scooter, or any vehicle for that matter, nearly had us killed several times as he sped through stop signs and red lights. I never fully passed out, but my thoughts drifted in and out as I struggled to remain conscious. Now, sitting at the kitchen table, the whole crew had surrounded me, including Jordan and Markus, who had heard about a strange incident nearby involving a phantom. It didn’t take much to piece together who had been the cause of it.

“Sit still.” Ivy was cleaning my wounds. She wanted to summon Alyeesa, the fairy healer she had made a contract with, but I told her not to bother, assuring her it wasn’t a serious injury and I’d heal it myself in the morning.

“You sure you don’t have a concussion?” Stella intervened, pressing a glowing yellow petal to my forehead that absorbed into my skin, stopping the bleeding and medicating the wound. “Looks like you got smacked pretty hard.”

I readjusted the ice pack on the side of my head. “It’s fine. I’m starting to feel better now. Thanks.”

“Gee, I’m back from the dead for one day and you’re already off trying to get yourself sent back to the underworld.” Jordan shook his head. It was as if his death had never happened. He might have looked frail, but mentally he was impenetrable. It was like he pushed all the years of torture behind him, focusing on his new life free from the Syndicate, not the past that should have haunted him.

No cuts or bruises remained, no trace of the hole in his chest that had killed him. With the dirt and grime gone from his face, his pale skin looked unnaturally delicate, stretched tight over sharp cheekbones and a gaunt jaw.

But I was curious why there was still one person missing. “Where’s Ren?” I asked.

Stella huffed. “I tried calling him. He just got back to me about five minutes ago. I’m sure he’ll be here any—”

“Where the fuck is he?” Heavy footsteps stomped down the stairs and into the kitchen, rage burning through Ren as he searched the room, only to ebb away in a shaky breath when he saw me sitting at the table, offering him a wary smile.

“Move.” Ren shoved Stella aside and sat down next to me. His warm fingertips brushed the large gash on the side of my head. “You’re an idiot. When will you stop running around and getting yourself into trouble?”

I smiled shyly. “Well, I am your dandelion weed, after all. I need to live up to my reputation of being annoying and always showing up in places I’m not wanted.”

Ren almost smiled back, but it quickly turned into a frown. “Tell me what happened.”

“I was hanging out with Emily and the others at the cemetery. Car alarms started going off, so I went to investigate. Then I came across the phantom of the Boston Strangler attacking a woman. I wasn’t strong enough to fight him back, but …” My voice trailed off, and I grabbed the glass of juice beside me, taking a small sip to relieve my parched throat.

Ren knitted his brows. “But what, Theo?”

“I think it was a trap set for me. There was a phantom named Albert, the guy who called himself the Boston Strangler, and he was working with the Syndicate, no, controlled by the Syndicate. He … was trying to dig through my memories to learn what I knew about my connection to Alex, but he found something else instead. A memory of Caspian that wasn’t even mine.”

Alex pondered the idea as he stared up at the ceiling. “I guess that makes sense. The magic is a living entity inside you, and even if you don’t remember it yourself, it carries the past with it. But … why send a phantom to retrieve a memory? They have other, more reliable methods of extracting data from people.”

“I … don’t know. They probably knew I’d show up if someone was in trouble. It would be easier to catch me off guard than to kidnap me.”

“Do you remember the details of the memory?” Jordan asked next. “Maybe we can figure out what they’re planning based on what you saw.”

I shook my head. “I only saw part of it, but … Gray was there talking to Caspian. All I remember was this spell array. It had three concentric circles and a bunch of runes that mean nothing to me.”

“Runes?” Markus jumped from his seat, searching for some paper and something to write with. He slapped a notebook and pen in front of me. “If there’s anything I know, it’s runes and magic arrays. Draw for me what you remember. Maybe I can piece it together.”

I started drawing, my shaking hand poorly imitating the fuzzy vision I barely remembered in the first place. “Gray had said something about Caspian risking the entire city for his selfish needs, but I never got a chance to hear what he was actually planning.”

Markus stared intensely at the drawing, rubbing his chin, his eyes magnified through the lenses of his black frames. He grabbed the pen, sketched over my drawing, then turned it back to me. “Did it look something like this?”

My eyes flicked back and forth. “I think so? I can’t be certain. Maybe his grimoire has some answers.”

Markus frowned, worry tightening his expression.

“What is it?” Alex asked. “Does it have something to do with the veil? Or what the Syndicate plans to do with all these captured phantoms?”

“Caspian was obsessed with his own death, right?” Markus handed the notebook to Ren, who stared at it thoughtfully despite the fact it probably made no sense to him.

I nodded. “Without a soul, he’d never be able to pass over into the afterlife to see his family. He was cursed to live forever, watching anyone he ever loved die and leave him. He mentioned more than once that he was tired of living but that his magic wouldn’t let him go.”

“Most magic arrays are single circles, but the more complex they are, the more pieces they can have.” Markus tapped a finger to the outermost circle; a wide, broken shape made of interrupted arcs, not a single continuous line. “I won’t bore you with the details, but this spell array here is meant to be massive. The outermost circle dictates how strong the spell will be, the middle one pulls that energy in, and the center circle is the conduit that controls it all.”

“Control what, exactly?” Ren leaned in, trying to make sense of Markus’ scribbling.