Page 7 of Postpartum Spells & Infant Hells

"You‘ve got it," he promised.

His shadows poured off his shoulders a second later. They lay themselves across the floorboards like a black tide. Then they rose over each crib, lifting the blankets a hand's breadth off the babies without waking either girl. The whole room was suspended in a breath of his power.

Stella dropped to her knees beside Thaniel's crib. Curious, I watched her. She didn't look inside it. She focused on the underside of the rail. Stella loved British crime shows. I’d have to stop teasing her, because they were paying off.

"There’s something here," she whispered. "There’s a mark on the underside of his rail. It was carved out and waxed over. They even color-matched the oak. I'd have missed it if I weren't looking closely. Holy shit, Pheebs, come look.”

My heart started hammering as I crouched beside her. My knee hit the rug harder than I meant it to. Lying on my back, my eyes went wide when I caught sight of what she was looking at.

The carving was the size of my thumbnail. Three lines came down and met a curve. A fourth line crossed them at the bottom. There was a single small dot pressed in just above the meeting point. The wax filling had indeed been tinted to match the oak. Somebody had been in my children’s bedroom.

My witch fire came up so fast my vision went red at the edges. Aidon's hand closed on my leg before I’d known he'd moved. The cold of him took my heat down a notch.

"Breathe, Queenie," he murmured. "If you light up in here, we will lose every piece of evidence in this room. I will find whoever did this and strip the flesh from their bodies an inch at a time."

"They were in here, Aidon," I ground out as I sat up.

"I know, but we have to be smart about this," Aidon murmured against my hair, his hand spread flat between my shoulder blades. "Breathe with me. In three. One. Two. Three."

He drew in a lungful, and my own chest followed him on instinct. The red at the edge of my vision pulled back, and the fire receded from my skin. "Good," he praised. "Again."

I breathed with him until my rage was under control. Aidon shifted his grip to my elbow and drew me up off the floor in one steady pull, then kept hold of me until he was sure my legs would carry the weight. I reached down and caught Stella's hand to bring her up after me.

"Mollie, check Melaina's crib," Stella directed once she was steady. "Clio, can you scan Nyssa's?" Of course, the babies slept while we were fretting over everything. They preferred waking up right when Aidon and I were trying to sleep.

Nana adjusted her shotgun and scowled. "We need to document this for posterity’s sake. Phoebe, give your mother your phone. We can't do anything to them before we have recorded each of them."

Aidon took the device from my hand as I pulled it from my back pocket and crouched at Melaina's rail to photograph the sigil. His shadows bristled, shaking the blankets.

"The same mark is on here," my mother confirmed, straightening. "It looks as if the same hand drew all three."

"What are they doing to my babies? And how do we get them off safely?" I asked, as I fought the urge to pick up Nyssa and Melaina.

"This looks like a binding, Phoebe," Clio added carefully. "I think they've been claimed."

"This is the mark you put on something you're coming back for," my mother corrected.

“Like hell!” I growled. “I will never allow that to happen. We are going to get rid of the marks and then check the cribs downstairs before we find out how they got past the wards.” Tarja pressed her whole body against my calf for support.

Mom’s nostrils flared, and her eyes flashed as she scoured every inch of the room with Nana and Clio. I was frozen in place for a second before I joined them in closely checking the cribs.

"They used blood magic, Phoebe," Mom interjected while we searched for more sigils.

"I’ll have Mom and Dad work on new cribs for them,” Aidon promised. His father was Hades, and his mother was Persephone. They’d made the cribs for the babies with protections in place to ensure their powers didn’t get out of control while they slept.

“In the meantime, we need to cut them out," Aidon ordered over my shoulder, his grip on my ribs tightening.

Stella walked around the room, scanning everything. "I should handle Thaniel's crib. Phoebe can tackle Nyssa's. Mollie can take care of Melaina's.”

Nana set her shotgun against a wall and crouched as if she were going to check the marks. She never got quite that low. “You shouldn’t do them all at once. If one of them reacts, we need to handle it. And the next person needs to know what they're dealing with before they start digging into the wood."

Clio nodded in agreement. "We need to pick up the girls as well. I’ll take Thaniel while you salt the blade the second it comes out. We need to nullify any residual magic before it can do anything else.”

I didn’t like the sounds of that. Swallowing hard, we all nodded. Nina took the salt from Mom, and Clio took Thaniel. Nana picked up Melaina and walked her to the changing table to put on a fresh diaper. Aidon grabbed Nyssa and did the same.

Stella set the blade against Thaniel's rail. Her hand was as steady as I had ever seen a hand be in my life. "Aidon, pull your shadows back from his crib before I start," she instructed without looking up. "Whatever this mark does, I don't want your power tangled up in it on the chance it grabs for something powerful."

“It wouldn’t be able to use them, but I’ll pull them back," he explained at the same time his shadows retreated.