Page 8 of Postpartum Spells & Infant Hells

“Go ahead, Stells,” I prodded and held my breath.

She didn’t need to be told twice. She dropped to a crouch and stuck the metal into the wood. Her blade went in cleanly.

The wax peeled off in a thin, pale curl at the tip. The carving sparked underneath, giving off a puke-green flash the size of a coin. The smell of a struck match in damp air rolled up off the rail. We all stood still, waiting for something else to happen.

When several seconds passed, Nina poured salt on the blade. She also tossed granules at the rail. They hit the grooves, and the green flash doubled in size before it shrank to nothing. The wood under the salt made a sound I had never heard wood make. It was somewhere between a hiss and a small wet sob.

Tarja's spine went up beside me. “That was definitely a claiming rune,” my familiar confirmed. “But not one I’ve ever come across.”

"I have a potion that can ensure it’s eradicated," Nana offered. With Melaina in one arm, she used her free hand to flick three drops from a copper dipper into the grooves. The hissing cut off on the third drop as if somebody had thrown a switch. "That one’s dead as a door nail. One down. Don't anybody get cocky. Phoebe, you're up next."

I knelt beside Nyssa's crib. My daughter was safe in Aidon’s arms. The cobweb softness of her hair caught what light there was from the gray window. My heart swelled with love just looking at her. That was overrun by anger when I saw how the carving would sit an inch from her ear when she was in the crib.

I set the blade against the wood. "Breathe before you dig in, Queenie," Aidon reminded me from behind my shoulder.

I breathed and shoved the blade into the wood. The wax came out cleaner than Stella's had. The flash that came up underneath wasn’t green this time. It was yellow.

My stomach turned over. Yellow was the color of the last working Lyra had thrown the night she died. One of the last spells she cast before she was taken to the Underworld. I had stood five feet from it and had deflected it before it could reach anyone.

"Aidon, that's the color from Lyra’s last working," I whispered. “She’s not back, is she?”

"I recognized it too," he murmured. His hand came down on my shoulder. "She’s not back. I promise you that. Hold the blade steady and obliterate that fucker. Nina, salt the blade when she’s done while I’m anchoring her."

I gouged the wax and wood, destroying the sigil. The second I removed the blade, Nina poured. The yellow doubled, then went red at the edges before it died. Nana was right there, throwing three drops from her copper dipper. This time, the flare made me cast a containment bubble before it could reach anyone.

"Two down. Mom, your turn," I directed as I moved to stand behind her at Melaina's crib.

Mom's hand was the steadiest of all of us. There was a time not long ago, right after we’d recovered her from Lyra’s clutches, when she doubted everything about her existence. You would never know now. She didn't waver or hesitate for a second.

The flash came up green again. It was the same dirty green as Thaniel's had been. Nina hit it with salt before Mom had fully lifted the blade away from the rail. The hissing was longer this time. Nana added three flicks of potion. This time, Stella joined me in casting the protection bubble as a green snake snapped out then. We had to pour a lot of magic into our spell to control it.

"That one fought back at the end," Nana observed grimly, her eyes narrowing on the groove. "Add another dash of that salt in there, Nina. I don't trust something that fights like that."

Nina poured more salt, and Nana added more potion, but nothing more happened. Stella moved between the three cribs with a smudge bundle smoking sweetly in her fist. She waved the smoke around until the air in the nursery thickened with cedar and sage. The pressure in the room shifted, and Aidon’s shadows rolled out of him once more.

"I don’t pick up any residual magic, Queenie. I missed it before because I didn’t know what I was looking for. Now, I do," he announced as he held Nyssa close to his chest. "The bindings are dead."

I sat down on the floor. I didn't decide to sit. My knees just gave out, and I sat. Tarja crawled into my lap and pressed her body against my sternum. “I know this is scary, but we will figure this out,” she promised.

The phone in my pocket buzzed against my hip before I could respond. Five other heads swiveled in my direction, and their gazes remained rooted to my pocket. My breath trembled as I pulled my cell out of my pocket. It was the same number as the message. Like before, there was no greeting.

I read it out loud because there was no way I wanted to face this alone. I needed the strength of my family behind me right now. "Such a shame. Those were expensive to place. But we have what we need now. Collection will proceed as planned," I recited to the room.

Nana set the copper dipper down so carefully that it didn't touch the rim of the vial. "Collection. Whoever this is has a flair for the dramatic," she muttered as she eyed her shotgun while clutching Thaniel to her chest. "I have buried three husbands and outlived two wars. I will be damned if some coward is going to collect one of these babies on my watch."

"What did they get from those sigils? How did they manage to gather anything from sigils? We couldn’t feel power emanating from them!" My voice was practically a screech. "They weren't binding marks at all. They were put there to do some kind of survey."

"Hearing that makes me think they were reading the babies," Clio corrected. She had Nyssa up in her arms now. I had not seen her change the baby, but she was in fresh clothes.

She was running her hand an inch above my daughter's body in slow, careful passes. A gasp left her, and her eyes flew wide. "Shit! The sigils sampled them. It discovered what each one of them is. And what each one of them is going to become. This asshole has a map of the triplets now."

Cold rolled off Aidon in a wave I felt against the side of my face from across the room. The mobile over Melaina's bed began to rotate without a breeze. "I need to step outside and let off some steam before I destroy the room," he announced, very quietly as he handed Melaina to Stella. "I'll be outside, Queenie."

"Take it down to the water, Yahweh," I called after him. "Don't hold it back on our account."

"I'll take it where I can blast something without breaking anything that matters," he answered without turning around. Thankfully, the cold went with him out the door.

The temperature in the nursery climbed several degrees in the wake of him leaving the room. Mom was the first one to move. She crossed to me, crouched down, and cupped my cheek.