Witches Burn at Dawn ✔

31. Mir

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"Nilam, remind me why I've spent the last two hours filling up my trunk with graveyard soil." I consider a big circle of dirt and candles arranged on the floor before me.

The garage Nilam used to keep his car in is spacious, but the ceiling is barely high enough to stand straight, and now it smells of dust, and soil, and despair.

Writing runes across the floor with a piece of chalk, Nilam shrugs. "Since we modified our plan from capture to capture-and-obliterate, we need something to obliterate the serial killer's soul with, right? There's only one thing that can accomplish that."

Accomplish that. Once this night is over, we'll need just a day to finish the preparations and set a trap for the demon. Just a day, and then Yaroslava's job is done. Surreptitiously, I steal a glance at Fire Girl. Leaning against the wall, Yara watches Laverna who clearly struggles in her stiletto heels as she kneels to light the candles with a long match in her hands.

The deal was to let Yaroslava walk away freely once it's all over. She won't have an obligation to stay afterward, she won't have a reason. She'll leave, and I won't see her ever again.

"A soulwrecker," Nilam goes on, rolling a tiny glass ball Laverna has bought at the occult boutique between his fingers. "Immortal Fire caught in here."

"Immortal Fire? That's your plan?" My throat goes dry. This is even worse than I thought. "Nilam, that fire only exists in the Immortal Realm, in the realm of the dead. Do you want one of us to die and fetch a spark for you?"

"I'm technically dead," Yara says behind my back. "As long as I walk the earth in Polina's body and my bones aren't destroyed, the world of the dead is waiting for me, Mir. I just need to call upon it."

"That's what the decorations are for." Nilam nods at the runes. "We recreate the ritual we used to resurrect Yara, only this time we'll open just a small crack between the world. That's why we're doing it here, not in the graveyard, and that's what the candles are for. Once Yara steps into the circle, the runes will react to her presence and open up a rift, and the candle flames will turn immortal."

Anger spikes in my chest. "And if Yara's not fast enough to collect a spark into your ball and step out of the circle? That rift will suck her spirit in."

"I have this." She pulls a pendant from under her t-shirt, a small white crescent. "It's made of Tyilin wood. As long as I'm wearing it, I'm protected from all different kinds of sorcery that aren't in my body."

"You're entrusting your life to a piece of supernatural wood? Wonderful!"

"I can do this, Mir."

Yet her voice sounds unconvincing. I give Nilam a look, but he dismisses me with a wave of his hand. "She says she can do it. Trust us. I'll stay here with Yara, to make sure everything goes smoothly."

"Then I'll stay, too."

"If Mir stays," Lav interjects. "I want to be here as well."

Both Nilam and I glare at her in unison. "No."

Nilam sighs. "We can't all stay," he says, his expression clouding over, making him look enigmatic in the candlelight. "The ritual won't work with so many people around, and--"

Crossing my arms over my chest, I drop on a rusty metal bench in the corner. "I'm the one with a sigil scar, and all magic is channeled from the world of the dead, right? It practically makes me Death's courtier. What's a better way to protect Yara from death than Death itself?"