Consumed » Kai Parker

Twenty

A week after our little getaway to the waterfall, Kai and I sit in the Salvatore study, a place I'm getting increasingly sick of.

"Nothing," I sigh, slamming the Bennett grimoire shut after marking my spot with a piece of looseleaf paper. "We've been at this for days, and still nothing."

Kai doesn't look up from the Gemini grimoire opened in front of him, as he replies, "Charlie, your pessimism is making it really hard to focus."

I roll my eyes, dropping my forehead to my palms. "Kai, it's kind of hard to maintain a positive attitude when everything we've found since you trapped me here has been useless."

"Obviously we're going to have do a lot of digging before we can expect to find anything helpful," Kai tells me, continuing to scan the pages as I lift my head up. "The prisoner of the prison world - yours truly - can't use the Ascendant. My father is a cruel bastard, but he's not an idiot. He likely went out of his way to make any sort of loophole next to impossible for me to find."

I exhale through my nose, trying to remain calm. "What if there isn't a loophole at all, then?"

Kai's expression feigns indifference but I notice the way his muscles tense at my question. "We can't assume that yet."

I nod, choosing to drop the topic and reluctantly reopen the grimoire to where I had left off, going through the various spells in hopes of finding something relevant to our situation.

After another long period of silence between the two of us as we continued our research, an idle thought pops in my head that I decide to voice, though uncertain if it'll even be of help to us.

"The prisoner of the prison world can't use the Ascendant, meaning only you can't. But anyone else can," I say, not looking up from the page I'm currently scanning.

There's a pause before Kai replies with a hint of amusement in his tone, "What are you implying, that you can do the spell?"

I shrug, shaking my head. "I don't know what I'm saying. I'm kind of just throwing suggestions out there at this point because I mean, we don't really have much to consider right now."

"You're human, Charlie, not a witch. It doesn't exactly work like..." Kai trails off and I notice, glancing up at him in confusion. He's staring down at the ancient book in front of him, brows pulled together, evidently deep in thought.

I straighten up in my seat, cocking my head and watching him curiously, wondering what just came to his mind. "Kai? Did you think of something?"

He slowly trails his gaze up to meet mine, a smile forming on his lips. "This might be a little far-fetched, but maybe you can do the spell."

My eyebrows shoot up at this possibility. Me? Doing magic?

"Wait, that would actually work?" I say incredulously.

"You sound so surprised, but it was kinda your idea," He reminds me, chuckling.

"I was just throwing around random suggestions, I didn't really think I could actually do it. How would that even be possible? I'm not a witch."

Kai nods, eyes trained on me but his mind seeming to be somewhere else. "No, but I could give you magic. Temporarily, of course. I vaguely recall some Gemini spell that allowed magic to be transferred to humans from a Gemini witch, but the magic only lasts like a week or so. My coven rarely used it, it wasn't even really taught but I'd done some reading in my free time and came across it. Didn't think it'd ever be useful, but here we are." He gestures between us.

I frown, considering this option and how well it would work. I can't help but feel like there's a but to go with such a spell. Living in Mystic Falls surrounded by the supernatural, I've come to realize solutions never come by that easily. There's always a catch, some sort of consequence.