Okay, now let's get this thing open.
She sat crosslegged on the floor in front of the chest. It wasn't hard to find the key that would fit the lock-she just looked for the oldest and crudest iron key on the ring. It fit perfectly and the chest opened.
Inside was a bronze box, and inside that a silver box.
And inside the silver box was an ancient book with yellowing, brittle pages, and a small green bottle with wax and ribbons securing its cork. There were also thirty or forty amulets. Thea picked one up and examined it.
A lock of blond hair had been twisted and woven
into a knot, and then sealed in that shape with a round piece of clay. The clay was dark earthy red, and Thea touched it reverently. It had been made with mud-and the blood of a witch. An entire Circle had probably worked on this for weeks: charging the blood, chanting, mixing it with secret ingredients, baking it in a ritual fire.
I'm touching a witch, Thea thought. The very essence of somebody who's been dead hundreds of years. The cabalistic sign stamped on the front of the amulet was supposed to show who the witch was. But lots of the pieces of clay were so worn that Thea couldn't make out any trace of a symbol.
Don't worry. Find a description of somebody in the book, and then match the amulet to them.
She turned the fragile pages of the book carefully, trying to read the spidery, faded writing.
Ix U Sihnal. Annie Butter, Markus Klingelsmith . .. no, they all sound too dangerous, hudo Cagliostro- maybe. But I don't really want an alchemist. Dm Ratih, Omiya Inoshishi... wait a minute. Phoebe Garner.
She scanned the page on Phoebe eagerly. A gentle girl from England who had lived before the Burning Times and had kept familiars. She'd died young of tuberculosis, but had been considered a blessing by everyone who'd known her-even humans, who appreciated her ability to deflect spells from her village. Human villagers had mourned at her grave.
Perfect, Thea thought.
Then, she began scrabbling through the amulets, looking for one with the same symbol impressed on the clay as the book showed by Phoebe's name.
There it was! She cradled the amulet in ?her palm. Phoebe's hair had been auburn and very fine.
Okay. Now get the balefire ready.
It had to be made from oak and ash, the two kinds of wood that had been burned to bake the clay. Thea put the dry sticks in her grandmother's largest bronze bowl and lit them.
Now add quassia chips, blessed thistle, mandrake root. Those were just for general power raising. The real magic was in the tiny bottle that had been carved out of a single piece of malachite. It was the summoning potion, and Thea had no idea at all what was in it.
She dug at the wax with her fingernails until the cork twisted freely. Then she paused, her hands shaking with every beat of her pulse.
Up until now, she'd only examined things she shouldn't: bad but forgivable. New she was going to kindle a forbidden fire... and that wasn 't forgivable. If the elders discovered what she'd done...
She pulled the cork out.
Chapter 8
A sharp, acrid odor assaulted her nostrils. She had to blink away tears as she held the bottle over the fire and very carefully tipped it.
One drop, two drops, three.
The fire flared, burning blue.
It was ready. The balefire that was the only way to get a spirit from the other side-apart from crossing the veil and fetching it back yourself.
Thea took Phoebe's amulet in both hands and snapped it, cracking the clay and breaking the seal. Then, holding the broken amulet over the fire, she said the words of power she'd heard the elders speaking last Samhain.
"May I be given the Power of the Words of Hecate."
Instantly, she found words coming to her, rolling off her tongue. She heard them as if it were somebody else talking.
From beyond the veil... I call you back! Through the mist of years... I call you back! From the airy void... I call you back! Through the narrow path... I call you back! To the heart of the flame... I call you back! Come speedily, conveniently, and without delay!
She felt a rumbling vibration like an earthquake rock the floor. Above the ordinary fire different flames seemed to burn; cold, ghostly flames that were pale blue and violet and rose to lick at her knuckles.
She started to open her hands, to let the amulet fall into the magical flame. But just as she was about to do it, there was a bang.
The door to her bedroom swung open, and for the second time in twelve hours she found herself horrified to see Blaise.
"The whole place is shaking-what are you doing?"
"Blaise-just stay back!"
Blaise stared. Her jaw dropped and she lunged forward. "What are you doing?"
"It's almost finished-"
"You're crazy!" Blaise grabbed at the amulet in Thea's hands, and then, when Thea snatched her hands back, at the silver box.
"Leave it alone!" Thea grabbed the other side of the box. They were struggling with it, each trying to pull it from the other. Fire scorched Thea's hands.
"Let go!" Blaise shouted, trying to twist the box away. "I'm warning you-"
Thea's fingers were damp with sweat. The box slipped.
That was when it happened.
The silver box flipped in Blaise's hands, sending a spray of amulets everywhere. Locks of gray hair, black hair, red hair, all flying. Most of them hit the floor-but one landed directly in the balefire.
Thea heard a crack as the clay seal broke.
For one second she was frozen, then she plunged her hand into the fire. But the clay was already burning-not red hot, but white hot. She couldn't close her fingers around it. For just an instant she seemed to see a symbol etched in blue flames, and then a flash like sheet lightning exploded from the fire. It knocked her into Blaise's bed and Blaise into the wall.
The lightning formed a column and something shot out.
Thea didn't so much see it as sense it. A wraith shape that tore around the room like a blast of arctic wind. It sent books and articles of clothing flying. When it reached the window, it seemed to pause for an instant, as if gathering itself, and then it shot through as if the glass didn't exist.
It was gone.
"Great Mother of life," Blaise whispered from against the wall. She was staring at the window with huge luminous eyes-and she was scared. Blaise was scared.
That was when Thea realized how bad things were.
"What have we done?" she whispered.
"What have we done-what have you done, that's the question," Blaise snapped, sitting up and looking more like her ordinary self. "What was that thing?"