"I need you to stay away from here today," I told my mother in the morning. I found her in the stairs outside my room.

"That boy cleaned your kitchen," she said.

"Huh?" I asked, walking down the stairs.

"Your lodger. Housemate. Tyler."

"Sorry, what do you mean, he cleaned my kit..." the word died on the tip of my tongue as I walked into the kitchen. I looked at the floor, where the pool of blood had been, only yesterday, dried to a stain next to the bench. It was gone. "Tyler did this?" I asked, starring at the floor.

"Yesterday," she said.

"How did he do it?" I asked. I knelt down to look more closely, swiping my palm over the surface of the wood. He hadn't even dented the resin.

"I think it was baking soda."

"Oh," I stood up and went to make a cup of tea. "I wouldn't have thought of that."

"You got lucky with him," she said. I dropped my teabag onto the bench.

"What?"

"Tyler seems like a really nice young man," she said, walking around the bench to stand in front of me.

"Oh," I picked the teabag up and put it into my cup. "Right."

"Are you feeling all right?"

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah. I'm just a little on edge."

"Yeah," she nodded. She looked genuinely concerned.

"Anyway," I said, subtly changing the subject. "I need to test a spell today."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, and I think you should probably get as far away as you possibly can, just in case something goes wrong."

"Okay," her eyes were a little watery when she smiled at me. I felt a touch of guilt for getting rid of her earlier than was really necessary but I didn't think I could handle her hovering around all day when things were so new between Kieran and me.

I still felt raw all over.

I brought the book down to the kitchen and set it down on the bench. I got my supplies out of the cupboard and lay them out beside the book. Kieran sat at the table watching me.

"Did you want to be inside," I asked, picking up the jar of salt, "or out of the circle?"

"Which would be better?" he asked. He sounded very serious and respectful when he spoke and I felt like he really valued my opinion. He treated me with the respect due to an expert in her field. I thought that was how he saw me, preparing for my ritual, an expert on the dead.

"You can come in," I said, "but it might be distracting..."

"You want me to stay out of the way."

"No, it's not-"

"It's okay," he said. "I understand that you don't want to say it." I gave him a tight smile. He was right, but I didn't have to go out of my way to acknowledge that, did I? "Is it okay if I stay here?" he asked, tapping the wood of the table. "I'd like to watch."

"Yeah, that's fine." I walked the line of salt around the bench. Honestly, that's the main reason that I love island benches so much. You can do a ritual in the comfort of your own kitchen, and still cast a solid circle around your workspace. I'd like to see someone walk a line of salt through a kitchen wall, in order to surround a normal bench. No seriously, that would be something to see.

"Okay," I said, closing the circle. "I've never done this before," I reminded Kieran. "So I want to make a really tight circle."

"Okay."

"It might look a little funny," I said.

"I can leave," Kieran said, "if you like." But it sounded more like he wanted to say, don't make me go.

"Stay," I said. I breathed in and out, deeply, trying to relax. "Just, you know, don't think it's weird."

"I'll try not to," he smiled.

"Right," I nodded. I turned towards the entry to my kitchen, aligning my sight with a point just to the left of the doorway. "I call upon the power of the southern wind," I whispered, feeling the energy gather around me. A cold breeze rustled through my hair and I felt the curls float up around my head, lifted by the wind. That was the first time I'd called upon the elements since my hair was cut and the prickling energy felt surprisingly stronger as it danced through the lighter weight of my hair. "I call upon the air that blows up from the land of ice. I call the cold wind. The wind that breathes the barren land, the wind that whispers death. I call upon the cold wind to bless this circle." I felt the air around me chill, setting the energies of my circle into place. The air around me felt thick and heavy. I waded through the amber haze to the next point of the circle, turning to the east.

"I call upon the eastern shore," I said. The scent of brine filled the air and the wind felt suddenly damp and chill. I could almost hear the crashing of the waves as I called for the power of the ocean. "I call upon the sea that nestles against this land. I call the mystery of the depths, and the spirit of cyclic change. I call upon the sea to bless this circle."

"I call upon the northern heat," I said, turning. "I call on the warmth that breathes along our backs and cradles us in its embrace. I call upon the raging fires of the bush and the fire that brings death. I call upon the part of that flame that burns so bright it knows what it is to be truly cold. I call on heat to bless this circle." The air around me grew suddenly thinner. I'd called the power of fire first once, and felt all of the moisture get sucked out of my circle in an instant. It had felt like stepping out of air conditioner into the desert heat. A heat so powerful it stole the breath from your lungs. Now, I always called the ocean before I called the flames, and the air became humid around me. I felt sweat bead on my upper lip and prickle at my brow. I turned towards the last elemental point.

"I call upon the weight of the west. The wild land," I said, "untamed and untameable. The land which tests the strength of bravery and courage. The land which provides for us. I call upon the nourishing and the hardship. I call upon the land to bless this circle." I felt all of that strength flood my circle, bound by the salt to protect me. "To protect me from others," I whispered aloud, "and from myself."

I turned back to the centre of my circle, to the island bench which I was using as an altar. I smoothed my hand over the weathered page I was working from. I'd never really been one for all that pomp and ceremony so I couldn't help wondering how much of it was actually necessary. I'd managed to unbind the spirits in the Great Hall without even casting a circle, surely I didn't need all this.

But, the only way I could think to find out which parts were truly necessary was to do the entire spell, as written, and get a feel for the energies. Then I'd be able to subtract the parts of the ritual that didn't really add anything, assuming there were things that could be taken away without damaging the end result.

"So they've been bound," I said, voicing my intentions, "so they'll be unbound." I felt a prickle of awareness start up my spine. I waved the smoke of a stick of sandalwood incense counter clockwise over the pot of grave dirt and felt nothing. "I hereby take responsibility for the actions of my people in this world," something stabbed in the base of my spine, twisting through to the front of my abdomen. I collapsed against the bench, unable to stand against the pain. I saw Kieran, from the corner of my eye, stand up and try to come towards me. I waved him away and gasped the rest of my statement to the dead. "I wish to make recompense."

The pain died down to a dull ache the second the words passed my lips. I realized then that this was probably one of those rituals where words, spoken with true intent, had more power than any of the overly formulaic pomp that surrounded the ritual. My words held my breath, my life itself, behind them.

I'd called upon the southern wind. The wind that knew the taste of death, as I did. The air itself was saturated with the will of the dead, in this ritual. If I broke my word to them, I knew, they would be well within their rights to suck the air from my lips and scatter it through the southern wind. The entire land would reek of my death if that happened and the dead that my ancestors had bound here would rejoice in the smell of it. I spoke the truth, though, so, in theory at least, I had nothing to fear.

"I release you from the places you've been bound," I said, "I free you from your slavery." I felt something stretch at the edges of my awareness, like somebody pulling at a rubber band, stretching it out. Just a little more pressure, I thought, and it would break. It was much harder to undo these bonds than it was to tear apart the ones trapping the Fae. I wondered if that was because the souls that were trapped here had no magic of their own. They were just victims.

I felt suddenly angry at the Fae for sending the Deadly Aristocracy here, mad with power, to turn a defenseless population into its slaves. "Justice will be delivered," I promised them, "to those who would make this possible." I felt a whisper of gratitude down the back of my neck and the bonds snapped at the edge of my consciousness. Twang.

I felt ghosts sliding over my aura, passing through the edges of my circle as they moved on to wherever it is the dead go. None of them came back from that place, so I really didn't know anything more about the afterlife - the real afterlife, not the weird in between place that ghosts seemed to dwell - than anyone else. I heard someone gasp and realized that I'd closed my eyes. I was concentrating on the feel of the magic, like a blind man painting, feeling my way along and hoping for the best.

I opened my eyes. Kieran was sitting at the table, his eyes darting over the film of my circle, watching the dead float through it. But it wasn't his voice that I'd heard. I looked across the room, at the entrance to the kitchen, and caught Tyler's eyes. The sapphire depths were filled with fear. Fear, awe and something else. The look you get when you see something that you'll never be able to understand, I guess.

I saw him stare at me, the wisps of the dead reflected in his eyes. My entire being seemed to focus around those eyes, as I saw myself reflected in them. I saw myself how he saw me and all of my fears were confirmed.

I was standing in the centre of a smoky amber pool, and shadows were swirling around me, playing through my hair, caressing me on the way past. I'd been touched by the dead, and I could see that in Tyler's eyes, that touch would never cease to cling to me. I reached out towards him, my hand moving of its own accord. I knew that I couldn't reach him from where I was standing, couldn't even pass through the circle I'd erected around me, because I'd cast a solid one and had to take it down before I could move. Even if I could reach him though, I don't think he would have let me touch him.

In his eyes I was a monster. He'd seen me for what I truly was, the girl with death clinging to her hair, and it terrified him. I saw myself in his eyes and it was a truly terrible sight to behold. If he hadn't run, if he had kept standing there, staring into the unknown, I think his mind would have broken.

As it was, I thought I would never see him again.

I've never been happier to be proven wrong.

----------------------------

Welp, now we know what Tyler saw.

What do you think Laurel is up too?

Til next time,

x zuz