"See you tomorrow," Eric said as she got out of the jeep. His voice was almost a plea.
"See you tomorrow," Thea said. It wasn't time to get away yet. She waved until the jeep was gone.
Then it was time. She dashed inside, up the stairs, and straight to Blaise.
"Wait a minute," Blaise said. "Go back. So you're saying they didn't believe any of it."
"Right. At worst Eric's mom thinks Gran's bonkers. But it was a close call. For a while there I thought she might want to get Gran declared unfit or something."
The two of them were sitting on the floor by Blaise's bed where Thea had collapsed. Blaise was eating candy corn with one hand and scribbling on a yellow legal pad with the other, all the while listening attentively.
Because that was the thing about Blaise. She might be vain and self-centered, quarrelsome, hot-tempered, lazy, unkind to humans, and generally hard to live with, but she came through for family. She was a witch.
I'm sorry I said you might be a little like Maya, Thea thought.
"It's my fault," she said out loud.
"Yes, it is," Blaise said, scribbling.
"I should have just found some way to keep him at a distance in the beginning."
But of course, it was because of Blaise that she hadn't. She'd thought Eric was safer with her than he would have been with Blaise. She'd thought that somehow... somehow...
Things would work out. That was it. There had always been some secret underlying hope that there could be a future with Eric. Some little hiding place where she'd kept the hope that things could be all right.
But now she had to face reality.
There was no future.
The only thing she could give Eric was death. And that was all he could give her. She'd realized that, all in one terrible explosion of insight when she'd seen Eric's mother in the room.
There was no way for them to be together without being discovered. Even if they ran away, someday, somewhere, the Night People would find them. They'd be brought before the joint Night World Council, the vampire and witch elders. And then the law would be fulfilled....
Thea had never seen an execution, but she'd heard of them. And if the Harmans tried to stop the Council from killing her, it would start a war. Witches against vampires. Maybe even witches against witches. It could mean the end of everything.
"So it doesn't look like we have to kill the mother," Blaise said, frowning at her scribbles. "On the other hand, if we kill the kids, the mother's bound to be unhappy, and might make a connection. So to be safe-"
"We can't kill any of them," Thea said. Her voice was muted but final.
"I don't mean ourselves. I'm going to call one of our friendly vampire cousins. Ash-he's supposed to be out on the West Coast somewhere, isn't he? Or
Quinn, he likes that kind of thing. One quick bite, let the blood run out-"
"Blaise, I am not going to let vampires kill Eric. Or anybody," she added as Blaise opened her mouth. "It's not necessary. Nobody needs to die."
"So you have a better idea?"
Thea looked at a statue of Isis, the Queen of Egyptian Goddesses, on the desk. "I... don't know. I thought of the Cup of Lethe. Make them forget everything about me. But it might look suspicious-this entire family with a gap in their memory. And kids at school would wonder why Eric doesn't remember my name anymore."
"True."
Thea stared at the moon held between Isis's golden horns. Her brain, which had been working so coldly and logically, helping her to survive, was stalling now. There had to be a way to save Eric and his family-or what was the point of living herself?
Then she saw it.
"What I really think would be best," she said slowly, because it hurt like a physical pain, "would be for Eric to stop caring about me. To fall in love with someone else."
Blaise sat back. She stirred the candy corn with long, elegant nails. She ate a piece.
"I admire you," she said. "Very sensible."
"Not yon," Thea said through clenched teeth. "You understand that, right? A human. If he falls in love with another girl he'll forget about me without any Lethe. Nobody will disappear or have amnesia; nobody will get suspicious."
"Okay. Although I would've liked to try him. He's got a strong will-I think he'd have held out for a while. Been a challenge."
Thea ignored this. "I still have some of his blood. The question is, do you have something you've been holding back, some love spell that will completely blow him out of the water?"
Blaise ate another piece of candy corn. "Of course I do." She narrowed her gray eyes. "Also, of course, it's a forbidden spell."
"I figured. Blaise, I'm now the princess of forbidden spells. One more doesn't matter. But I'll do the actual working, I don't want you to get in trouble."
"You won't like it. It involves the bezoar stone from the stomach of an ibex-which I just happened to pick up while we were living with Aunt Gerdeth."
Ibex were an endangered species. But this one was already dead. "I'll do the working," Thea said stubbornly.
"You really care about him, don't you?"
"Yes," Thea whispered. "I still think we're soul-mates. But..."
Would you give up everything?
"I don't want to be the reason he dies. Or the reason a war starts between the Harmans and the rest of the Night World. And if I have to give him up, I'd rather do it myself, make sure he's safe with somebody else who loves him."
"Have you got somebody picked out?"
"Her name is Pilar." Thea looked at her cousin suddenly. "Blaise? When Luke asked you what you