A Hymn of Snakes

THIRTY

Amelia helped me draw out a chalk pentacle onto the ground, we stationed ourselves in the city far away from court and the Keepers. I made Leon and Holstein watch from afar, I didn't want to make the girl afraid. In the center of the star was a mirror and facing one of the points was a map of the world. "Are you nervous?" I asked her, her long slick black hair braided behind her head.

She was only seventeen, that's what I learned yesterday. Amelia Bordeaux's file was empty. Only with a birth certificate and her diploma from the Academy. She was the strangest mystery I've ever seen. "What if I mess up the spell?" She asked as she made sure the chalk imprint was solid.

"You won't." I said with a smile, "Magic is in your blood." I told her in hopes it would make her feel better, but when she looked up at me with those dark grey eyes I knew I could have been wrong.

Amelia stopped drawing and dusted her hands off, there was something crossing her mind and thought everything she decided to give away what she was thinking. "I was rooting for you, you know? When I was told you ran away, I hoped you'd survive." She said, my head held high as I watched her move. Amelia rested her hands on her hips, only inches away from her reflective dagger. She wasn't like me in that way, where I always valued strength she had in speed. On her hips were two daggers fashioned to her weight and in her boots I knew she had a few throwing knives for her safety. "The Keepers killed my parents, I was raised to believe that they were evil and were using me to perform their sinful deeds. I never believed it but I was so scared, you made me realize that true evil has a familiar face." She told me, I knew the story of the Bordeau family. Grace and Johnathan Bordeau studied elemental magic, they were discovered after Grace set a library on fire- ending their lives.

Amelia wasn't like me at all, where I was raised from birth to be a Keeper. She was taken in and forced to forget her parents and her lineage. I guess the Keepers' grasp on her neck didn't last very long.

So I would do whatever I could to protect her.

"Do you think I'm a good person?" I asked her, she crossed her arms over her chest as she thought for a moment.

She decided to lie, "No."

I almost laughed, but instead I held it in and nodded my head in agreement. Finding my place in the center of the star, sitting down. "We should get started immediately." I warned her, Amelia moving over to the map as she pressed her hands into the ground. A spell captured between my lips, I allowed Ithe to come through causing my shadow to warp around the pentacle. "Reveal yourself enemy of mine, I twist these bones and bend them back. Turner be turned. Burner be burned." I watched my reflection morph and as quickly as the spell began to work, my world turned dark.

My body sat at a table, unable to move as I watched the room around me turn to black and grays. Across from
me was the face of a killer, her smile adorned her like her bloodlust. Her eyes were the brightest of red like a ruby. Natalia spoke, "You always look so serious Delia." She told me.

I guess right now you could call me insane, because I was the happiest I was right now. She always made me feel like I was losing my sanity, so right now I just didn't care about anything. "And you always look like a backstabbing bitch." I crowed without an inch of laughter in my belly, she blinked at me almost as if she couldn't believe what I had just said.

Natalia tried to hide her reaction but it didn't work, "You have a mouth on you now." She told me, but I didn't flinch. The Vampire looked strikingly different. Her hair had been taken up into knots and her once dark complexion was now ashy and gray. The veins under her eyes were black and darkened, she was going lost. "I've been waiting to speak to you like this, you haven't scried in a year now." She said to me, as my eyes trained around her body. Her muscles were deteriorating and her body looked scared.