Reborn

Chapter Twenty Four

"I've done it!" I exclaimed, jumping to my feet and throwing the pen with a little more force than was necessary, but I had been hard at work every day for the past week so I was relieved and far too happy to have completed my task.

Vince walked over and picked up the new grimoire, the fake one I had been slaving over. It had been difficult but eventually, I'd gotten the hang of it. I was pleased with the amount of progress I had made and it did look a lot like the real grimoire.

"Not bad." He said, flicking through the pages, scanning each one. "None of the spells make the slightest bit of sense either, which is fantastic. Well done."

He turned to me with a grin and I couldn't help but smile. At least now Benjamin wouldn't be able to use any of the other spells either. I had toyed with the idea of just making up entirely new spells that wouldn't work at all, rather than jumbling up the words, but Marl had reasoned with me. He claimed that it would have been easier to jumble the existing spells, purely because we had no idea just how much Benjamin knew of the grimoire. It made sense so I hadn't argued.

"Well, I think this is cause for celebration." Vince then spoke.

"I'm in!" I agreed happily. The idea of a celebration filled me with a sense of relaxation, knowing that I wouldn't have to worry about messing up the grimoire anymore. It was finally done.

"First, I want you to message Shadow and tell him the good news." Vince told Marl, eyebrow raised. "You remember what we discussed, yes?"

Marl nodded, taking Vince's phone. A few seconds later, he was typing rapidly. He didn't speak as he typed out a message to send to Shadow, not that I expected him to. I'd grown used to his silence. To hear him speak now, more than two words anyway, would just be strange.

"What did you two discuss?" I asked Vince curiously, wondering why I hadn't been let into this.

"We are planning a trap." He told me, eyes gleaming and a manic grin formed. "We are going to prove that Leah is the treacherous bitch I know she is."

"Erm... how exactly are you going to achieve that?" I frowned.

"It's easy, really. Nobody but the three of us know what has been going on in this hotel room." Vince explained. "I will hand the fake grimoire back to Shadow and tell him to hide it. Then, we see what Leah does."

"So if she tries to take it, we know she's working against us and if she doesn't, she really is on our side." I nodded in realisation.

"She will take it." Marl spoke, tossing Vince's phone back with an unreadable expression on his face.

"Why do you seem so certain?" I narrowed my eyes, confused as to why they both seemed to believe it was definitely going to happen. They didn't seem to doubt their plan at all.

"Because there is a reason she took it in the first place," Vince stated so simply I immediately felt like an idiot. "She stole it after turning you and she came straight to me, the one person she believed hated Shadow. Why would she do that? And, more importantly, why would she then get in touch with Benjamin to tell him where it is?"

Admittedly, those were questions I didn't know the answers to but I desperately wished I did. I didn't want to believe Leah would betray all of us, but the scales weren't tipped in her favour anymore. I just hoped that Shadow was keeping an eye on her, just in case.

Thinking of Shadow made my heart hurt. I missed him and wanted nothing more than to be back in his arms, to feel his lips on mine. Being away from him did give us the space we needed because living together meant that we hardly had any time to ourselves, but I was missing him like crazy. I couldn't wait to see him again and I hoped that it would be soon. Now I'd finished faking the grimoire, I assumed we would be heading back to London soon.