Celestial Heartbeat (Book One) COMPLETE

Chapter Eighteen - Losing It

Sixteen charms.

That’s how many I’d put on Ren without his knowledge.

They were meant to be protection spells. To keep him safe from harm. But Sylvie had explained several times that the likelihood of them actually keeping Ren safe from his curse was pretty slim.

Still; anything that had the potential to help at all was worth it.

Part of me believed that maybe all the spells could make a combined effort to save him in the end. Sylvie said that was stupid.

Because Sylvie had much more magical power than me, the book actually listened to her requests. Apparently that was the key to it working. The sort of authority one had over it. Because I was a Delaney, it would listen to me from time to time, but due to my lacking powers, it chose not to most of the time. Sylvie could control it with no more than a flick of her finger and a single thought.

The spells that we were using to protect Ren were dark magic.

Sylvie explained it to me in simple terms. Anything that wasn’t natural, was dark magic. So conjuring fire, electricity, water and other similar was normal magic. But anything that was not naturally occurring in this world already, was dark magic.

The spells that I placed over Ren threatened to interfere with the balance of life and death. That certainly was not natural, so it was dark magic.

Luckily, I didn’t have the dark marks on my skin to prove it. Sylvie, and the journal both explained that because no physical change had taken place due to my spell, I wouldn’t receive any dark marks or pain, yet. Should something happen to Ren, then the power from my magic would be cashed upon and new marks would find their way etched upon my skin. I was okay with that. When there came a time for the spells to come into play, I wouldn’t care about my skin in the slightest. I would just care that Ren was going to be okay. Besides, none of the spells were deadly. I wasn’t risking my life or anything. Just a few scars.

“Do you want your powers, Evie?” Sylvie asked me.

We were sitting in a very dark, very empty room.

Nightingale was too risky to practice this sort of magic in. There were too many prying eyes and too many people who could interrupt us. So Sylvie had started taking me to an apartment, just on the other side of town from Nightingale. She said it was hers, but I was seriously doubting that. It was a tiny apartment, with only one bedroom, a bathroom and a longue with a joint kitchenette. There was no furniture in any of the rooms, nor did it seem like any form of electricity had touched this place in years. It was like the whole place had been left unoccupied for eons, the corners of the roof covered in cobwebs, the walls dark and damp, lacking in sunlight.

I didn’t know why someone would be paying rent on an apartment they were never in.

I pretended to be reading the pages of Le Livre des Lunes describing one of the protection spells we’d already placed over Ren. One that was meant to protect him from any incoming magic. I felt like it held the most hope since it was a magic prevention one, and Ren’s curse was obviously magic itself.

I considered what Sylvie was saying for a moment.

Did I want my powers?

When I first discovered them, I wanted rid of them, like I disease I just wanted the cure for. But now, they were useful. Now I needed them.

I let out a long sigh.

“It’s the same way I feel about money.” I told her, running my fingers over the words of the book. “I don’t really want it if I can’t use it to help people.”