Cassie Davis's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Cassie set the torn book down and turned a heavy page she had missed. Beneath the diagram, a second sketch glowed faintly on the parchment — two girls holding hands, a small heart drawn between them. One had a ponytail. The other had a braid. Cassie's stomach dropped. The faces were hers and Mia's. She read the runes beside it. The wizard had written a name. Hers. The summoning was not only for the demon queen. The tome said the world had called her for a second reason — to find Mia, and to love her. The ink shimmered like it had been waiting eleven years to be seen. Cassie stepped outside. Mia stood beside a mossy stone figure with arms held wide, as if the statue itself were waiting. At its base sat a glass bottle wrapped in moss, a rolled letter inside, the ink soft and old. Mia's handwriting. Years of it. "You knew," Cassie said. Mia did not look away. "I knew part of it," she answered. "I left letters here when I couldn't say things. I didn't think you'd ever read them." Cassie's hands were shaking. The tome wanted an answer. Her heart wanted one too, and they were not the same voice. She thought of the portal. She thought of home. Then she looked at Mia's quiet, steady face, and she made the choice that was hers, not the book's. "I'm not picking because a page told me to," she said. "But I'm not walking away from you either. Not today." Mia's shoulders dropped, like she had been holding them up for years. She took Cassie's hand. The sketch in the tome flared once, bright, then dimmed — and a new line of runes bled onto the empty half of the torn page, fresh and wet. The book had been waiting for this. The instructions were starting to write themselves.