Tara Meadowguard's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Tiberius knelt over the ritual book, his small chihuahua paw next to Tara's on the page. The floor kept shaking. Tara wanted his help, but she did not know what part he could do. The ritual needed three spoken words in the old language. She had said the first. Say the wrong one next, and the summoning would rot. The half-awake spirit would turn wrong, and she would never wake the guardian she needed. "Which word do you know?" Tara asked. "Show me. If we guess, we corrupt it." Tiberius did not answer fast. He studied the runes on the page. His big ears twitched. "I don't read this," he said flatly. Tara's chest went tight. "Then what can you do?" He stood and crossed the coins to the hidden shelf of rare books. The tuxedo cat sat on the gold nearby, mustache neat, bow tie crisp. The cat watched with narrow eyes and said nothing. Tiberius reached toward the shelf. "Stop," the cat said, rising in his tuxedo. "The candelabra curses the wrong hand." He nodded at the eight leaning flames. "Choose wrong, and it takes you." Tiberius pulled his paw back. He looked at Tara. "I can't read the words. But I know how our blood works. Your mother taught me one thing before she left. The old rites need two voices of the same line. Not one. That's why the spirit stalled." Tara stared at him. "Two voices. From the same family." "Yours and mine," he said. "That's my part." Hope and fear ran through her at once. She found the second word on the page. She traced the rune with her claw so she would not slip. "Read it after me," she said. "Together. Same breath." Tiberius set his paw back beside hers. Tara spoke the second word. Tiberius spoke it a heartbeat behind her, low and steady, matching her sound. The floor stopped shaking. The groaning below softened. A warm light rose through the coins, gold like butterflies waking on a tree. The eight flames on the candelabra straightened. They no longer pointed down at the thing beneath. The spirit was no longer half-awake and turning wrong. It had steadied. Two voices had caught it. But it was not finished. One word remained. And the last word, Tara now knew, would need more than two voices. The cat flicked his tail. From a hanging net of coins and small treasures near the wall, one pocket glowed faint blue. Tara had not seen it open before. Tiberius saw it too. "The rite names a third," Tiberius said. "Another of our blood. To finish, we need one more." Tara pressed her mother's letter against her chest. The guardian was closer now. But she could not wake it alone, and she could not wake it with only Tiberius. She needed the kin he had promised were still out there. "Then we find them," Tara said. "Fast."