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“You summoned Santos?” Chloe balked.
I glanced around the waiting room. “We should talk in private.”
My friends and I ducked down the hall and into an empty patient room.
“Let’s start with the basics,” Grant suggested. “How did any of this happen in the first place?”
I turned toward Nadine. “Yeah. How did you enter a possession contract?”
“There was a wand,” Nadine explained. “I saw a residual haunting of Leroy from that night. His wife received a wand in the mail, and I thought it could be an Oaken Wand. Leroy locked it in his safe, so when the haunting was over, I opened it to investigate. I accidentally touched it, just like Leroy had. It was an enchanted object that somehow tricked me into a contract.”
Chloe crossed her arms. “If there was an inscription somewhere on the wand, it could include a clause that said touching the object equated to informed consent. Nobody ever reads the terms and services, and demons rely on that.”
“That has to be it,” Nadine said. “There was a very intricate swirling design up and down the wand. It could’ve been letters.”
Talia furrowed her brow, looking thoughtful. “A wand is an everyday object. No one would think twice about touching it. Leave the contract laying around, anyone could pick it up.”
“We need to destroy that wand, before it can possess anyone else,” Nadine said.
“And go back to that haunted dump?” Miles practically squeaked. “No, thank you.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I offered. I’d handle it later. No one dared enter Pinewood Manor these days, so the wand would be fine to sit there until we could go back.
Nadine pressed her lips together. “The wand has been locked in Leroy’s safe for over forty years. How’s Leto possessing people now?”
“A new contract, a new object, perhaps?” Chloe suggested.
“It must be,” Nadine agreed. “Something else happened. Cynthia seemed very wary of the wand, like she knew what it was. Lucas, do you remember when we heard Lilian tell Leto that she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice?”
I nodded. “We know he was here before, but we don’t know who summoned him last time. You’re thinking the council summoned him then, just as they summoned him now?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “The demon was here the same time my grandfather took and hid the Oaken Wands. They must’ve hired him to find them, but he was banished before they could. Lilian summoned him again when the council got desperate.”
“We still don’t know how he was banished, or how to replicate it,” Talia said.
“We don’t want to replicate it,” I countered. “Leto may have been banished before, but that wand still worked to possess Nadine. Whatever happened last time wasn’t enough. We have to do it right this time. Sending him back to hell isn’t enough. We have to shred the whole damn contract.”
“We would need to get a priestess to do that,” Chloe pointed out. “They’re the ones who signed it.”
Grant’s features fell. “We’ll never convince them. If the priestesses didn’t banish him after The Hearse Tragedy, there’s nothing they won’t tolerate.”
“Then we’ll break it ourselves,” Nadine stated confidently. “There has to be something in the fine print that will void the contract and send him back to the Abyss. We can trick them into breaking it.”
“We’d have to find the contract,” Chloe pointed out.
“It’s got to be in the Imperium headquarters,” Miles said. “We could astral travel in, or send in a ghost.”
Nadine shook her head. “I’ve already tested that theory. It has too many wards. I’d have to go in person, and I could get caught snooping around. We should do a tracking spell.”
“Contracts are bound by magic,” Talia said. “A spell strong enough to track it down would require something belonging to the demon or one of the priestesses.”
“I’ve got something.” Chloe reached up to unclasp the necklace she wore. “It’s a family heirloom my grandmother gave me when I was little. It should work.”
Miles eyed her. “I thought you were disowning your family.”
Chloe scoffed. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to throw out a genuine ruby.”
We all joined hands, and we spoke the incantation I’d learned in my intercast magic class. With all five Casts, it was a powerful spell that should produce visions and show us where to find the contract. I felt the magic surging through me… but all I saw was black behind my lids.
