Page 109 of Divine Oaths

But then I saw him. In the distance, kneeling at the foot of one of the trees. Streaks of sunlight radiated around his form, and except for the boxer briefs he’d died in, he wore nothing. Nothing but the silver rope tying his hands behind his back and his legs together.

“Luke,” I whispered. I moved forward but Angelica stopped me.

“Wait,” she said. “Something’s wrong. See how the sunlight touches him? It does not pass through him like a ghost, nor does it warm his flesh like a living person.”

I looked back, following her gaze to the rays of light framing Luke. Just like Angelica said, there was something eerie in how it shimmered, how even though the sunlight was bleeding onto him, Luke’s body seemed to reflect the light back, almost like a mirror.

“A wraith,” Angelica said. She turned to Kasem. “Do you see now?”

“I do,” he answered, no emotion in his voice.

Wraith Luke glanced around at us, fear rippling through his body.

“Hello,” he said. “Please. I can’t find my glasses. I can’t see.”

They’d left him like that. Tied in the dark, without his glasses, without any way to know where he was, or who was around, or how the creatures were coming upon him.

I turned to Kasem and Honey.

“This is your fault. Luke is dead because of you.”

“The creatures we saw that night were nothing like any wraiths we’ve banished before,” Honey said. “They’ve always had human forms. We couldn’t have known they’d possess the nearby wildlife. We did our best. But we failed.”

“And you used initiates as bait,” I said. “Great plan.”

I spun, facing Kasem.

“What about you? What’s your excuse?”

For the first time since I’d met him, Kasem seemed lost for words.

“I—I was trying to help.”

“You didn’t lift a finger until it was too late.”

“It’s like Honey said. They’ve been banishing wraiths from campus for decades. Every other year survived. We were fine. Luke would have been too, if it wasn’t for the curse.”

“Vivian didn’t make it,” I challenged. “And will I just be some collateral damage if anything happens to me?”

Hurt crossed his expression. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“But you don’t act that way. We’re all doing our best to stop the hauntings on campus and break this curse, and you have the nerve to act like a petulant child.”

The more I spoke, the angrier I became. He was being so flippant about all of this, and ever since our night in the shed, he’d been cold and standoffish. If he only knew how much we were all sacrificing, not just to break my bond to him, but for him.

“The curse follows you, doesn’t it?” I said. “That means people around you will die. Why would you get close to people? Why would you let them risk their lives being around you? And why won’t you just give up your inheritance like Jojo did?”

A gust of wind churned through the clearing.

“Hello,” Luke said. “Please, I just need my glasses!” The more frantic he seemed to get, the more violent the wind currents became. I screamed as one knocked me off my feet, slinging me into the muddy earth. Rot oozed from the soil, toiling, bubbling, bleeding red with blood. Luke’s blood, and perhaps the others’ too.

“It’s his glasses,” Vivian said. “That’s his relic. We need to find them and return them to his remains.” She pointed to the corner where Luke was crouched. There, nearly hidden by underbrush, a bloody finger lay. It’d been overlooked in the police recovery attempt.

Honey began chanting and drawing the golden shapes of her banishing circle. But Angelica stopped her.

“We are not to banish him. Luke’s death was on your hands. You have no right to destroy his soul.”

“Banishment is the only way to excavate a wraith from the earth.”