Torn Ivy (Thornfield Supernatural Academy #2)

44. Tate

44

TATE

“Rewind time?” I repeat, my mind spinning off in all directions. I’m not dead. How am I not dead? “Is that even possible?”

Bram’s eyes are blazing with determined intensity. “With the amount of power we’ve unleashed? It has to be. It’s our only shot at fixing this without losing Ivy.”

I want to argue and point out all the ways this could go horribly wrong. But the alternative—leaving Ivy scattered across dimensions or trapped in some fractured reality—is unthinkable.

“How do we do it?” Torin asks, his voice hoarse.

“We channel all of our power into the circle,” Bram explains. “Focus on the moment right before Ivy scattered herself. We have to visualise it perfectly.”

“That will leave us vulnerable to the attack from those beings,” Cathy points out, still with a death grip on my collar. I shrug her off and she lets go with a warning look for me to behave.

“Vulnerable?” Bram sneers. “We will annihilate them.”

“You’d better,” she mutters, but steps back.

I close my eyes, calling up the memory. Ivy is facing down those creatures sent by the Syndicate. The look of fierce determination on her face as she prepared to unleash her full power.

“I can see it,” I whisper. “I’m with her, holding her hand. Torin has his hand on the back of her neck.”

“Good,” Bram nods. “Hold onto that image. Pour everything you have into it.”

I feel my power surge, buoyed by my love for Ivy, which is flowing freely through me and into the circle. Torin and Bram do the same. The air sparks with static, making our hair stand on end. Ivy’s pink strands stick upright, and I smile at the image of her, but then I focus. Her body is here, an empty husk, and we need her back in there.

Bram starts chanting an incantation straight from the book. His fingers touching the paper are moving right to left. His words are garbled, and even though I don’t know Fae, I know he is reading it backwards.

“Bram?” I call out but he is totally lost. His eyes are flashing silver, the black veins still visible under his skin are writhing.

“I think he’s been possessed,” Torin shouts over the roar of a magick so black. I feel my stomach lurch, and bile fills my mouth as I retch onto the grass next to me. Torin is doing the same, spewing up blood everywhere.

“Bram!” I croak. “Stop!”

But he doesn’t listen. Or he can’t hear me. Or worse, he can’t stop even if he wanted to. That ominous magick has taken him by the balls, and now we are stuck in this nightmare reality. It grows dark and cold, so cold, even Torin groans as the bone-aching chill seeps into his skin.

“Cathy?” I call out, looking behind me.

But she can’t answer me. The woman is curled up in the foetal position, shivering uncontrollably. I’m torn between breaking the circle to help her and staying where I am in case cutting off the power supply makes things drastically worse. Although I can’t envisage how that would be possible right now. The sounds of monsters we were never meant to hear, roar through the night.

The world around us has descended into utter chaos. Bram’s chanting has taken on a deeply disturbing tone, his voice distorted, deep, and echoing strangely. The darkness pressing in feels alive and malevolent.

I can barely make out Torin’s form across the circle, but I can hear the panic in his voice as he calls out to Bram. My throat is raw from retching up bile, and the acidic taste is bitter in my mouth.

“We have to stop this!” I shout, but my words are swallowed by the howling wind.

Suddenly, a piercing scream cuts through the oppressive blackness. It takes me a moment to realise it’s coming from Ivy’s lifeless body. Her back arches off the ground, mouth open in a now silent scream as tendrils of inky blackness pour from her eyes, nose, and mouth.

“Ivy!” I cry, lurching forward.

“Don’t break the circle!” Torin yells.

Even as every instinct screams at me to go to her, I stop, knowing he’s right. Breaking it now will destroy everything. Bram is channelling something so utterly terrifying that I don’t think he will ever be able to recover from it. If this was how the Ancient Fae operated, I’m fucking glad I didn’t have to live in those times.

The world around us rotates. Slowly at first in an anti-clockwise direction. “Fuck! It’s working! We’re reversing time!” I shout, but then promptly throw up again as the earth swings around at a rapid rate that my stomach just can’t handle.

The world spins faster and faster, a dizzying blur of darkness and flashing images. I can barely keep my eyes open, let alone focus on maintaining the circle. But I know I have to hold on. For Ivy. For all of us.

Suddenly, everything stops.