Paige reached over and squeezed my hand. "Let's go," she whispered.
We crept out and left them alone.
FORTY-NINE
A few hours later, we were in the Cabal underground ritual chamber. It was another three hours before the rite was completed. It had taken a whole team of spellcasters, including Paige, Lucas, and me, to pull it off, and even then, we had a couple of false starts.
When we finished, Benicio dismissed the others. I could tell they wanted to stay and see if it worked, but this next part wasn't for public viewing. This next part could mean that two of our friends gave their lives--mortal and immortal--for my brother.
Cassandra and Aaron lay on mats beside the ritual circle. They were hooked up to heart-rate monitors. They'd been conscious until the final incantation. Then they'd gone still, eyes closed, the machines remaining dark and silent.
"How long will it take?" I murmured to Adam, who'd been supervising the ritual. "Something should be happening, right?"
He rubbed my good arm, but said nothing. What could he say? This ritual wasn't in any of his books. It wasn't in anyone's books.
I knelt beside Cassandra's mat. "Come on, Cass," I whispered.
As I stared down at her pale, still face, my heart started to hammer. What if she didn't wake up? I hadn't said good-bye. Nobody had, as if not daring to admit that they thought this could fail. If she was gone, we couldn't even contact her through Jaime. When vampires passed, no one knew where they went. No one even knew for sure that they went anywhere, and that vampirehood wasn't their afterlife. An eternity as a ghost traded for a few hundred years more on earth.
"Come on, Cass," I whispered. "Please."
The machine blipped. I jumped and looked over. It blipped again. Then again.
Cassandra shot upright, eyes snapping open. She looked around. Then she grabbed her chest, eyes going wide.
"What's--?" I began, leaping to my feet. "Someone--"
Cassandra gasped. She blinked hard as she slowly, almost tentatively inhaled and exhaled.
"Forgot that part, huh?" Adam said, grinning. "Yep, you gotta breathe now, Cass."
"That's inconvenient," she said.
She blinked some more, then reached over toward the ritual circle and snatched up a knife.
"Hey!" I said. "What--?"
She ran the blade across her palm before I could stop her. Blood welled up. She studied it, then closed and opened her fist. The wound continued to bleed.
"That's very inconvenient." She turned toward Aaron. "I hope you're satisfied. You do realize I'm probably going to die in my sleep from forgetting to breathe. Or from stepping in front of a bullet because I forgot--"
She stopped. Aaron lay there, his machine silent.
She scrambled up and went to him. She shook him by the shoulders.
"Aaron?"
No response. She shook harder, panic lighting her green eyes.
"Aaron!"
She spun to us.
"Don't just stand there. Get him a doctor. Where are the doctors? Goddamn it! He risked his life for you and you can't even provide proper--"
"Are you sure you want her alive?" said a voice behind Cassandra.
Aaron's eyes opened. He yawned. Cassandra's gaze shot to his monitor, still dark and silent.