We snuck out of our houses and met at the wharf around eleven at night. Judging by the map, we should have been able to reach the area and come back before daybreak.
It was difficult to get Raelia out of the house without making too much noise, but we managed not to wake up my father in the process.
I couldn't believe what we were doing. In the dark, when it was actually happening rather than being talked about, it felt so wrong. We were going to steal a boat, and we were going to take it nearly one hundred miles into the ocean to look for a fictional knife that may or may not actually be fictional.
I must have been out of my mind to ever have mentioned the Subtle Knife.
It was too late to change my mind, though. We were already carrying out our plans. Jake would already be hotwiring one of the boats at the wharf and the rest of the circle was already on its way.
Raelia and I were the last to join the circle on one of the boats. As I thought, Jake already had it running, the smooth purr of its engine interrupting the stuffy silence of the night air.
"Everyone ready?" Jake asked. There were quiet murmurs of consent and Jake drove the boat out to sea.
"And you're sure we'll be back by dawn?" I asked over the noise of the engine. If there was one think I didn't want, it was to get into trouble.
"Yeah, as long as we don't run into any issues out here," the possum-soul responded.
"Wait, what kind of issues?" Cassie asked.
"You know, storms, sea monsters, the usual," Jake joked. "Don't worry, we'll be fine."
Following the map, it took about two hours to get to the general area of the Knife. There wasn't an island anywhere around us, not even a small one.
"Let's do a spell," Melissa suggested, taking Faye and Adam's hands. I took Faye and Jake's hands into my own as well and the rest of the circle followed suite, connecting all of us. The daemons were gathered inside the circle, all of them touching each other as well. I could feel Raelia rubbing against Adelesia and Chasterion. It wasn't unpleasant; it actually felt nice, like I was really connected to the people on either side of me.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on an image of a knife, the idea of the one we were searching for. I willed something, anything, to show us where it was, or to bring it to us.
There was a light noise in the water beside the boat, like a few tiny bubbles escaping at the surface. I waited patiently for something to happen…and then there was the soft plink of metal hitting metal. I blinked open my eyes to see the knife right there in the middle of our daemons. It looked rather plain and dull, but there was a gouge in the floor of the boat where the blade rested against it. This knife…it could cut metal.
Adam bent and picked the knife up by its handle. I couldn't believe the spell had actually worked. I had been almost sure we were all crazy.
"Okay, everyone needs to use extreme caution around this," Adam warned. "This knife can cut anything. That's how it can cut into other worlds," he said.
"Let me try it," Faye commanded.
"What do you want to use it for?" Adam asked, wary. I didn't blame him; Faye could be hard to trust at times.
"To get into another world, dumbass," she retorted. Adam sighed and reluctantly held out the knife. I expected he couldn't come up with a reasonable excuse not to give it to her. Faye took the tool, but hesitated before using it. "Wait, how exactly do you do this?"
"Well, you feel around the air with the tip of it until you find a little niche, like a broken seam. And if you find one, you slide the knife in and…well, cut it open. I know that's probably not the best explanation," Adam admitted.
Faye snorted, but did as she was instructed. After a minute of fiddling around with the knife, she complained, "It's not working."
"Well, from what we understand, it takes practice. Only certain people are supposed to be able to use it, anyway," Pinseline said, letting Adam take a break from dealing with the fiery witch.
Chasterion growled at the pointer daemon as Faye replied. "What, so none of us can be 'certain people'?" she inquired. "We're witches; we can make this thing work for us, for god's sake."
"Faye, I don't think that's a good idea," I warned. I wasn't going to get involved, but this was starting to sound dangerous. "This knife has magic, too, and not the kind that we use. Who knows what could happen if we mess around with it?"
"No, I want to try," Melissa cut in, and something glimmered in her eyes that gave me an uneasy feeling. "I'll help you spell the knife, Faye." Something seemed wrong. Ghambor was standing at Melissa's feet, but he seemed distant. His eyes stared blankly ahead and he barely moved at all. It was downright unnatural.
"Guys, seriously," I urged. "We should find out more about—"
"No, Diana," Melissa snapped, flaring up like a torch. I stepped back, surprised at the sudden anger in the shorter girl. "You can't try to control us anymore," she snarled. "You're not our mother." The witch turned to Faye. "Do it," she demanded.
Even Faye looked frightened as she began chanting with Melissa. That wasn't normal; that wasn't how Melissa behaved.
"Rumpere huiusce navigii in flammam, rumpere huiusce navigii in flammam," the girls repeated. I didn't like the tone of Melissa's voice and something told me it wasn't really her speaking. Maybe not a demon like the last time something like this happened, but it certainly wasn't her. There was no way she could have pulled those words out of thin air. I tried to comprehend what they were saying, but my knowledge of Latin was limited.
Jake, however, had always known a lot of Latin. The expression on his face as the meaning of the words dawned on him chilled me to the bone. "Everybody, jump off the boat!" he yelled, grabbing Melissa and pushing her over the edge then following. The rest of us, more scared than we had been in awhile, leaped overboard, too. Ghambor seemed to snap out of the haze he was in, then realized what was happening and jumped into the water just as the boat burst into flame.
