Chapter 716: What the Ritual Woke
Chapter 715: What the Ritual Woke
Sophia stood in the shrine with Madam Tyler. The air was cool and still, carrying the faint scent of incense. Sunlight slanted through the high windows, casting soft patterns on the stone floor.
Madam Tyler reached out and took a strand of Sophia’s hair between her fingers. One of the few that had turned white. She studied it closely, turning it this way and that in the light.
"The hair colour really is changing," she said.
Sophia nodded. "It is. But that’s the issue. Olga and the others tried to change it back to its original colour, but it was quite difficult. Only a few strands changed."
Madam Tyler’s brow furrowed. She released the strand and let it fall back into place.
"And you suspect this may have something to do with black magic?"
Sophia was quiet for a moment. She didn’t want to believe it. But she also couldn’t ignore it.
"I wouldn’t put it past my mother," she said. "I know you don’t practice it, but I also know you are the one person in the pack who could help me with this."
Madam Tyler was silent for a long moment. Her fingers brushed against her neck, her gaze distant, as if she was turning something over in her mind.
Then she nodded.
"I will try to help," she said. "But I cannot guarantee anything. Sit."
Sophia lowered herself onto the bench near the table where they had been. Madam Tyler moved behind her, and Sophia felt her hands in her hair as the woman examined it.
The minutes stretched. Madam Tyler worked in silence, her fingers moving with the patience of someone who had done this kind of work many times before. She lifted strands to her nose, smelling them. She rubbed them between her fingers, feeling the texture. She parted the hair to look at the scalp beneath.
Then she stepped back.
"I don’t see anything," she said. "I don’t smell anything either."
Sophia’s chest tightened.
"But don’t worry," Madam Tyler added. "I will do some things to help us know. What I am trying to do will not help me know, though. It will help you know."
Sophia frowned. "How?"
Madam Tyler smiled faintly. "You will know."
She turned and began moving around the shrine. Sophia watched as she gathered items from different places. From the shelf near the window, she took a small clay bowl, its surface smooth and dark from years of use. From a basket by the door, she took a bundle of dried sage, tied with a strip of leather. From a shelf near the altar, she took a smooth black stone, polished to a shine. From a wooden box, she took a white feather, soft and delicate. From another cabinet in the corner, she took a small vial of oil that gleamed amber in the light.
Each item she placed on a low table near the center of the room. An assistant helped Madam Tyler arrange it all.
Sophia wondered why the woman had to move around the whole shrine when everything could have been in one place—perhaps the shelf. But she remained quiet. Maybe there was some logic behind it after all.
Madam Tyler turned to Sophia then.
"Stand up, child," she said. "Come here."
Sophia stood and walked to where Madam Tyler was waiting. The assistant stepped back, her eyes fixed on the circle that Madam Tyler was now drawing on the floor.
Sophia had no idea if it was chalk or paint. But whatever it was, it glowed faintly as she drew, a soft silver light that faded almost as soon as it appeared but left something behind in the air. The lines curved and crossed, forming patterns that Sophia did not recognize.
Madam Tyler reached into a small pouch at her belt and took out a piece of dried root. She placed it in her mouth, tucking it against her cheek. Her lips moved around it as she began to mutter, low and steady, the words difficult for Sophia to make out.
"Step inside," Madam Tyler said.
Sophia nodded and stepped inside the circle without question.
The air changed immediately. It was heavier, thicker, like the space around her had suddenly become something else entirely. The shrine walls still stood, but they felt farther away than they should have. The sounds of the room—Madam Tyler’s muttering, the assistant’s breathing—seemed to come from a great distance.
"Close your eyes," Madam Tyler said. "Work with your wolf. Anything she feels, you say it."
Sophia closed her eyes.
Madam Tyler continued then. One by one, she set the items down at five different points.
The clay bowl went first.
The bundle of sage went next, the dry leaves rustling.
The black stone clicked against the floor.
The white feather followed, and the oil made a small wet sound as Madam Tyler tipped a few drops onto the stone.
Then Madam Tyler sprinkled something over the ground.
Sophia’s eyes remained closed.
At first, there was nothing. Just the darkness behind her eyelids and the sound of her own breathing. Neoma was present too.
Then Sophia smelled something. It was unpleasant, like something dead left in the sun too long. It filled her nose, her throat, her lungs.
"I smell rotting," she said.
Madam Tyler did not respond to that.
Neoma stirred then.
*I feel suffocated,* she said.
Immediately, Sophia felt it too. The air pressed against her chest. It was hard to breathe, like she was locked in a small room with no windows, no door, no way out. Her lungs strained to breathe freely.
"I feel suffocated," Sophia managed to say. "Like I’m locked somewhere with little room to breathe."
Neoma growled then—a warning sign—and suddenly everything went black.
Sophia tried to breathe, but there was no air. She tried to move, but there was no body. She tried to speak, but there was no voice.
She wondered what was going on when she heard a voice, one she knew so well.
