Chapter 17: Desperate Measures

HOLDEN POV

My private library occupies the entire third floor of the Ashworth mansion, a collection spanning three centuries of occult research that most scholars would kill to access. Tonight, surrounded by grimoires and ancient texts that smell of leather and secrets, I feel like I'm drowning in useless knowledge.

Fourteen days. My father's ultimatum echoes in my head as I pull another volume from the shelf—Covenant Dissolution: A Theoretical Approach by some German mystic who died in an asylum. The binding cracks as I open it, releasing the scent of vanilla and decay that seems to follow supernatural texts like a signature.

The covenant mark on my chest burns constantly now, a silver scar that pulses with each heartbeat, reminding me that time is running out. It's been doing that more frequently since I touched Rosemary in the library, since those visions of our possible futures flooded through me like poison.

I spread my research across the massive oak desk that belonged to my great-grandfather—newspaper clippings about failed covenant breaks, scholarly articles about supernatural binding theory, hand-copied passages from texts too dangerous to remove from their protective circles. Twenty years of desperate searching, and every solution leads to the same inevitable conclusion.

The woman must die willingly.

"Fuck." The word echoes in the vaulted space, absorbed by centuries of accumulated knowledge that can't help me save the one person who matters.

My phone buzzes with a text from my father: Council meeting tomorrow night. Be there.

I delete it without responding. Whatever the council has planned, I won't be part of it. Not when it involves Rosemary.

The next text comes from a number I don't recognize: She knows about the federal agent. Time to accelerate timeline. - P

Paige. Of course she's monitoring the situation, feeding information to my father while pretending to help Rosemary research her family history. I should have seen that coming.

I turn back to the books, desperation making my fingers clumsy as I flip through pages of Latin incantations and theoretical frameworks that all demand the same price. The Malleus Maleficarum suggests ritual drowning under specific celestial conditions. A thirteenth-century French manuscript describes a ceremony involving willing heart extraction. An Egyptian text, written on papyrus so old it crumbles at my touch, details how to bind a soul to darkness through consensual spiritual consumption.

All of them require the woman to choose death.

My laptop shows seventeen browser tabs open to academic databases, folklore repositories, digitized grimoires from private collections around the world. I've been searching since I was nineteen years old, following every lead, consulting every expert who doesn't ask too many questions about why someone would want to break a supernatural covenant.

The answer is always the same: it can't be done without willing sacrifice from the bound bloodline.

I'm reaching for another book when my fingers brush against something I've never noticed before—a slim volume wedged between two larger texts, almost invisible in the shadow of its neighbors. The cover is unmarked leather, dark with age, and when I pull it free, electricity shoots through my fingertips.

The pages inside are handwritten in a script I recognize as my great-great-grandfather's, the man who first forged the covenant in 1852. Most of it is in code, but scattered throughout are passages in clear English that make my blood run cold:

The covenant feeds on death but can be starved by transformation. What is bound by blood can be rebound by choice, if both parties consent to risk dissolution.

Counter-ritual requires perfect timing—new moon rising as old power wanes. Both participants must be willing to die. Survival depends on strength of alternative bond formed in moment of breaking.

Warning: Failure results in immediate death for both parties. Success creates new covenant based on mutual choice rather than inherited obligation. Untested. Theoretical only.

My hands shake as I read the passage again. A counter-ritual that could transform the covenant instead of simply breaking it. Both participants risking death, but potentially surviving with a bond based on choice rather than supernatural compulsion.

I photograph the pages, my pulse racing as I read further. The ritual itself is complex—specific positioning, precise timing, blood shared willingly between both parties at the moment of covenant dissolution. And it has to happen during the new moon, when the original covenant's power is weakest.

Fourteen days from now. The same timeline my father has chosen for accelerating the traditional ritual.

The implications hit me like a physical blow. I could offer Rosemary an alternative that doesn't require her death—but it does require her to risk it. To trust me completely at the moment when trust should be impossible. To choose potential mutual destruction over certain individual survival.

How can I ask that of her when she already has every reason not to trust me?

My phone rings, jarring me from the theoretical framework that might save us both. Unknown number, but something compels me to answer.

"Holden Ashworth."

"We need to talk." The voice is familiar—Rosemary, but strained, frightened. "Can you meet me at the bookshop?"

I check the time. Nearly midnight. "What's wrong?"

"Someone's been in my apartment. Nothing stolen, but things moved. Drawers opened. Like they were looking for something."

My father. Or someone acting on his orders, searching for evidence of how much she knows, what kind of threat she poses to the established order.

"I'll be right there."

"Holden?" Her voice is small, vulnerable in a way that makes my chest tighten. "I'm scared."

"I know. I'm coming."

I'm halfway to the door when I stop, looking back at the open grimoire on my desk. The counter-ritual stares back at me, offering hope and terror in equal measure.

If I tell her about it, I'm asking her to risk her life on an untested theory written by a man who might have been insane. If I don't tell her, I'm condemning her to die in my father's ritual or spend her life running from shadows.

I photograph the relevant pages and close the book, my decision made. She deserves to know about every option, even the ones that might kill us both.

The drive through empty streets takes seven minutes that feel like hours. Thornwick Hollow at midnight is a different creature than the charming mountain town tourists see—darker, more watchful, full of shadows that move wrong and sounds that don't quite belong.

I park behind the bookshop and use the spare key Rosemary gave me yesterday, before everything became complicated by federal agents and accelerated timelines. The shop feels different at night—protective wards weakened by the vandalism, the atmosphere charged with anxiety and fear.

"Rosemary?" I call softly.

"Upstairs."

I find her sitting on her couch, knees drawn up to her chest, wearing pajama pants and an oversized sweater that makes her look younger and more fragile than the fierce woman who confronted me about murder yesterday. Her eyes are red-rimmed but alert, tracking my movements as I enter her living space.

"Tell me what happened."

"I came home from the grocery store around ten. Everything looked normal, but my coffee mug was in the wrong place. The books on my nightstand were stacked differently." She hugs her knees tighter. "Someone was here, Holden. Going through my things."

I scan the apartment, noting the subtle signs of careful searching—cushions not quite placed correctly, papers organized just slightly wrong. Professional work, meant to be discovered but not to reveal what they were looking for.

"Did you find anything missing?"

"No. But I think they were looking for something specific. Something they didn't find."

Like evidence of contact with a federal agent. Like plans to run. Like proof of how much she knows about the covenant.

I settle into the chair across from her, the counter-ritual pages burning against my chest where I've tucked them into my jacket pocket. This might be my only chance to tell her about the alternative, to offer her a choice that doesn't involve running or dying.

"Rosemary, there's something I need to show you."

"More evidence that you're supposed to murder me?"

"Evidence that maybe you don't have to die."

The words hang between us like a promise and a threat. Outside, the wind picks up, rattling windows and reminding us both that we're running out of time to find a different ending to this story.