The Saturday midnight forest ritual thing went ok, we didn't encounter any fae or fairies or any other trouble. With Kaylee leading the ritual it all went well, and Cerys was able to help too which was a confidence boost for her after not using any magic at all for nearly four months. And finally, Melanie confirmed that there was a weak fae scent in the area, while Brooke took some samples of the dirt and grass incase she could use it for scrying.

Our former leader also asked Cerys about those magic mushrooms, but the younger blonde got very quiet and sullen and mumbled something about her dad getting to them along with all her other belongings, so the subject was quickly dropped.

After all the excitement and the late night Saturday, me and Nina both slept in Sunday morning. Then we had a nice breakfast with our parents, and mom told us how things went when she took Alyssa home. Apparently the young woman held it together until they got to the front door. They knocked and Mrs. Ross opened the door, then Alyssa finally broke down and the tears started flowing. Mom stayed with Alyssa and her folks for an hour or so to make sure they were all going to be ok, and to help ensure they all got the right story about how we found their daughter. And finally, before she left mom gave her business card to Alyssa and her parents so they could contact mom if they needed her help with anything.

Things were pretty quiet after that, I spent the rest of Sunday doing homework then hung out with Nina and the two of us played video games. The only other thing that happened was me and Kaylee talked a bit, and agreed to go on another date the following Saturday since our first one got seriously side-tracked.

And by Monday everything seemed pretty much back to normal again for me. There weren't any angry or uptight demi-humans waiting for me by my locker either, so I figured Mrs. Winters didn't use the plushie I gave Kirstie after all.

On the other hand, all my friends and family were still acting kind of uptight and worried, as if Brian could jump out at any moment and attack me. Melanie made a point of checking the school for fae scents every morning, which I figured was partially for my safety and partially to teach Cerys how to do that sort of thing while in human form.

The only real annoyance was I couldn't do anything at school without at least one of my friends accompanying me. Which meant no more studying ancient tomes in the library during gym class or at lunch. So I ended up doing my homework at school in the library and working on my personal project at home in my bedroom.

That was pretty much the template for my week. I walked to and from school with Nina and Kaylee, had lunch with all my friends, and had at least one of them hanging out with me when I was doing homework in the library. And back at home I'd lock myself away in my bedroom for an hour or two to do my 'homework' so I could keep working on my idea.

On Wednesday that old manuscript on holy magic came in, which gave me a bunch of new material to study. I had to try and integrate that new information into what I already knew about the demonic stuff. And it paid off pretty quickly, as I realized I needed to know more about the shard in my chest. Specifically I needed to know what was supposed to happen to it after Socha came and took possession of my body.

And that led to an awkward and slightly stressful conversation with my family at dinner on Friday night.

"You know all the notes and information and stuff Socha left with Nina?" I asked as the four of us sat around the kitchen table eating some of mom's home-made lasagna. "I want to have a look at that stuff myself."

My parents exchanged a concerned look, then mum asked "Why do you want to see that? You know you won't even be able to understand most of it Cass."

They still didn't know how much Socha taught me over the summer, and I didn't want to worry them so I let them continue thinking that. Instead I shrugged, "Even if I can't read it I still want to see it. It's been more than six months now that you've had all that stuff, I don't think it's fair that I've never got to look at it even once."

"Some of the things Socha left with Nina are enchanted," mom explained. "It's not safe for you to be too close to them."

I frowned as I thought about that for a moment. Then I pointed out, "If it was used in any of the rituals that were done on me then it's probably demonic magic right? And that's safe for me to be around."

Both of them still seemed reluctant to let me see that stuff, which annoyed me a bit. I knew they were trying to protect me and maybe they thought it was for my own good or something, but it was still frustrating.

"I'm eighteen now remember?" I asked as I looked back and forth between them. "I'm legally an adult. I have a right to know what's going on with my body, my life. If we were talking about medical records I'd be able to have access to them. I don't think this is any different. It's stuff that was done to me, and I have a right to know the details."

My parents exchanged another look, this time mum went with the 'protecting me' angle. She also threw in a little sisterly guilt as well.

"Cass we've kept some of that from you for your own peace of mind," she explained. "And for Nina's. You know she feels awful about her part in all this. There's some details in those notes that could upset you, and I'm sure it would upset her too."

I looked at my little sister, she was quietly staring down at her plate with a sad look on her face. So I reached out and took her hand in mine. I told her, "Nina I promise nothing will change how I feel about you. And you already know I don't blame you for any of that stuff. I'm sorry if upsets you that I might see some of those details, but I need to know."

"It's my body and my life," I added as I looked back to our parents. "And I have a right to know."

After a few quiet seconds mom finally asked, "Nina? Do you have any objections to Cass seeing those materials?"

My little sister glanced at me, then gave my hand a gentle squeeze. She shook her head, "No. Cass is right, she deserves to see it."

"Thanks sis," I smiled as I gave her a little squeeze in return.

"All right then," mom sighed. "After dinner Cass, you and I will go into my office and I'll let you see it. I'm going to stay there with you while you're looking at it, so I can answer any questions you have while you're looking at it."

That wasn't perfect but I could tell it was the best I was going to get. So I smiled, "Thank you. I appreciate it."

After that I focused on enjoying mom's lasagna, but the awkwardness of the whole conversation remained and nobody said much through the rest of the meal. Then when everyone was finished Nina and I did the dishes and stuff, before mom finally took me into her office.

I watched quietly as she slid open that drawer in her desk where she and mum used to hide their halos. Instead of that big antique wood box there was now a modern steel strongbox in there. Mom pulled it out and set it down ontop of her desk, then made sure she was between me and the box as she put in the combination to unlock it. Finally she lifted the lid and moved back.

"Here you go hon," she said. "You can use my desk and chair, I'll be sitting behind you on the sofa. None of that material will leave my office, you can look at it here then when you're done I'm going to lock it away again."

She obviously saw the way I was frowning, so she added "I promise it's not that we don't trust you Cass. But those papers and materials are all we have to work with. They're our best hope at finding a solution and ending Socha's connection to you once and for all, so we can't risk anything happening to them."

"Ok mom," I nodded. "I understand that, and you're right. This stuff is important. Thank you for letting me see it."

She moved back and took a seat on the sofa where she could keep an eye on me and what I was doing, while I stepped forward and sat down at her desk. The strongbox was built like a little fire-proof safe. The outside was about sixteen inches across and fourteen inches wide, and it was about six inches deep. Inside was big enough to hold standard file folders and big manilla envelopes. There wasn't any of that in there though, instead it was full of sheets of old paper and vellum, plus a few other things.

I carefully started pulling the contents out one at a time, examining them before putting them down on the side of her desk. I ended up with three separate piles of documents, plus a handful of unpleasant-looking items.

The least-nasty was an old inkwell. It was glass, sealed with a silver cap. It was half full of a black liquid that was thick and viscous like a sludgy oil, but with a faint purple shimmer of magic. Next to that and looking a lot more ominous were a pair of long sharp silver needles. One was about six inches long, the other about half that. They both had oblong bone or ivory handles, inscribed with small demonic glyphs.

After carefully inspecting them, I finally understood how those runes were placed inside my body. The black sludge was the 'ink' and the needles were used like how you'd do a tattoo, except this was done by hand, and the marks went much deeper. It also explained why my chest hurt after my parents and Nina restored those runes in September. There was also what looked like an enchanted scalpel, but I decided to ignore that.

Moving on, I started looking through the first little pile of papers. I had them in three groups, the first set of documents were written in languages I could read, the second were mostly runes, and the third was stuff I couldn't read.

Over the next twenty or thirty minutes I read demonic and chthonic and even a couple latin texts, that were mostly various spells and incantations that Nina would have used during the various rituals she performed on me when I was a baby. They were interesting, and I figured my parents might have been trying to reverse engineer them to try and undo that stuff. That wouldn't work for me though, I didn't want to undo anything. And I absolutely didn't want to go back to being a human boy again, although I was pretty sure that was impossible.

Moving on to the next group of papers, they were the various runes that were inscribed into my body. And that was much more interesting to me, because I was able to read and understand them. Probably better than Nina or my parents did.

There were two pages for each of my wrists and ankles, then another nine pages detailed all the runes in my chest. And even though I could read them, it still took me a while to carefully review each page, then try and figure out how it all fit together.

"Cass? Can you actually understand that? Or are you just studying the images?" mom asked while I was working my way through the pages of runes.

I'd organized them into seven sections, one for each of my wrists and ankles then the three circles in my chest. And I really didn't want to lie to her so I replied, "Yeah. Sort of? I can see how they're grouped together, and they sort of make sense to me."

Mom frowned, but didn't question me any further so I went back to staring at the sheets.

It definitely made sense of things. The groups of runes in my arms and legs were the ones that absorbed other kinds of magic. They protected me and made it impossible for those kinds of spells to affect me, and kept me hidden from scrying and stuff like that. And like we discovered last winter, they didn't just neutralize that magical energy, they absorbed it and converted it.

Which led me to discover what I'd been looking for in the first place, regarding that shard. That's where the runes on my arms and legs funnelled all the magic I absorbed. It was stored in the shard. It wasn't just a beacon to help Socha return to the mortal realm, and after she was back it wouldn't disappear or go away or anything. The shard was basically a physical manifestation of her divine spark or power. It would allow her to exist as a goddess embodied in a demonic shell. And it would serve as a sort of magical battery, storing all the magical energy she absorbed. Anyone who tried to attack her or enspell her would just be powering her up more.

My random overpowered spells were from the shard acting funny because Nina messed up a few runes, and when I crossed into the magic circle that very first time I unlocked my demonic body ahead of schedule. And those random power-ups stopped happening after I broke the first circle last new years, which allowed me to have better control of the energy bottled up in there.

I found myself staring at the wall for a few minutes as I figured out how this new information would factor into my own plans. In a way it was like fitting together pieces of a puzzle, you needed all pieces and the big picture to complete the puzzle and find the solution.

The main thing I'd figured out was that shard could never be removed from me. It was as much part of my soul as it was Socha's, and without it I'd probably die. Keeping it sealed up held Socha at bay, but in its current state it was still sort of a ticking time-bomb.

The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that my plan was the only viable option. I needed to keep the shard but make it mine alone. Then the binding and containment runes could be eliminated and I'd finally be free of any threat from Socha.

After a couple minutes I had a quick look at the last set of papers. I couldn't read them, but they had some illustrations I could look at. The text was mostly in what I took to be Cyrillic and Arabic script, and I hadn't learned any languages that used those glyphs. And the pictures were a bit disturbing, basically illustrating how to get the shard into my body and how to inscribe those runes inside me.

Finally I carefully put everything back in the strongbox as I said, "Thank you mom. I'm all done here now."

She made sure everything was put away, then closed and locked the strongbox before returning it to the drawer where she kept it. And I hurried upstairs to my room and got out my laptop, then started updating my notes and stuff. I wanted to write out everything I'd just learned while it was still fresh in my mind.

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