“Help me move this bed and this rug. We have a bit of work to do before she arrives,” Talia ordered.

Seraph did as she asked, and together they turned the bed on its side against the wall. He rolled up the thick cabernet-red rug it had been atop. Beneath it, Sara had scratched a massive pentagram, the five points of the stars pointing at five candles at the edges of the room. There were dozens of small runes drawn within the pentagram, and all of them emitted a subdued purple light.

“I’ll be back in a moment. Stay here, and entertain yourselves however you like while I’m gone.” Talia slipped out the door and shut it behind her.

Seraph went to the door and listened until he heard the front door open and close. Satisfied that Talia was gone, he turned to Sara. “What the hell is going on, Sara? What did you get us mixed up in?”

“I don’t know. It felt like there was someone else in me when I took your will, and I’m so sorry. We have to run,” Sara said, rushing to the door. Her hand stopped short when she reached for the doorknob. Seraph’s did the same.

“The window,” Seraph said, knowing it was likely fruitless. His hand couldn’t even touch the latch. “How is this happening? This sort of thing isn’t real!” He felt the panic of a trapped animal. “Why did you draw a pentagram on your floor, Sara?”

“It’s real. Magic is real, and Talia has us bound to her.” Sara wasn’t looking at him. She hugged herself and looked at the floor, struggling not to weep.

Seraph paced the room a few more times, unable to flee but too excited to stay put. “Okay, so that thing is a . . . is a spell? You drew it?”

“I did. It is.” Sara said, taking a shaking breath in to steady herself.

“So let’s just erase it off the floor? Scratch it up? Will that break the spell?”

“The runes only matter during the casting. Once the spell is cast the runes are no longer important. Breaking this hammer won’t pull up all the nails it pounded in, I’m afraid.”

Seraph stopped pacing, settling right in front of her. “Okay, valedictorian. You might not know everything that’s going on, but you know more than I do. So put that big brain to use. You be Hermione, I’ll be Harry, and we’ll figure out a way to skedaddle. Tell me what to do. We can get out of this somehow, we just have to find the way.”

There was silence. “While she has our wills, there’s nothing we can do. We can’t defy her wishes, even if we think there’s a loophole in her words. It’s a slave-master contract, not a boat loan.” Sara’s eyes fell to the floor again.

Seraph barked a laugh though rising anger. “A boat loan . . . So we just hope she’s good to her word? Hope she cuts us loose after she’s done whatever it is she kept us here to do?” No response. “Don’t you know any other spells besides the ones you used on me? Did you watch the whole YouTube tutorial or just the part that showed you how to turn us into slaves?”

“I’m sorry! She didn’t teach me any other ones. I’m so, so sorry, Seraph. I did this to us, and I don’t know how to get us out.” Her resolve broke and she started weeping openly, turning away from Seraph to hide her face in her hands.

After a few wracking sobs, arms encircled her. Seraph was behind her, clutching her. “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at what’s happened to us.” He turned her around and slowly peeled her hands away from her face. He wiped at her tears with his thumbs and cupped her face after he was done.

They shared their first honest kiss. It was slow, and sweet, and tasted like tears. And they both loved it. And they both loved each other in a more complete way than they had when they were twelve and would walk home from school, or when they were sixteen and stole that one bottle of booze from their parents, or when they got themselves enthralled to Mistress Talia. They loved each other.

“This is kind of my fault, too. I knew you liked me, and I shouldn’t have dated Leona.” Seraph slid his arms from her face to behind her and held her to him. Sara wasn’t short by any means, but he was much broader and thicker than she was, and she made herself small to snuggle into his chest like she was trying to disappear into him.

“When did you find out? I tried to hide it.”

“I always had my suspicions, but I knew for sure when you went to the same school as me. Don’t get me wrong, we’re going to a great school, and I was lucky to get in, but you should be somewhere Ivy League. Oxford, if you wanted to travel.”

“I didn’t get into anywhere Ivy League,” Sara said into him, her fingers working against his chest just a bit.

“You didn’t apply to anywhere Ivy League. I saw the college application folder on your laptop. There was only one.” They were silent. He slowly rubbed his hands over her back in a soothing, protective way. “You didn’t even apply to a safety school.”

“We attend my safety school,” Sara said, realizing that her words could have been taken condescendingly.

Seraph knew her better than to take offense though, and he laughed. She laughed at him laughing, and for a moment their terror subsided, and they were just Seraph and Sara for a while. The front door open and shut, startling them both even though the door hadn’t been slammed. They pulled to arm’s length and looked to each other in horror. Seraph was the first to steady himself.

“Let’s get through this. Hold her to her bargain. Don’t agree to anything that doesn’t let us off the hook at its conclusion. We’ve got this.”

Sara nodded resolutely. “Hermione and Harry. We’ve got this.”

Talia closed the door behind herself. She held a small piece of cloth that was wrapped around something small and a leather-bound book. She saw them hugging each other, fully clothed, and let out an exaggeratedly disappointed breath. “How boring,” she said. Talia set the book and knife down in the center of the pentagram and sat. She flipped pages delicately and pored over them, muttering happily as she did. “Okay . . . okay. You two want the good news or the great news?”

“Let’s have them both,” Seraph said.

“The great news first, then,” Talia said, rising and taking the wrapped package with her. She unfurled it and revealed a small dagger. It wasn’t notable save for its age, Seraph thought. It wasn’t bejeweled, or viciously curved, or even held in a well-designed sheath. “One of you gets to ascend. You’ll be linked to my Lady Lyska like I am, and will be closer to her than any other save for myself.”

Seraph and Sara hid their confusion well.

“Elucidate, please,” Sara said at length, finally getting a chance to use one of her old SAT words. “Mistress Talia,” she added, remembering the honorific.

Talia smiled at the honorific before answering. “No,” Talia said. “You’ll see shortly what I mean. But you’re welcome, for what it’s worth.”

“And the good news, Mistress?” Seraph asked. He again reflected on how much larger than Talia he was. Even with her cork wedges on, he was a full foot taller than her. It was humiliating to have been completely physically overwhelmed by her, and a little shameful to have enjoyed it so much.

“It’s going to hurt a bit,” Talia said, proffering the weathered dagger and smiling. Her smile vanished. “Only one of you gets to hurt though, but maybe we can work something out for the other one later. I always have the time and energy for something like that.” Silence stretched. “Shall I pick which of you gets to bleed?”

“I volunteer as tribute,” Seraph joked, stepping in front of Sara. “I won’t resist at all, if you pick me, Mistress Talia.”

She strode to him, letting herself sway with each step. Seraph’s eyes darted down to her hips in a brief lapse of resolve before he retrained them on her face. She brought her free hand to his face and let her ruby nails trace over his cheek and jawline before finally cupping his chin. She ran a thumb over his lips as she spoke. “I know you won’t, my pet. You’ll do exactly what I tell you to, and if yesterday is any indication, you’ll like it.”

She took a step back and offered the knife to Seraph, letting it rest in her palm. “So cut me.”

The sudden advance of the hand holding the knife earned a jump from both Seraph and Sara, which drew a smile from Talia. “What?”

“Like this,” Talia said, taking Seraph’s hand in hers and quickly opening his thumb with the blade.

“Ah,” Seraph cursed in surprise, pulling his nicked thumb to his mouth briefly. The knife was remarkable in one aspect, he realized. It was incredibly sharp.

“Just like that,” she said, offering the knife to Seraph. He took it and did as instructed, feeling a bit of remorse at hurting the professor despite the night’s events.

“Now trace the star with your blood. Miss nothing. Do not mark the runes. Do not mark the perimeter circle.”

Seraph did as he instructed, working diligently over the pentagram’s interior as Sara watched. Talia marked the perimeter circle and a few of the larger runes. When they were done the pentagram itself began to glow as the runes within it were. Seraph glanced over at Talia’s bent form as she worked, trying to surreptitiously observe her ass as she bent double working.

“I feel you looking,” Talia said, her voice joyous. “Continue doing so, if you like, but don’t place a single drop of your blood anywhere but where I told you to.”

He did his best not to look, but couldn’t keep thoughts of Talia’s ass out of his mind. He remembered in vivid detail how pleasurable it had been to be inside her. The taste of his own seed as it had leaked out of her and into his mouth filled his senses, and in an instant, Seraph realized that he wasn’t thinking these thoughts by himself. They were being pushed into his mind. As he realized what was happening Talia chuckled to herself.

“Correct,” she said. “While I hold your wills I can seed your mind with whatever thought I like, though in time you would learn to defend your thoughts better.”

Seraph did not have time, and he became erect as he worked. He remembered fucking his shallowly lain seed out of Talia and into Sara’s mouth. He remembered the way Talia’s toes had curled as they were on his thighs, bracing herself against his thrusts. He reached the top of the pentagram and stood, thankful to be able to focus on blocking Talia out. He clenched his eyes shut but reopened them as he felt someone take hold of his member through his pants. He was shocked that he could still become erect.

“A benefit of becoming a familiar. You can tire, but it would take us the rest of the night,” Talia chuckled. She undid his pants and let his cock out. Talia took a hand and cupped his testicles, using the other to run lightly over his shaft. ”In an hour these will be full again, though not in the way they were before I claimed you.”

She arched on her tiptoes, craning her neck up to kiss him softly, lovingly. He kissed her back, and leaked a drop of pre. Talia thumbed it from Seraph’s tip and brought it to her tongue, then put her tongue into his mouth. She gently stroked him as they shared his seed.  “Sara, I didn’t even have to tell him to do that,” she said with a wink. “You found a perfect one for me.”

“Now you two strip,” Talia continued and began to disrobe herself.

Once they were all free of their clothing, Talia put Seraph and Sara on their knees, facing each other with the dagger between them. Sara had regained herself. “I’m so sorry. I just wanted us to be together, and she promised to help. I would have never–”

“Quiet, pets. You’ll say nothing until you are given permission to speak again.”

Talia stood at the head of the pentagram, old book in hand. “When I finish, you both drive the dagger into the center of this rune.”

She began to read aloud in a language that Seraph wasn’t educated enough to place. The pentagram began to pulse with her words, to throb brighter. The light it emitted shifted between red and purple, increasing intensity as Talia continued to read. Seraph sat unmoving, though his eyes moved about the room like a trapped animal. He got the sense of something coming, like the room was vibrating just beyond perception. Talia spoke louder and faster, the light casting their shadows upward. Seraph saw a third shadow between them on the ceiling begin to grow. It was pale and almost invisible at first, but after almost a minute of incantation, it was as full and as dense as either of theirs.

Talia slammed the book shut and went quiet. The light from the pentagram was bright enough to hurt. She fixed Seraph with her gaze and compelled him to act, though he struggled against her. In a moment he leaned in laced his fingers with Sara’s, the dagger in both their grips. The light from the runes beneath them pulsed – a heartbeat, now. Seraph felt Talia’s compulsion in him, and despite his mind reeling against her wishes, he and Sara slammed the knife into her bedroom floor, in the center of the pentagram. The knife cut a small notch in the floor, and for a short instant nothing more occurred.

Seraph exhaled a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, and the world ripped around them. The slashing knife tore a hole through the fabric of their plane and into another. Colors bled into the edges of Seraph’s vision, leaking from some unseen source. Two worlds stacked atop each other, and a sense of something looming pervaded the room – the taut tension of impending horror. The sense of looming anxiety rose higher, and the colors bleeding through the other realm began to coalesce just above the dagger's hilt. Something tangible was coming through the ethereal rift.

Seraph felt his will began to pull from Talia. He could feel it stretching little by little to a point above the dagger, just ahead of his face, where the colors were coalescing. His hands stayed fixed to the dagger, enveloping Sara’s. They looked to each other in horror, unable to fully comprehend what was occurring. The end of their wills drained from Talia as the colors coalescing above the dagger shrunk together into a small orb. All the color drained out of the pentagram they were atop and the room went dark, the light seeming to have taken all sound with it as it left.

“Is it done? Are we free?” Sara asked into the darkness. The only sound was their breath. All three of them were breathing hard enough to hear.

A brilliant purple pulse of light shot from the pentagram’s etching, silhouetting a figure that had appeared in the pentagram. The light ebbed away, leaving the room in complete darkness again. The five candles flickered to life, shedding their light on the woman that had come through the rift. Her caramel skin was covered only by the candlelight. She was Sara’s height and Talia’s complexion. She had a thick mane of wavy, raven hair that fell nearly to her navel. The violet light of the pentagram seemed to have been completely contained in her irises, and for a long moment of adjustment her purple eyes took in the room around her. Their color faded slowly until her irises were nearly as black as her pupils.

“No,” her voice sang in the darkness. “You both belong to me, now.”