Percy stood and took the Lemon from Charles's hand.
He walked back to the center of the three candlesticks and waited. Lyro moved around him with a small lighter, touching the flame to each wick without a word. The candles caught one by one and he stepped back.
Charles held out a small needle.
Percy took it and looked at it for a moment. Then he pressed the tip against his index finger. A small bead of red appeared.
The moon was fully visible through the open window now, sitting high and white against the dark sky.
Percy took a breath and raised his bleeding finger toward the Lemon.
"The gun," Charles said.
Percy stopped. He reached into the holster with his other hand and held it out. Charles took it and stepped back without another word, positioning himself to the side where the moonlight fell cleanly across Percy.
Percy looked at the Lemon in his palm. Then at the moon.
"All things considered the ritual is surprisingly Simple"
He pressed his bleeding finger to the surface of the Lemon and waited.
"Repeat these words," Charles said. "Without stopping."
Percy nodded.
Charles spoke slowly and clearly.
"Let the widow moon witness the bridge of Styx, unbroken and unveiled, captive by the forbidden fruit."
Percy began.
The words came out steady. He kept his eyes on the moon and his finger pressed to the Lemon. There was a faint pain where the pricked finger made contact, it felt a little dull and cold but bearable, nothing he couldn't hold through.
He saw his blood move . It strangely didn't drip on the floor , but spreaded tracing along the surface of the Lemon in thin lines, coiling slowly around the rind, covering it in slow deliberate loops. Little by little the Lemon turned red.
When the blood had made several full rotations the trembling started.
Percy tightened his grip. Not enough to crush it, and he noticed immediately that crushing it probably wasn't something he could manage regardless. The texture had changed. What had felt like ordinary fruit rind now felt closer to stone under his fingers.
He kept chanting. "Breathe", he reminded himself. "Breathe."
The trembling intensified. Then an unfamiliar voice came into his head directly .
This was the cue as Percy closed his eyes and the view of Ronan shifted into a third person, now he was watching Percy from outside, seeing the body from a removed angle, Percy's hands gripping the crimson Lemon, Percy's mouth still moving through the words. From here the voice was distant and muffled. He focused on the sound of the chanting instead and let everything else become background.
The trembling in his hands grew lighter. Then lighter still.
The first candle went out.
Lyro's eyes moved to Percy immediately. "Already?" He looked at Charles. Charles's expression gave nothing away.
The second candle went out.
"Something is off." Lyro's hands curled at his sides. "This is too fast." His eyes shifted, going hazy at the edges as he scanned the space around Percy.
Spirit remnance hung in the air, visible only through Haunted vision, which confirmed the ritual itself was holding. He looked toward Charles and saw the faint haze already present in Charles's left eye.
The third candle went out.
Percy felt the cold arrive all at once.
"This cold."
Ronan recognized it immediately.
"It is the same cold i felt when i woke up in this world."
"Stop."
Charles's voice.
Percy stopped chanting. His eyes opened slowly.
"It's done," Charles said.
Percy stood in the dark between the three extinguished candles and waited to feel something. The cold was still there. Beyond that, nothing unusual presented itself.
Then he stepped out of the third person view.
The nausea hit immediately. A spinning, pressing sensation that had no urge to vomit attached to it, just the feeling of nausea in his skull. He brought one hand up and pressed it against his temple.
And then he felt something else was inside him. The sensation came to him, but this time he did not feel it around him but inside him.
An image began forming in his mind. A silhouette with strong outline and no features. A blank face where a face should have been. Percy looked at it from wherever he was and felt something uncanny coming off the figure.
Confusion. The figure seemed confused.
Which made no sense because he couldn't see its face at all.
Tap.
Something brought him back. He blinked and the image dissolved. Lyro was beside him, two fingers on his shoulder, eyes slightly hazy at the edges.
"Hey. You alright?"
Percy looked around the room first. The candles were out. Charles was closing the suitcase. Everything was where it had been.
He composed himself and nodded. "Yes. I think so."
Charles lifted the suitcase and gathered the extinguished candles without ceremony. "It's done," he said. "And it seems you aren't possessed."
"It doesn't feel like I am," Percy said. He turned his hands over once and looked at them. Then looked at the floor where he had been standing. "Where's the Lemon?"
"It disintegrates," Lyro said. "The moment the spirit inside is released through integration. Nothing left behind."
Percy looked at the floor again and saw no residue of the lemon lett behind.
Charles turned from the window. "It isn't entirely done yet."
Percy looked at Lyro.
Lyro looked back. "You need to complete your first Oath. Soon. Tonight if possible, tomorrow at the latest." He paused. "You wouldn't want to sleep tonight with nightmares, would you?"
"Nightmares?" Percy asked
"People get them after integration if they don't fulfill the Oath quickly enough," Lyro said.
"The spirit is weakened right after it integrates so you won't feel the effects immediately. But once it recovers it will start pushing. Nightmares first. Then worse things. The Oath is what keeps it satisfied and manageable."
Percy looked at his hands again to feel any changes.
The door clicked open.
Fiona stepped in carrying a small tray. A single cup on it, steam rising steadily from the surface.
"You must be feeling cold," Lyro said.
Percy realized he still was. He had almost stopped noticing it.
"Drink that," Lyro said. "After a while we'll finish your Oath."
Percy looked at the cup. The steam curled upward and disappeared.
He crossed the room and picked it up.
"Alright," he said.