Gray's POV

"Gray... Gray.... Gray..." Stella called out repeatedly.

It only took her to call my name a few times for me to open my eyes. In worry, I glanced around the room to make sure we were safe still. There was no apparent threat in the room, which made me wonder if she was alright.

"Are you ok?" I asked as my eyes met hers.

She nodded as she looked at the ropes tying her to the bed. "You know, just tied up at the moment," she smirked lightly. "I didn't want to wake you, but I really need to go to the bathroom."

Without wasting a moment, I jumped to my feet. Even with sleep hovering over my head, my fingers were nimble as I untied her.

She got up from the bed and stretched. "Bathroom is in the same place, right?"

I nodded, surprised she remembered. "Yup."

"I'll be back," she told me, then ran out the room to get to the bathroom.

While she was gone, I checked the time on the clock on my nightstand. It said it was two in the afternoon, which meant we slept for longer than I planned for. Stella was sure the Umbra Mortine would come out, but I did not see it. Nothing woke me up, which might have been a good sign.

Breaking me from my thoughts was a knock on the door. Before I had time to answer, Birch walked into my room with books in her hands.

"Morning."

"More like good afternoon," she replied as she stumbled in.

I chuckled at her humor as I took a seat in the desk chair as she placed the books on my desk beside me.

"You know, you should have waited for a response. What if I was naked?" I asked her.

She stopped to look at me, then shrugged. "That's unlikely with Stella here, especially since you can hardly work up two words to say to her," she pointed out rather harshly.

"I told her I loved her."

Her green eyes met mine as she stared in shock. "You did? Awww. Now that is cute. Good job."

"She asked if we were together."

"And you told her we aren't, right?"

"Obviously."

"Good. Well, Stella has nothing to worry about in that regard."

"Why is that?"

She placed her hand on my shoulder as if I didn't get it. Well, it was the truth. I didn't get it. I was clearly missing something.

"Because I'm gay, Gray. I don't find you attractive. At least not like that," she stated so plainly, as if it was common sense.

Following that statement, Stella walked back into the room. She looked a little awkward, then sat on the bed, which told me she heard enough of the conversation.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to hear that," she mumbled.

"It's fine. It really isn't a secret," Birch stated.

"I didn't know it," I said with a frown.

"It's because you are a little blind to these things."

"Hey!" I protested as I tried to keep it light.

She smirked as she turned to the books. "It's ok. I forgive you."

Just when I thought I knew Birch, this came up, and it made me realize maybe I didn't know her as well as I thought I did. There were things about her I didn't know and did that mean I couldn't trust her? I trusted Else, and I didn't know everything about her. Birch had to be safe to trust. She had to be.

"I have never seen you with anyone."

Birch shrugged. "It's because I have found no one I like yet."

"Why haven't you mentioned this before?"

"Hasn't come up. I don't bring it up unless it comes up naturally. We had a good thing going, so why change anything? You know?" She turned to Stella and smiled. "You do not need to fear me stealing him from you. He's all yours. 10000%."

Stella blushed as she peered through her eyelashes at me, which made my heart flutter. I don't think I would ever get used to the way she looked at me. It made me feel like I was flying to somewhere important.

Birch then turned back to me and said, "So let's get started or do you need a moment to be more aware of everything since it's clear you just woke up."

"We can get started. And how about you? How long have you been up?"

"I've been up for a few hours."

Looking at her put together appearance, that much was clear. Normally Birch wasn't an early morning person. Like me, she liked her sleep. It made me wonder if the Umbra Mortine made her on wide alert.

The Umbra Mortine was a monster that was rarely talked about. It was something that was in the back of history books and only skimmed about if talked about at all. It was part of a dark history of Churchwell and with all dark history; they covered it up.

But I knew Birch, and she liked a challenge. If that meant finding more about the Umbra Mortine, then so be it. She would find the answers out. When she was on a mission, nothing would stop her.

"And let me guess, you have been looking for answers about the Umbra Mortine?" I asked as she flipped through one book.

"Of course. I'm surprised you weren't doing that too."

"Well, we needed our sleep."

"Sure," she jabbed as she tossed a book onto my lap. "Read page 20 in this book."

"This was from the historical section of the library. You can't check it out, so how did you get it out?"

Birch smiled at me. "Loose baggy shirts are good for many things. Don't worry. I'll return the book after we are done."

"I never thought you were such a rule breaker."

"I wouldn't call it rule breaking. Just rule bending," she smirked as she handed Stella a book.

I had seen Birch break rules before, but never admit them. There was something burning within her today. It made her have quick jabs and fast comments. This Umbra Mortine excited her, probably more than I had ever seen her before.

"This entire book is about Umbra Mortines. I would recommend you read it."

"So it is clear you did a lot more reading on the subject than we did. What did you find out about the Umbra Mortine?" I asked as I flipped through the book in my lap.

Birch frowned for a moment before allowing her face to return to normal. "We need to kill the Umbra Mortine. If we don't, darkness will consume her and the Umbra Mortine will take Stella as its own."

My eyes met Stella's as she swallowed silently. Fear was clear in her eyes, but she remained still. She did not shed a tear nor tremble. It shocked me how calmly she took the news. Maybe deep down, she already expected this. She prepared for it.

"How do we stop it?" I asked, as I refused to take my eyes off Stella's.

"We have to complete a ritual," Birch replied.

"And do we know what that ritual is?"

Birch shook her head. "Sadly, I haven't found that out yet. That is why I brought all these books here. I'm hoping they will have something in them." She turned her attention to Stella. "Do you know how long you have seen the Umbra Mortine in your dreams?"

"Maybe two months?" Stella replied quickly.

Birch nodded, then looked at the book in her hands. "I don't think we have a lot of time to work with. It seems like the humans normally lived only two or three months before the Umbra Mortine took over."

My stomach flipped at the thought of it. But I couldn't let myself think that way. We wouldn't let it get to that. We would stop it. I couldn't lose Stella too. "We are going to find out how to reverse this," I told her.

Stella nodded silently, then turned her attention to a book, wasting no time in research.

The three of us then spent the next few hours, pouring over the books in silence. I learned more about the Umbra Mortine than I thought possible. But to remove it from its host, that was something that I found nothing on. There were a lot of mentions of other dark Churchwell things that were not talked about.

For so long, I thought it was because of the lack of information, but all the information was here and easy to find through these old books. The leaders just didn't want to release this information to us. The more I found out, the more frustrated I got. There were so many things Churchwell needed to change. Discussing dark history was just one thing it needed to do.

Occasionally, I would look over at Stella, who always remained focused on the books in front of her. She had such a drive, we all did. It reminded me of when the Darkling poisoned her months ago. She also had the same look then. Stella had more fire than most. I found it inspiring.

As the day wore on, we remained silent until Birch yelped in excitement, snapping my attention towards her immediately.

"Oh, I think I found something promising," she cheered, then showed us a picture of a Forest Witch medallion at the top of the page. Below, words swirled around like waves in the sea. "Only a Forest Witch can read this, but maybe we don't need a Forest Witch but the medallion."

"Oh, that's brilliant, Birch!" I exclaimed as I jumped to my feet and went to my clothing drawer and pulled out the Else's box and placed it on the ground.

Quickly, the three of us huddled around the box on the floor in silence as I took the lid off, exposing the contents. I plucked the medallion from the contents and willingly handed it over to Birch.

She turned it over in her hands, then placed it on the page where the picture of the medallion was. Almost instantly, the words stopped swirling. Eagerly, we all sat a little closer to the book as we watched the words rearranged themselves into sentences and paragraphs.

"And to stop an Umbra Mortine from manifesting, one must use a bloodstone, a witch medallion, and the root of an ikillic tree," Birch read out load.

Pictures appeared on the page, showing the instructions on how to prepare the root and apply it to the infected person. As the pictures swirled around us, my heartbeat faster with excitement. I could feel that this was exactly what we needed.

"And you do it under the moon and that's it," Birch said as she read the instructions.

I read the page three times over again, and each time I felt more energized. Reading this gave me hope. I never thought finding the answers would be this easy. Now I just hoped we could find these two things quickly.

I locked eyes with Stella and smiled which she returned then looked back at the book. We both knew that maybe this was it, that maybe we found it.

"Well, let's get started on this, shall we?" Birch asked as she stood up then looked at Stella with an enormous smile. "We can get this Umbra Mortine out of you by tonight."

"That would be amazing," she breathed, looking more at ease than I had seen her since she arrived.