Chapter 16

Eight hours of preparation.

That's how long Zak spent studying the cult tome, Robin's diagrams, and a small leather book I recognized as his personal grimoire. He drew out a quarter-scale version of the three-circle array, getting a lesson from Eterran on how the demonic runes were supposed to work in the process. Once he had the array down, Zak practiced the incantations, his low voice echoing through the small warehouse while Ezra and I went over every inch of the concrete floor, filling and sanding all cracks and imperfections.

Twenty hours to draw the full-sized array.

Zak painted every precise line, curve, and angle of the three-circle array. Ezra and I did what we could to help—adjusting the metal rulers and angle tools as he directed us, passing him the alchemic marker he was using to draw it, holding up his cheat sheet of incantations whenever he needed to read one—which was every ten minutes.

Seventy-two hours for the array to charge.

Before it could be used, the collection of arcane lines and runes had to passively absorb the earthly energies all around us. Zak caught up on the sleep he'd missed, then split his time between practicing the intensive incantations required for the actual summoning and checking that none of the guilds searching for Ezra were getting too close to our hideout.

Sitting on a cot with my back against the wall, I wrapped my arms around my legs. Beside me, cocooned in a nest I'd made with my jacket, Hoshi was still an orb, cool to the touch and unresponsive to my voice.

I stared at the silver lines drawn across the floor. So much time and effort. So much risk and suffering. So much riding on this ritual.

We didn't even know if it would work.

If it failed, we'd have to find a rogue Demonica expert to figure out why. That meant more time spent hiding here. More time that Aaron and Kai would spend in lockup—assuming they were both relatively safe in MagiPol's care and nothing worse had happened to them—and more time in which the guild could be disbanded, if it hadn't already. We had no way of knowing what was going on outside this warehouse.

Quiet footfalls broke into my thoughts. Ezra crossed to the cot and handed me a granola bar from our stash of food. Water droplets shone on his leather coat, and Zak's long dagger was strapped to his thigh; he'd been on the warehouse roof, surveying the rundown commercial streets around our hideout.

"Zak still out?" I murmured, turning the granola bar over in my hands. My appetite had disappeared sometime this morning.

"He should be back soon." Unzipping his jacket, Ezra shrugged it off his shoulders. I watched the leather slide down his arms, dragging over bands of muscle, his bronze skin marked with faint scars.

As he tossed his jacket onto the end of the cot, probably intending to sit beside me, I pressed a hand against his stomach. He paused, blinking down at me. I nudged the hem of his shirt up, revealing the white scars that raked his torso from hip to sternum.

I splayed my hand across them, the unyielding ridges rough under my palm. "You've survived so much."

His surprise softened. He ran his thumb along my jaw.

"You'll survive this too," I whispered, pressing my fingers into his warm skin. "Won't you?"

He combed his fingers into my tangled hair. Neither of us had showered properly in a week, but Zak had procured some basic hygiene supplies. I'd washed my hair, but the lack of hair product was showing.

"I don't know," he murmured. "I can't guess what will happen, but whatever it is, I promise I'll fight to survive however I can."

Tears stung my eyes. "I'm so afraid I'm going to lose you."

"I'm afraid too." He tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear. "I'm afraid it won't work. I'm afraid it will. I'm afraid it'll kill me. I'm afraid my body might survive but my mind won't."

I swallowed against the sob building up in my chest.

"I'm afraid because I don't know who I am if I'm not a demon mage. What if I don't like myself? What if you don't like me?"

"Why would I suddenly not like you?" I huffed.

His fingers trailed down the side of my neck. "Maybe I'm actually a jerk."

My hand drifted across his abs, my thumb following the waistline of his jeans. "You could never be a jerk."

He was quiet for a moment. "People like me because I'm easygoing. I don't get upset about anything… but that's because I can't."

I looked up at him, my lips quirking in a faint frown.

"If I'm not suppressing myself all the time and worrying about Eterran, I'll be different. Maybe…" He smiled ruefully. "It's a stupid thing to dwell on right now, but what if I'm different and you, Aaron, and Kai don't like me as much anymore?"

"Oh, Ezra." I pulled on his waist and he sank to his knees in front of the cot, putting us at eye level. "Of course you'll change a little bit, but everyone changes. We change throughout our entire lives. Are you exactly the same now as when you first met Aaron and Kai?"

"No. I was… a lot more defensive back then."

"And they still liked you, right?" I combed his hair back from his face. "It's okay to change."

His warm hands were on my hips, and he slid me forward on the cot until our bodies pressed together, his waist between my thighs. "There are a few things that I won't allow to change."

"Like what?" I whispered.

He slid his hand up my spine. "Like how I feel about you."

Leaning in, he pressed his lips to mine. Our mouths moved with a quiet passion that swiftly escalated into urgent heat. I pressed against him, fingers digging into his shoulders, and his arms clamped around me, squeezing so tightly I could scarcely breathe. I kissed him harder. Held him closer.

I wrapped my legs around his waist, clinging to his warmth and strength. He was alive, and I desperately, frantically needed him to stay that way.

I crushed our mouths together, needing him more than I could express. More than I even understood. Nine months since I'd first laid eyes on him, and I had changed in irreversible ways. He had helped me change.

If I lost him now…

The clatter of a door interrupted us, and I jerked up with a frightened gasp. Zak stepped into the warehouse, raindrops chasing him inside. As he closed the door and bolted it, Ezra rose to his feet.

Zak assessed the demon mage with one swift, piercing look. "It's time to begin."

* * *

Zak's raspy voice filled the empty concrete room. His chanting was slow, measured, each word delivered with care. Lacking Amalia's confidence, he took his time with each phrase, the cult grimoire braced in his hands. Whenever he paused to check his place, my nerves wound tighter.

For a second time, Ezra stood in one of the two circles within the larger ring, and where Robin had stood with the case of Nazhivēr's blood, I waited with a glass vial clutched in my hand.

Dizziness spun in my head, and I reminded myself to breathe.

Zak continued the incantation, the hollow echo of his voice emphasizing the barren emptiness of the room. Aaron and Kai should have been here. They'd saved Ezra, protected him, loved him like a brother. They deserved to be here, but it was just me.

Zak's voice rose, then went silent. He canted his head, a silent command. If he said anything that wasn't part of the ritual—or made a mistake chanting the endless Latin verses—it'd be ruined and we'd have to wait another three days for the array to charge.

Gripping the vial of blood as though it were a live grenade, I skittered across the outer line, drawn in shining silver. In the center of the empty second circle, I crouched and positioned the vial over the rune. At Zak's nod, I dribbled the thick blood over the marking. Like before, the liquid clung to the silver line.

I rose to my feet and faced Ezra across the circle. His left eye glowed brightly, and I could see both the mage and the demon in him. Ezra's fear, his determination, and his quiet, steely readiness for whatever would happen. Eterran's far more savage resolve, his burning drive for freedom, and his violent need to survive.

Zak waited until I'd returned to my spot outside the circle, then resumed. "Te tuo sanguine ligo, tu ut vocatus audias, Eterran of the Dh'irath House."

The center rune I'd covered in blood glimmered with scarlet light that swept across the array until the entire thing glowed. Ezra stood rigid as Zak continued the incantation.

He pointed at the ring that marked the outer circle. "Terra te hoc circulo semper tenebit."

The faint radiance swept through the lines, then arched upward. A semi-transparent dome whooshed over the circle, then faded. The barrier was up. Only one part of the ritual remained.

Speaking even more carefully, Zak began the final chant. Once again, I experienced the eerie sensation of staticky energy building in the air, heavy and flavored with unfamiliar power. The shimmer of magic flowed between the two circles until it gathered in the empty one, that central rune rippling with blood-red light.

Zak paused. His shoulders moved as he drew in a deep breath, then he slowly raised his hand toward Ezra, the grimoire braced on his other palm.

"Tenebrarum auctoritatem da mihi, da super hunc imperium sine fine." He fixed intense green eyes on the demon mage. "Eterran of Dh'irath, bearer of the power of Ahlēa, wielder of the king's command, by your blood and your oath, I summon you!"

The glowing rune in the empty circle blazed, and answering light erupted over Ezra.

He arched, limbs going rigid—and threw his head back in a roar of agony.

"Ezra!" I screamed.

Glowing veins snaked over his limbs. Red power boiled over his body and surged outward. Phantom horns sprouted from his head and wings took form in the rippling power, rising off his back. The power expanded, dragged out of him.

Ezra was screaming and I was screaming. I lunged toward the circle—and Zak caught me, hauling me back from the silver line before I could cross it. I thrashed against his hold, crazed, anguished, incoherent.

The power erupting from Ezra shuddered into a discernible shape. Into shoulders far broader than Ezra's, built to support those huge wings. Into a head half a foot above Ezra's, sporting four long horns.

For a horrifying instant, Eterran's phantom form overlaid Ezra's human body.

Then Eterran's shape dissolved into a bright streak of crimson that arced across the circle and slammed into that glowing rune. The power ballooned upward, reforming the phantom demon—crouched on the floor, his fist braced on the concrete, wings half furled.

His body solidified and the glow on his limbs extinguished. The radiant lines of the spell array flared one last time, then dimmed to burnt black.

Ezra collapsed to the floor.

My scream rang out again. My elbow whipped back, hitting Zak in the ribs so hard he staggered, then I flew toward Ezra, hands reaching for him.

I slammed into an invisible force and ricocheted off, pain bursting through my limbs from the impact. The outer ring marked the floor just in front of me. Gasping, I lunged forward again. My hands slapped against nothing. I pushed into the invisible wall, then felt across it.

The barrier—the invisible dome that was supposed to keep demons inside the circle.

Zak appeared beside me. His hands connected with the unseen obstacle, just like mine. I smashed my fist into it, and the air rippled faintly. We couldn't pass through the barrier.

Ezra couldn't get out, and we couldn't get in.