Chapter 7

Chapter

7

Ivy had brought the leftover pizza, still in its box, in case we wanted to play pizza delivery to get into Elyse's bungalow. Cold or not, it smelled delicious, and I nibbled a crust down to nothing as we sat in the curbside parking and waited for Bis to return from his recon. The narrow two-story had a postage-stamp yard, but it was more elaborately landscaped than the others in the old-school neighborhood. If I had to guess, I'd say it was the original show home to help the developer sell as-yet unrestored properties.

The area was quiet despite the plethora of cars parked on both curbs, having a busy nightlife just a street over with eateries, a niche market, and a couple of trendy bars. Clearly the developers were taking a page from the Detroit rebuild and were trying to create a small-town feel in a large metropolis by keeping the buildings low and fostering a mix of chic commerce and residences. Which, when you broke it down, was really an old idea given new life. More to the point, it was working to keep property values high by restoring much of Cincy's old architecture. Unfortunately, until there were more of these "recovered" neighborhoods, everyone wanted to be here and the bars were servicing more than the small community. Parking was dear.

Ivy jumped at the thump on the roof, her pale hands on the wheel tensing at the sliding hiss of wings as Bis craned his neck to look into the car. The cat-size gargoyle's red eyes were eager, and his pebbly black skin only made the white tufts on his ears and tail stand out all the more. His great leathery wings were extended for balance, and he beat them once when he slipped off the roof and lurched to find a perch on the open window like a drive-in-eatery tray.

I'd felt his presence before he had landed, and that our mental link was slowly returning was a huge relief. Maybe in a decade or so it would again be strong enough that he could teach me to jump the ley lines and I wouldn't be so damned vulnerable.

"I didn't go in," the gargoyle said, now a rosy pink for having slipped. He was only fifty, barely old enough to be out from under his parents' watchful attention. That he had bonded himself to me was an honor, but I was scared to death that I'd fail him. As usual, he wasn't wearing any clothes. He didn't need them, being able to create his own heat at will. He was lightweight despite his stony mien and could triple his size and weight by absorbing water much as a bridge troll did.

"The TV is going," Bis added, angling his white-tufted ears to the townhome. "Elyse isn't there, though. It's a little boy. Maybe ten?"

I glanced at Ivy as Bis's great claws carefully pinched the open window. "Elyse has a kid?" I guessed, immediately dismissing it. She was only twenty herself—best case.

"Brother, maybe," Ivy said, her focus going distant in thought.

My brow furrowed as I had second thoughts as well. Our assumption that the coven would be waiting for me at the offices seemed right, but we hadn't planned on a kid being here. Violating the sanctity of her home, as temporary as it was, didn't feel like an option anymore.

"I don't know about this," I said, fiddling with the transposition stone around my neck. I had spent some time wrapping it in a copper wire and attaching it to a lanyard, and the strand of black gold was cool in my fingers.

Bis's tail curved around his feet, the tip twitching. "He's asleep in front of the TV with a spell book. I think it's the one you want."

I heaved a sigh, torn. If the kid wasn't there, it would be a no-brainer. But a small part of me wondered what a ten-year-old was doing reading a demon text. "I don't want to scare anyone," I said, looking at my bag with its splat gun. "Or be seen."

Ivy reached for the door handle. "You need the spell to recover Kisten." As if that was all there was to it, she pushed open the door with her foot, grabbed the pizza box, and got out, shutting the door hard. "It's not breaking and entering if they open the door," she said through the open window.

Bis grinned. "That's unlawful entry," he said, and with one wing pulse, he was in the air.

Uneasy, I grabbed my bag and got out. "It's still breaking and entering if it involves coercion or deceit," I grumbled as we crossed the street. "The place was supposed to be empty."

"Relax, I do this all the time." Ivy's boot heels clicked smartly. "I ring the bell, you hit him with a sleepy-time charm. I catch him. He'll be fine. No drama, no trauma."

Perhaps, I thought, head up as I fumbled in my bag for my cherry-red splat gun. I hadn't counted on leaving a witness, much less a minor, and I wondered at Ivy's zeal. She was usually overly protective of kids. But this is about Kisten, I realized. The way she probably saw it, the coven was withholding Kisten's resurrection from her.

A gust of wind blew an escaped strand of hair into my face as Bis hovered over us. "I'll get the camera," he said, gravelly voice eager—and then he was gone until his black shadow clung like a bat to the peak of the roof and he tilted the camera away from the steps. It wasn't as slick as when Jenks put them on a loop, but it worked.

Confident and sure, Ivy strode up the front steps and rang the buzzer. "Maybe you should…" she suggested, making a nod toward the shrubbery by the door, and I slid out of sight.

That ugly feeling rose at the sound of light feet inside. It was too late to change our plan, though, as the door opened to show a kid dressed in a pair of jeans and a Howlers' hoodie.

"Ah, I didn't order a pizza," he said, his high voice holding a questioning lilt. "You have the wrong house."

From the other side of the door, Bis pantomimed shooting him, but he was ten, and I was not happy with this.

Sighing, Ivy looked at the box as if reading a label. "Is this 12A Walnut Street, Mount Arrie?"

The kid rocked back. "Right street, wrong subdivision. This is Circle Bluffs."

Ivy's lip twitched in annoyance, probably because I hadn't shot him yet. "It's cold, anyway," she said, buying time for me to move. "You want it?"

"That's from Piscary's, isn't it?" he said, his eagerness sounding nothing like a ten-year-old, and then he hesitated, his mood becoming suspicious. "You're not a witch. Why do I smell witch?"

Bis winced, and I stepped forward. "Because she's with me," I said, and the kid's breath caught. If he was ten, he was a small ten, black hair and hazel eyes. Slim.

"Morgan!" the kid blurted, shocking all three of us. "I knew it!" he crowed as if pleased.

Ivy moved, eerily fast as she took a step forward and shoved him inside. "Quiet, Junior," she said as the kid pinwheeled over the threshold, his shock melting into anger.

He knows me? I followed Ivy in and shut the door. Bis was a white shadow on the ceiling, having shifted his color to remain unnoticed. Stumbling, the boy caught his balance and stood in the hallway as if to bar our way.

"Relax." Ivy dropped the half-eaten pizza on the hall table. "We don't want you. We want a book."

I couldn't bring myself to shoot him, and I held my splat gun behind my back and tried to find a soothing smile. That is, until someone tapped the nearest ley line. Hard.

"It's the kid!" I said when he dropped into a stance, arms moving dramatically as he gathered enough ley line energy to fry a cow. His short black hair lifted, and his focus fixed on me with an odd, anticipatory gleam. "Ivy, he's packing!"

Definitely one of the coven kids in waiting, I decided as I yanked on the ley line and his gaze shot to me.

"Do something, Rachel!" Bis said from the ceiling, and the kid's attention shattered.

Line energy sizzed to make my hands tingle and my legs a wobbly mess. I knew better than to engage the coven using magic, and so I swung my pistol up instead.

The kid's eyes dropped from Bis. "Rhombus!" he shouted, and a thick circle rose up around him. Purple and green, his aura-tainted circle took my first two shots until he rolled and broke it. I followed, hoping that when his circle fell, I might get a shot in.

Every single one missed, and I pushed past Ivy to follow him into the townhome.

"Why didn't you shoot him at the door?" Ivy practically snarled, ghosting past me with her vampiric speed.

"Kid gloves, Ivy!" I shouted as I got a glimpse of a cozy, well-appointed living room, a gas fireplace going before an overdone couch and chair. The TV was on to the news, which I thought was odd, but it was the thick, ratty book on the end table that kept my attention. The faint scent of burnt amber tickled my nose, but it wasn't coming from the book Al wanted. It still had the black napkin in it to mark the curse that could bring Kisten back as a ghost. One down, one to go.

Ivy had pinned the kid against a wall of leather-bound books with her hand around his biceps. "Where's the book to recover Kisten's ghost?" she demanded as she hunched over him and showed her small, sharp fangs.

"Bad move, Tamwood," the kid said—and then Ivy cried out as a purple and green haze shocked through her, shifting her aura into the visible spectrum for an agonizing instant.

Ivy fell to the floor, and suddenly I didn't have a problem shooting him.

"That was a mistake," I said as I pointed my splat gun at him and inched toward Ivy.

The kid looked nothing like a ten-year-old as he snickered, hands wreathed with line energy while he backed away from Ivy. "I told Elyse you wouldn't show at the office. Glad I drew the short straw."

"If you have hurt Ivy, I will not be gentle," I threatened. She was at my feet, but I didn't dare take my eyes off him to see if she was okay.

"Good." He squared up and beckoned me closer. "Show me what you got, demon girl."

Demon girl? I thought, jerking clear when the kid threw an unfocused ball of energy.

I hit it with my own, and the two fizzed and popped until they spent themselves on each other. It had been a test throw, both to see my reaction time and to find out if I could sense how much energy he was packing. This was not ten-year-old behavior, coven apprentice or not.

"You and me. Right now," he said, sounding like an old man despite his high voice.

"I got her, Rachel," Bis whispered. "She's okay."

That was all I needed. "Now works for me," I said, then threw a ball of raw energy to his right.

The kid predictably turned to get it, almost missing the real spell I threw at him. And I say almost, because he managed to catch it after deflecting the first, holding the second in his hands as if to take control of it.

"Voulden," I intoned, giving the raw energy we both claimed direction. The spell was elven, and I was betting he didn't know it.

Shock lit through him at the delayed invocation, and then the spell triggered, racing over him with little sparkles of my aura until they soaked in and shorted him out. Choking, the kid dropped, out cold before he even hit the floor.

"I don't have time for you," I said, angry as I spun. "Ivy?"

"She's breathing." Bis stood at her head, a craggy hand touching her forehead. "Her aura is fine. What did he hit her with?"

I glanced at the kid to make sure he was still out. "I think I know what this is," I said as I put a hand to her as well and a tingling hint of the spell he used whispered through my thoughts. "Vivian tried it on me once." I exhaled and ran a light trace of ley line energy through both of us. Feeling it, Bis pulled his hand away. "There's a reason Vivian and I argued without bringing the lines into it. Until she quit trying to impress me with her magic, she taught me oh so many good things," I added, then focused on Ivy. "Corrumpo," I whispered, letting only the faintest hint of the demon curse race through her.

It was one of Newt's. I'd seen the insane demon take down one hell of a circle with it, and I figured it would break anything the coven would know. Sure enough, it did. I eased back on my heels when I felt the charm flake away and Ivy took a deeper breath. "Give her some space," I warned as Ivy sat up in a quick spasm of motion.

A shudder raced through me at the utter blackness of her eyes, pupil dark until she realized where she was. "He shocked me, the little shit," she said, fingertips pressed into her head.

I stood, hand extended to help her rise. "I told you he was packing. You okay?"

"I'm fine." Clearly peeved, she let me pull her up and she glared at him on the floor, only the barest rim of brown about her pupils. "How long was I out? Did you find Kisten's book?"

"I haven't had a chance to look yet," I said, answering both questions with one answer. "I'm pretty sure the one on the table has Kisten's curse in it. Mine has to be here somewhere."

"On it!" Wings flapping once, Bis flew to the bookcase, landing to hang upside down and run a gnarled finger over the titles. "These aren't even spell books," the gargoyle said, his white-tufted ears pinned, and Ivy went to help look.

"It's a good place to hide one, though," she said as she began tilting them forward to make sure nothing was hidden behind.

I breathed deep, studying the room. Burnt amber was a hint, so faint I couldn't place where it was coming from. The feel of the room was less home and more glorified hotel. The overdone scalloped woodwork didn't seem like Elyse's style, and the overstuffed couch and chair too dark for her. Annoyed, I grabbed the remote and clicked the TV off. I would have liked to have left a lighter footprint, but with Junior here, that was a boat long sailed.

"You think he was watching the news to see if we got caught breaking into the coven's offices?" I said as I dragged the kid to the chair and hoisted his limp form into it.

"Maybe." Bis turned from inspecting the books. "Something is off with him."

"You mean other than his magic?" Ivy said, her back to me as she searched.

"He's probably the coven's next whatever." In a moment of pity, I shifted his head so he wouldn't wake up with a stiff neck.

Hoping we hadn't made a mistake, I picked up the book on the end table and thumbed to the spell marked by the black napkin. It looked like the right book, the illustrations and cramped handwriting being the same as what I'd seen in Elyse's office. The subliminal tingle from the ley lines rising through it to meet me were familiar, too. But I couldn't read elven, and I didn't trust Elyse any farther than I could throw her.

"Bis, you want to take a look at this?" I set the open book on the coffee table with a thump. "Make sure it's the right one before we walk out with it?"

The little gargoyle perked up, his lionlike tail switching. "Sure." His wings flashed open as he pulled a book off the shelf and staggered into the air. "This one is about the right size to replace it," he said as he beat his wings thrice and landed heavily on the table, a Reader's Digest Condensed Books leather-bound doorstop in his arms. "That kid is going to tell them you were here. I don't think glamouring it will help much."

Brow furrowed, Ivy looked from replacing the couch's cushions. "You could dose him into forgetting," she suggested.

"No, too risky." There was no way I'd dose the kid into forgetting we had been here. That was a one-way ticket to Alcatraz. "Well, Bis?" I asked, and he glanced from the book splayed before him.

"Looks legit," he said as he closed the book and backed away, that little black napkin in his hand. "Spell 'em."

Easy enough. I took my new transposition charm from around my neck and stared through the hole at the book Elyse had tried to lure me with. "A priori," I said, and a quiver of line energy rippled through me, the power going nowhere but simply pooling, waiting for direction.

I turned my attention to the doorstop of that Reader's Digest . "A posteriori."

The energy tingling at my fingers doubled. "Omnia mutantur," I whispered, speaking the words through the stone. The magic poured from my lips, visible like a smoky fire as it settled over the red, gold-gilded monstrosity and soaked in. As before, the book looked the same to me. "Did it work?"

Ivy came over, impatience making her motions sharp. "Yes. Wow. If I hadn't seen you do it, I would never guess." She flipped one open to show stark white pages and a regular typeset monotony. "They look exactly alike on the outside." Expression closed, she took the black napkin from Bis, put it between the pages of the fake one, and shut it. "Make sure you take the right one."

"No kidding." But when I went to put it in my bag, Bis held his hands out, a wistful expression on him.

"Um, maybe I should make sure it's all there," he said, and I nodded.

"Good idea. Thanks," I said softly as he settled himself right there on the table, his black, gnarled fingers holding a book almost as large as he was. "Any luck on finding the one she kept?"

"I'm sure it's here. I can smell it," Ivy said, her back to me as she continued to search, and I shifted the decoy with the black napkin back to the end table.

"Maybe they left it at the office," Bis said, his head bowed low over the old text, and I moved to stand before the shelf, hands on my hips.

"Maybe." I fingered the transposition charm, thinking. "They could have disguised it," I said as I peered through the stone for a telltale sign of mischief. Nothing, I mused, turning on a slow heel to do a circuit of the room.

Again, everything seemed to be as it should be—until I gazed through the stone at the kid and he aged right before my eyes, suddenly buck-naked and sprawled in the chair with his legs stretched out and his head lolling. His cheeks were shaved, and he looked to be about sixty, which meant he could be as old as a hundred. It was a witch thing.

"U-uh," I stammered, glancing over the stone to see a slim ten-year-old in jeans and a hoodie, his sneakers dangling over the floor. "Guys?" Breath held, I tried to nudge his knobby, old foot with mine, my boot encountering nothing. He might look six-foot-two through the stone, but it was an image. Like a placeholder. "I don't think our little kid is really a kid." Why is he naked? I wondered as I handed the stone to Bis and the gargoyle peered through it.

"What am I supposed to be seeing?" he said, and Ivy took the stone from him.

Confused, I glanced between her and the, uh, kid. "You don't see an older man?" I said, deciding to keep to myself that he was also naked.

Ivy shook her head and gave the stone back to me.

"Me either," Bis said. "But his aura is wrong. It's too complex for a ten-year-old."

"Huh." I tucked the stone into a pocket. "He's been spelled younger. I'm going to say demon curse, maybe, because it's not a glamour." I flushed, remembering his smooth skin and, uh, yeah. I'd obviously seen naked men before, but only when the person in question wanted me to, and I felt like a voyeur.

"Why would they do that?" Ivy asked, and I grabbed a couch pillow and set it on his lap.

"To put us off guard?" I guessed. "I'm going to wake him up. He might know where my book is. Bis, make yourself and the book we're walking out of here with scarce."

Bis's haunches bunched, and then he launched himself into the air, landing awkwardly on the top of a bookcase, where he could watch everything and remain out of sight. Head down, he continued to read as I put a couple of zip strips on the guy, first around his wrists to keep him contained, and then one about a slim ankle. Their core of magicked silver would keep him from tapping a line. It wasn't hard to make a magic user impotent, which was why I kept my membership up at the local dojo.

He really was the size of a ten-year-old. But that was not what I saw through the stone, and I stood nervously before him. "Honna tara surrundus." I said the elven words to break the sleep spell, hoping I got the pronunciation right. The kid, or guy, I guess, came to with a snort. His focus shifted from the three of us facing him to the pillow on his lap and back again. I could tell when he reached for a ley line, not because I felt it but because his expression went ugly. Too ugly for a ten-year-old.

Smug, I crouched to put us eye to eye. "Hi. We're going to play a little game. Hot and cold. You know how to play that, right?" I pitched my voice as if I were talking to a kindergartner, and his expression darkened even more.

"You can go to hell on a stick," he said, his high voice holding a scary amount of anger.

Ivy put her hands on her knees and bent over him. "I'd smack him, but I don't like hitting people who don't have to shave yet."

"Mmmm, go ahead." I stood, not comfortable with my head that close to Ivy's. Not when her pupils were that big. "He's not ten."

Bis snickered. "Definitely not ten," he said from the bookcase, and the kid twisted, craning his neck to try to find him.

"Hey. Hey!" Ivy exclaimed, snapping her fingers for his attention. "Eyes forward, sport."

"You can see me?" the kid said, and I frowned as it began to come together.

"You knew me," I mused as I peered through the stone, glad I'd put the pillow where I had. "Which isn't unusual. Most of the city does. But why did the coven leave you here guarding a book?"

His gaze darted to the glamoured copy on the end table, and I set a gentle hand on it, feeling nothing from the disguised Reader's Digest . "You're coven, aren't you. Are you Scott?" I guessed, and the "kid" looked torn between annoyance and relief. "You were like a hundred this afternoon. What happened?"

"Yeah, well, now I'm ten," he said, high voice bitter. "I'll be older in the morning."

Ivy smiled, and a shiver crossed me. "If he's not ten, I can bite him."

Scott's nasty smile faded, and I shook my head. "And add a vampire scar to his misery? We are not that cruel." Head cocked, I considered him. Older in the morning? His body must shift with the sun, aging and youthing. I'd bet his clothes were spelled to shift with his body so he wouldn't have to change them when the sun rose and set. That was why he wasn't wearing any when I looked through the translocation stone. No wonder they put him on disability.

"That is a vile curse," I said, and his gaze darted to me. "Who did this to you?"

"That's funny," Scott said, sullen and ill-tempered. "I warned Elyse not to renege on the deal. Your book is under the couch. Take it and go. You take the other, and we will follow you to the ends of the earth for it."

"You put it under the couch?" I asked as Ivy pushed off from his chair, shifting it backward a few inches. Hips swaying, she dropped to the floor and stretched.

"Got it," she said as she backed out from under the couch, my book in hand.

I turned to Scott, aghast. "You put it under the couch ?" I said again, and Scott winced as Ivy set it thumping onto the end table beside the glamoured Reader's Digest .

"I wasn't going to answer the door with it sitting in the open." Scott looked like an embarrassed kid. "I knew you weren't going to fall for the ‘this is where we're keeping your book and the word to unlock the safe' routine. But try telling a twenty-year-old anything."

He'd said the last with a sneer, and I felt a twinge of annoyance. "Don't sell her short," I said. "She's probably on her way here right now."

Scott flinched, and I felt my expression blank.

"Shit, we need to go," Ivy said, and worry clenched my gut.

"Ah, Rachel?" Bis said from atop the bookcase, his heavy brow furrowed.

"She's on her way, isn't she?" I said, and Scott simpered at me. "How did she know we were here?" I asked, and still he stayed silent. Crap on toast. If the warning went out when we rang the bell, she could be here in as little as twenty minutes. We'd been here almost that.

"Okay, let's pack it in," I said. "Bis, we gotta…" My words trailed off as I saw his sick expression.

"What is it?" Ivy asked for both of us, and Bis half fell, half flew to the floor. Leaving the book where it lay, he pushed down once with his wings to land on the end table, one powerful foot resting on the glamoured Reader's Digest .

"Did you know?" the gargoyle said to Scott, and my gut tightened.

"Know what?" I asked, and Bis's nails made an awful sound, scraping three lines into the table.

"You can't bring Kisten's ghost back with that spell," he said, his eyes darting to the book he'd left on the floor. "It requires an intact body, not ashes."

I froze, feeling as if I had gotten kicked in the gut. Elyse had known this wouldn't work even before she'd dangled it in front of me two weeks ago. She lied to get me under her thumb, lied to trick me into betraying my adopted kin.

And as I stared at Scott, the beginnings of a true hatred began an insidious trickle through me, tightening my spine vertebra by vertebra.

I jerked, startled when Ivy lunged for him, pinning him to the chair.

"Did you know?" she snarled, her teeth grazing his neck, and Scott shuddered, his eyes closing as the scent of his fear drenched the room. "Did you know!"

"Ivy!" I shouted as I grabbed her arm. It was dangerous to take prey from a vampire, but this wasn't hunger. This was heartache. "Let him go. Let him go! Ivy, this is not who you want to be. Let. Him. Go!"

She let go, giving Scott a shove that was hard enough to almost tip the chair over. Breath shallow, she turned away and tried to bring herself down. She had let him go for me—not for Scott, and certainly not for herself.

Scott wiped the saliva from his neck with his bound wrists, a cold sweat on his smooth brow. Bis glanced once at Ivy, then shifted himself to my shoulder. His firm grip grounded me and I exhaled, realizing how close I'd been to letting Ivy have her way. This wasn't who I wanted to be, either.

But still, anger filled me. The coven didn't want me for me . They wanted everything I knew, and they wanted it in a way that would not only give them control over me but remove me as a rival so their own skills would shine all the brighter.

"Ivy wants to know if you knew it wouldn't work," I said, one hand on Bis's feet. The kid was shaken, and the line running through both of us was soothing. "So do I. Did you?"

Scott glanced from Ivy's hunched back to me. "Yes," he said, voice soft. "If it means anything, I voted against it. Demons don't belong in the coven."

My lip twitched. "Yeah? That doesn't look as if it's helping you much, does it."

Ivy slowly pulled herself straight, her eyes haunted as she turned. She was working hard not to break anything, even as her world was falling apart. I hadn't seen that look on her face for a long time, and my heartache shifted and grew. She was in mourning. Again. It had been hard for me when Kisten had died, but it had been devastating to Ivy. He had been her confidant, her business partner, her lover—knowing everything about her and loving her anyway.

Motions slow, I picked up the book Ivy had pulled from under the couch. It was mine and I was taking it home as we had agreed. The soft leather was glowing in recognition. "Let's go," I said as I put it in my shoulder bag, and Scott scowled at the glamoured Reader's Digest , clearly thinking it was the one Bis had left on the floor by the door.

"Leave it, Morgan," he warned in his high voice, and I hesitated.

"Why would I want a spell I can't use?" I said, fighting the urge to smack the confidence from his smooth, young face. Making the semblance of a deal was not out of order, though, a way to claim it was mine when the subterfuge was discovered, and I exhaled my tension. "I came for my book, not yours," I said, tracing a light finger on the glamoured book to make Scott's lip curl. "Leaving with a second one wasn't in the original deal. But seeing as Elyse broke the first agreement and I had to come fetch my property, how about a new one?"

I stood before him, a ley line tinging through me by way of Bis's feet. "I renounce any claim I might have on that book right there. I walk out of here, free and clear. In return, I won't retaliate for you trying to buy my services with a curse you knew wasn't worth troll spit. Deal?"

"Deal," he said, and I nodded, satisfied that even when the switch I'd made was discovered, chances were good they'd drop the issue. If it looks as if you're getting something for nothing, don't make the deal. Demons 101. Dumbass…

"Rachel, we have to go," Bis whispered from my shoulder, and I nodded even as I hesitated.

"You voted against this, eh?" I said as I hiked the bag higher up my shoulder. "Good for you. Bad that you couldn't convince the rest of them. Here's some advice from me to you, old man, advice from someone who has been across the board and back again. Pawn made queen."

I leaned in, and Bis left my shoulder in a flurry of wings. "I am not going to hide in the ever-after and leave this reality to your coven's gentle mercies. I am not going to submit and be incarcerated in Alcatraz. And I am never going to be coven," I almost whispered, reaching to arrange the strings dangling from his hoodie. "It was rotten to the core when Brooke wanted to turn me into a broodmare to give her a demon child, and I don't see anything different with Elyse in charge, hiding behind a gossamer-thin claim of white magic. Vivian was the only decent person among you, and she's gone."

I straightened, shoving his shoulder to push him into the cushions. "If you were smart, you'd get out again before the shit hits the fan."

Done with him, I touched Ivy's shoulder and together we walked out, leaving Scott to wiggle free of his bonds or not. I didn't care. Bis flew out over our heads to make sure the way was clear, and I picked up the book Al wanted in passing, shoving it in my already heavy bag.

I'd gotten what I'd come for, and then some, but heartache followed us like an ill fog, coloring the night and those yet to come.