Chapter 1

I 'm shivering alone on an uninhabited island, with a cliff pressing behind me and frigid water beyond, so there is no one who would hear me scream.

I am not going to scream.

First, because this problem is of my own making and I don't deserve to. The last few weeks have been A Lot.

Second, because if I start screaming I might keep screaming, which I can't afford. I have a job to do, and I'm the only one who can do it.

Which means if I have fucked up and this spell doesn't work, I will exit this universe without a sound to mark my passing.

That's also true if I succeed, since I'm about to open a portal to demon world.

The difference is, if I fuck up, I won't be left with the consequences, and as overwhelmed as I am with High Earth's bullshit, I'm also mad enough for that to not sound tempting.

They haven't faced my consequences yet, but they will .

No matter what the future holds, there's one thing I absolutely have to succeed at first:

Freeing Nariel from the prison he entered to save me.

So I'm here to do the impossible at least one more time.

That thought, finally, sends the ghost of a grin to my face. Take that, Evram. I can work whatever magic I want, and my abandoning mentor wishes he could be this good.

Magic is the one thing I can count on to get right.

So wand in hand, I take a deep breath and get it done.

I take the rush of power from the fjords and focus it, channeling it all into a spell.

There's a moment of disorientation, where I feel like I'm falling, like I haven't locked on to anything after all and am just going to fall into a void and keep falling and falling forever into nothingness—

—and then the magic yanks me, and I pop into existence somewhere else.

That is not how a normal portal works, but I don't appear to be dead, so this is definitely fine.

I take a breath. Great, good, breathing is still possible. Hadn't been 100% sure, but I had a spell ready just in case. Super fine.

I take another breath, and look around. I'm in...

...a walk-in closet?

There's a curtain behind me and the obsidian walls in front are rounded, like I'm in a section of an—evil—fairytale princess' tower, and there are shelves hewn from the same black rock with clothes from a dozen different cultures all around me.

They're all dark colored, which figures.

Because on a shelf in the center I spot the hair clip Nariel gave me.

My breath rushes out.

I did it.

I successfully transported myself across dimensions using the magic I imbued in the hair clip as a beacon to guide me.

That means this is almost certainly Nariel's closet.

In demon world.

And he kept a reminder of me where he couldn't miss it every time he changed clothes.

I have to squeeze my eyes shut against a sudden rush of emotion.

I can still do the impossible.

He didn't want to forget me—though then again, it's possible he left this here as a cautionary reminder.

Shit, maybe this is like a closet in his basement where he stores things he never wants to see again, and the clip is just front and center so he didn't have to look at it any longer than necessary when he tossed it in.

Ugh, brains.

On the other hand, what a great opportunity for deniability. I withdraw a parcel from my pack, one I've been carrying around since Koshiel forced him out of Low Earth, and leave it on a shelf. If this is his storage basement because he hates me actually, he never has to know, and importantly I also never have to know.

Actually caring what someone thinks of me for the first time in over a decade sucks and I don't like it.

I am going to have to find him for the next stage of my plan, though, and I am sweating . I'm not sure if I'm more terrified or excited.

A loud bang sounds somewhere behind the curtain, and then nothing.

The silence of a predator in wait.

My heart is in my throat.

I clench one hand around my wand, take a breath.

Then with the other I throw open the curtain.

And Nariel is right there .

Surrounded in rippling shadows, like he's dropped the veil normally hiding his insane power, and I can suddenly feel all the magic emanating from him for just an instant before it vanishes like a switch turned off.

Nariel's eyes widen. "Sierra," he breathes in astonishment.

I'm frozen, arrested at the sight of him.

"You're okay," I finally whisper back, and then let out a breath and bury my head in my hands, maybe shaking a little.

He's okay. He's trapped, but he's not dead.

I didn't fuck this up beyond fixing.

A delicate touch ghosts over my head, and I still. "I'm okay," he murmurs in agreement. "But what are you doing here? "

That doesn't sound mad. But somehow in all my planning I never thought about how I was going to explain my intrusion into a private space I definitely don't have permission to enter.

My relief at finding him turns to acid.

Intruding on people's lives seems to be all I'm good for.

But I will fix it, goddammit.

"I realize finding me coming out of your closet probably looks deeply creepy," I start, "but I swear I can explain."

Nariel's hand pauses, and so do my lungs.

And then he bursts out laughing, and I feel him reaching for me—

Crap, not yet!

I rapidly jump back, banging into the stone shelves behind me. Ow. "Sorry! Sorry. Hold that thought. You can't touch my jacket."

Nariel's eyes narrow. "That is my jacket."

So it is. It is, in point of fact, the kimono jacket he wore when I took him to Tanabata. "Fair point, well made, but give me, like, five more minutes? ...Maybe ten, and I'll finish up and it's all yours again."

I rapidly shrug out of it and hold it loosely in my non-wand hand.

"Your magic in the hair clip," Nariel says slowly. "You used that to transport yourself into my closet?"

"So this is your closet."

He looks at me oddly. "Yes," he says, like I'm dense .

I shrug. "I wasn't sure if you'd hidden the clip away somewhere."

His eyes darken. "I thought you gave it back to me as something to remember you by," he says softly. "Not a promise."

My stomach clenches. Had he given up on me? Or just hadn't counted on me.

"You promised me you'd wait for me."

I don't like how small my voice sounds as I say that.

So before he can respond I scowl and try again. "I can't believe you thought that anyone giving me an ultimatum, be they magi or angels, would do anything other than piss me off. Now hold still for a minute and absolutely don't touch the jacket until I say."

I step closer to him again, sensing the markers of Koshiel's spell.

"The loophole is that Koshiel has to uphold her end of the bargain," Nariel says in an odd voice.

"Two loopholes," I correct. " You can't break your confinement. No one ever said I couldn't break it."

Aha, that's what I expected. There's a layer to this that prevents the person contained by the spell from perceiving or affecting it. So Nariel couldn't undo it himself or direct someone who didn't know how spell structures worked to fix it for him. And Koshiel apparently correctly assumed that no one else in Dark Earth would be able or willing to take it down for him.

Nasty, but thorough .

But she hadn't counted on me.

Grim satisfaction and resolve solidify in my core.

This is something I can offer without guilt.

"Sierra. What are you doing? "

"Figuring out how to break your imprisonment wasn't the hard part; it was figuring out how to do it without alerting Bright Earth and causing us more problems," I say absently. And wow do I not need more problems, particularly of an angelic variety. "Like, it's a clear loophole, but I doubt they'd see it that way and still uphold their end of the bargain, right?"

"Definitely not."

"So then I had to figure out how to actually get here so I can access the spell. But I've got it—this is pretty much what I expected, Koshiel's a powerful bitch but her spellwork here isn't clever—so just let me finish this up."

Nariel's head tilts to the side. "Just like that?"

"Yes. Well, no, I'm also going to have to apply a shit-ton of magic because fucking angels —I mean, no offense—"

"None taken." His tone is still odd.

Think about it later.

"Great. I'm not going to break this, I'm just going to transfer the spell from you to your jacket. One second."

And then I take a breath and activate my second big magic of the day.

This one is harder .

Koshiel's spell is powerful, and I have to lift each anchor one by one, in order. I said it wasn't clever, which is only sort of true. It's easy to understand—she didn't go to the trouble of trying to hide how it works because she didn't expect anyone to get at it—but it's very intricate.

This is fiddly detail work that requires a ton of concentration and also a ton of power, with none available to draw from in demon world.

So it's all me.

Like lifting a web off of him, I pry each anchor of the spell up one by one, drawing it slowly away.

Nariel, thankfully, is quiet. It's hard enough to focus being so close to him after all this time, but he holds perfectly still and lets me just work my magic without making things harder.

God, I missed him. I knew him for days, but having him torn from me has felt like an open wound.

And now I've moved reality to seal it, because I'm still selfish.

I'm beginning to get light-headed, but finally, I get to the last point.

My power is running low. I'm only going to have one shot at this.

I take a breath, readying my wand for the next part, because I'll have to move fast.

No room for error. If I don't get it right this time with all the magic I came in with, I never will .

Enough.

Focus, Sierra.

I lift the last anchor.

The web snaps off all at once and becomes a writhing mass of glowing white lines on the end of my wand, extending its tendrils back toward Nariel like it's drawn magnetically. I feel the magic tug away from me, straining, and I grit my teeth, bleeding power to keep it with me, physically pulling on my wand with my full weight.

Oh no you don't .

I manage to tear my wand away to point it at the kimono jacket.

Koshiel's spell flicks back toward Nariel.

The jacket doesn't have enough of Nariel's magical essence remaining.

I knew that could be an issue, and that's why there's already a spell on the jacket, which I activate.

My power floods into the spell, augmenting the magical residue already there. If Nariel had touched it, it could have absorbed all his power, and him, with no way to cut off the flow.

Not me, though. I can stop it as soon as the damn angel spell transfers.

But as my power floods into the decoy spell on the jacket, Koshiel's spell keeps straining toward Nariel.

My power flows out, and out, and out .

Spots appear in my vision. Goddammit, how much power does Nariel walk around with every day?

It doesn't matter.

I will match it.

I will not lose him.

Certainly not to a fucking angel .

I'm shaking with the effort to remain standing, but my wand arm is steady as power continues to stream out of me.

"Sierra," Nariel finally whispers warily.

"I'm fine," I grit out.

"You will not kill yourself for me."

"Fuck you, I'll do what I want."

Okay, not my best retort, but I am busy , damn it.

" Sierra —"

I growl, "They. Can't. Keep. You."

And now I'm not sure if Nariel is going to intervene after all on my behalf, so with a final rush I pour everything I have left into the spell.

The writhing mass snaps toward the jacket.

Like a force of magical magnetism, the spell is sucked onto the jacket and latches on, winding around like a vise.

Abruptly, all the power in the room cuts off. Woozily, I half-expect a popping sound.

I peer critically at the jacket. Poke it.

Spell is firmly on.

I glance toward Nariel, my vision swirling .

Spell firmly off.

I pry my clenched fingers loose from the jacket, and it slips to the stone floor.

"I did it," I whisper.

And then my knees buckle, and I'm slipping to the floor too.