I’d never paid much attention to Amalia. Next to Robin’s mysteries, the apprentice sorceress had seemed kind of inconsequential—but I was revamping my impression of her big time.

Holding the ornate cult grimoire in her hands, Amalia chanted in Latin. The ancient words rose and fell with undeniable power, her voice smooth and confident, almost regal. It was as though she’d been born to read this spell—or as though she’d prepared since birth to read it. The thought that she might falter seemed ridiculous, and I had no doubt about her ability to perform the ritual flawlessly.

The final member of our strange group wasn’t in the basement. Zylas was somewhere above us, prowling the museum rooftop as he watched for any sign of trouble. If any cultists showed up, he would warn us—and, depending on the intruders, eliminate them.

As Amalia’s voice rolled through the room, Ezra waited alone in the circle, his left eye glowing faintly as both human and demon watched their fate unfold. Fighting to control my nauseating fear, I held on to Aaron’s and Kai’s hands. They gripped my fingers as tightly as I held theirs.

Amalia continued to chant, voice rising, then she paused. She gestured to Robin. The petite contractor knelt and opened the case at her feet. She withdrew a vial of demon blood—Nazhivēr’s Second House blood, crucial to the summoning.

Walking into the empty circle, she uncorked it and tipped the vial, pouring the demon blood onto the central symbol. Instead of splashing across the floor, the thick liquid stuck to the rune, turning it dark scarlet.

She retreated to the circle’s edge, and a heartbeat of silence ran through the basement.

“Te tuo sanguine ligo, tu ut vocatus audias, Eterran of the Dh’irath House!” Amalia declared.

A scarlet shimmer rippled out from the blood-coated rune. It spread across the silver array, turning the lines around Ezra’s feet an eerie, iridescent ruby. He stiffened, the crimson gleam in his left eye brightening.

Amalia launched into the next phase of the ritual. Endless Latin flowed from her lips, then she pointed at the outer circle a foot in front of her boots.

“Terra te hoc circulo semper tenebit!”

The reddish glow imbuing the array whooshed upward in a shimmering wave, outlining a faint dome that arched over the outer ring. The gleaming dome faded, invisible, but according to Robin’s explanation from a week ago, Eterran was now sealed inside the circle. Ezra would leave that silver ring as a human—or he wouldn’t leave it at all.

My pulse drummed in my ears, a rapid beat counting down the minutes and seconds that remained.

Almost ten years had passed since Eterran had been summoned from his world and tricked into accepting a contract. Ten years since Ezra, deceived by the cult that ensnared his parents, had accepted his transformation into a demon mage.

Eight years since Ezra had run away from home, triggering the chain of events that had led to his parents’ deaths and the destruction of Enright.

Six years since Aaron had encountered Ezra on the downtown streets and made a safe home for him.

Nine months since my first shift at the Crow and Hammer when I’d thrown a margarita across the three mages and Ezra had burst into laughter.

Three and a half months since I’d found out he was a demon mage.

Two months since our first kiss under the mistletoe.

One month since I’d realized I loved him.

And tonight, whether Ezra lived or died, none of our lives would ever be the same.

A silent buzz vibrated against my hip and I started, accidentally yanking my hands free from Aaron and Kai. Shit. Hadn’t I turned my phone off?

I slid it out, the screen glowing with an incoming call from a number I didn’t recognize. Amalia was still chanting, either too focused to have noticed my movement or ignoring me.

As I rejected the call, Kai glanced at my screen.

“That’s Izzah’s number,” he whispered.

Izzah? I blinked at my phone, the screen dark. Why had Izzah called me? I hadn’t heard from her in weeks.

The screen lit up, the phone buzzing. The same number appeared. She was calling again.

Amalia recited another Latin phrase. I hesitated, every nerve in my body prickling, then tapped the screen—answering the call. I brought the phone to my ear.

“Izzah?” I whispered as quietly as possible.

“Tori!” She was whispering too, but I could hear the urgency in her tone. “Where are you?”

“Where? I—”

“Is Ezra with you?”

The floor shifted under my feet. “Ezra?”

“I just overheard—two officers, they were talking about a classified bounty on Ezra. They’re saying—”

Amalia’s voice rose through another incantation. The air grew electric, scented with an unfamiliar tang of power.

“—Ezra is a demon mage.”

The floor fell out from under me. The world fell. The universe was spinning out of control. Exploding. Imploding.

“A bounty,” I choked out, scarcely making a sound. Aaron and Kai went rigid.

“Yes,” Izzah whispered at top speed, “and the officers mentioned a team. I think they might be—”

Amalia stretched her hand out, pointing toward the blood-drenched rune as Latin flowed from her lips. The swirl of power through the two circles shifted back and forth, rippling across the interconnecting lines.

Izzah was still talking. “—already started, and you need to warn him before—”

“I have to go.” I yanked my phone away and ended the call. My hand shook, the device almost slipping from my fingers. I shoved it into my pocket.

Aaron’s and Kai’s expectant stares were scorching the top of my head, but I couldn’t look away from Ezra as he waited in the circle. Power sizzled in my nose and throat as Amalia’s voice swirled through the room.

We couldn’t stop now. We were so close.

Zylas was on the roof, keeping watch. No warning yet. We had time. Just enough time to unmake a demon mage. Just enough time to save Ezra not only from Eterran and madness, but from the justice of the mythic world that had just been unleashed.

I grabbed Aaron’s and Kai’s wrists, holding on to hope as I held back my terror. Every molecule in my body vibrated with urgency. Faster. Hurry. Quickly!

But Amalia didn’t chant any faster. A single error would ruin the ritual. She continued at the same steady pace, power rising, the eerie glow of crimson magic in the circle deepening until it was more black than red.

Drawing herself up, Amalia lifted her hand toward Ezra. “Tenebrarum auctoritatem da mihi, da super hunc imperium sine fine! Eterran of Dh’irath, bearer of the power of Ahlēa, wielder of the king’s command, by your blood and your oath, I summon—”

In a flash of glinting armor and reddish-brown skin, Zylas appeared behind her. His hand clamped over her mouth, halting her final words.

His eyes glowed like pits of magma. “They are inside.”

My thundering heart plunged toward my feet.

“Who’s inside?” Kai demanded.

“Odin’s Eye.”

The answer rasped from my dry throat. Odin’s Eye was here. A team responding to a top-secret bounty on a demon mage.

“We have to get out of here!” Aaron barked urgently.

As one, Aaron, Kai, and I turned toward the lone exit. The open doorway led into a dark landing, and beyond it was the stairwell.

Zylas grabbed Robin’s arm, shoved the petite contractor toward Amalia, then stepped in front of the two women and sank into a defensive stance. His fingers curled, claws unsheathing, crimson eyes fixed on that dark doorway.

“Aaron Sinclair,” a deep male voice called, echoing out of the stairwell. “Kai Yamada. Tori Dawson. You’ve been charged with harboring a demon mage, a capital offense under MPD law. Surrender now, or we will attack with lethal force.”

My lungs locked.

“Ezra Rowe. You’ve been identified as a demon mage and the MPD Emergency Judiciary Council has ordered your immediate execution.” A short pause. “If you have any integrity or humanity left, you will surrender as well.”

Tremors ran through my limbs. Ezra’s secret was out. The world knew he was a demon mage.

I slowly slid one hand up my thigh to my hip. As my fingers curled around a cool glass sphere, I flicked a glance at Aaron and Kai. Aaron gave the slightest nod.

I yanked the alchemy bomb off my belt and flung it. As it arched through the air, Zylas launched toward the summoning array. His fist swung down, knuckles smashing into the concrete floor at the circle’s edge. The concrete cracked under the blow, splitting the lines and runes.

My alchemy bomb smashed on the floor—and with shouted battle cries, the Odin’s Eye mythics charged through the doorway.

I caught only a glimpse of familiar and unfamiliar mythics in dark gear before the billowing smoke obscured them. Its peppery tang filled my mouth as the room went white with mist.

Aaron and Kai leaped ahead of me, drawing weapons, and chaos exploded everywhere. Fire burst outward as Aaron’s sword swept into a charging mythic, and their blades met with a ringing clang. Kai flung his throwing knives, and electricity leaped into the fog. A pained shout revealed that his attack had landed.

I yanked out my paintball gun, scouring the darting shadows for a target.

Something hit me in the back and I landed painfully on my knees. I swung my gun toward the bulky Odin’s Eye mythic attacking me from behind, but he caught it and twisted it out of my hand. His fist flashed out—one, two, three strikes—and pain struck me in the jaw, the sternum, and the gut.

I went down. He flipped me onto my face, put a knee in my back, and wrenched my arm behind me. Through locked lungs, I felt a zip tie pull against my wrist. He yanked my other arm over to bind my wrists together.

That fast, I was done. Beginner’s luck, a couple months of training, and a gutsy attitude were no match for professionals. I was nothing more than an amateur against the practiced bounty hunters of Odin’s Eye.

Flashes of white electricity and orange firelight blazed nearby, but Aaron and Kai were too busy fighting off the Odin’s Eye team to help me. My cheek ground into the floor as I squirmed violently, but the far stronger mythic forced my wrists together and looped the zip tie around them.