“Ah!” I yelped. Afraid it might stop ringing before I could get it over to Kai, I flipped it open and hit the speaker button. “Hello?”

“Kaisuke Yamada?” an unfamiliar male voice inquired.

Kai’s jaw tightened, and I knew why—he was supposed to call Makiko’s security guy back, not the other way around. As Kai sat up, I rushed the phone over and held it in front of him so he wouldn’t have to jostle his injured arm.

“Kaisuke here. To whom am I speaking?”

“Yamada-dono,” the man replied in a muted Japanese accent. “I’m a member of the Miura household and work with Miura Futoshi-dono.”

“Has Miura-dono returned to the country?” Kai asked. “Makiko didn’t mention it.”

“He is still on health leave. However, he has been informed that his daughter was taken into MPD custody. The agents claim to have evidence that she is protecting the demon mage in Vancouver, as well as shielding you from justice.”

Aaron sucked in a breath.

“If a guild master is arrested for a capital crime,” the nameless man continued, his words terse and rapid, “the MPD can investigate any and all facets of their guild, with or without cause for suspicion. They’ve begun an examination of MiraCo’s business dealings.”

“I see,” Kai murmured.

“If the MPD proceeds with this investigation, they’ll uncover … transactions that are intrinsically tied to the Yamada family. Exposing MiraCo’s discreet dealings will expose the Yamada family as well, and the family cannot allow that to happen.”

“Do you mean—”

The man on the phone cleared his throat quietly. “Miura-dono can’t ask you himself, but he begs you to save his daughter.”

A pulse of silence.

“Save Makiko?” I blurted. “From what?”

“The family is going to have her killed,” Kai replied flatly. “They’ll make it look like an accident or a health-related death, but even if it triggers an investigation, the MPD can’t legally continue to examine MiraCo.”

My knees weakened. Ezra stepped behind me, his steadying hands on my waist.

“The decision has been made,” the caller said. “There is no time left. Yamada-dono, if there is anything you can do, the Miura family would be greatly in your debt.”

Kai stared at the phone, his eyes eerily dark against his pallid skin.

“I …” His throat moved as he swallowed. “I can surrender myself in exchange for Makiko’s release.”

“What?” I shouted.

“Kai—” Aaron began angrily.

He held up a hand. “Mute the phone, please.”

I pressed the button.

“I’m injured,” he said before we could resume shouting. “Without Makiko, there’s no safe way to get me to a healer. And if I don’t do this, Makiko will be killed.”

“But if you do, you’ll be killed in her place!” I yelled, panic constricting my throat.

“I’m not a GM. Holding me doesn’t give the MPD any special privileges to investigate my guild. My family won’t have any reason to kill me, and once Makiko is out of MPD custody, she can protect me.”

Aaron stepped to his friend’s side. “But we need you.”

Kai closed his eyes. “No, you don’t, Aaron. You can protect Ezra and Tori without me.” Eyes opening, he smirked. “At least for a little while.”

Aaron swore.

Slipping past me, Ezra tugged the phone from my hand and held it out to Kai. “Do what you need to do. We’ll manage the rest.”

Kai took the phone, pressed a couple buttons, and lifted it to his ear. “Tell them I’m on my way to the precinct.” He listened for a moment, then ended the call.

Aaron swore again, his hands balled into fists.

Kai passed the phone back to me. “Wait for darkness, then leave. This place isn’t safe.”

“Where will we go?” I whispered. The city outside these flimsy walls had never been more terrifying. “What about the safe place Makiko was talking about?”

“She can’t help us anymore. Once they release her, the MPD will dog her every move. You need to find Robin and Amalia. Without them, it doesn’t matter where you hide.”

Denial spun in my head, insisting this couldn’t happen. We needed to be together. That’s how it worked. We accomplished things together, and we struggled and failed when we were apart. It would take all of us to survive this. Kai belonged with us.

Only moments later, he was pulling on his jacket, his wounded arm held stiffly. And only moments after that, he embraced Aaron, then Ezra.

My brain was still howling its refusal to accept this when he wrapped his good arm around me. I clamped myself against him.

“Kai,” I choked.

“Take care of Ezra,” he murmured. “Get that demon out of him, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

“You don’t owe Makiko anything. You don’t have to do this for her.”

He squeezed me gently, then stepped back. “I owe her a lot more than I ever realized. I can’t let her die because of me.”

I knew that. Kai wasn’t the type of person who’d let someone die when he could stop it—even if it meant sacrificing himself to save her.

Sabrina’s tarot card flashed in my mind, the Hanged Man spinning on his rope.

As I blinked the vision away, Kai stepped out into the hall. Our eyes met one final time before he swung the door shut, and the soft click of the latch was like an ominous strike of thunder in my chest.

Chapter Twelve

Our foursome was down to three, and every step I took away from Makiko’s secret condo made me wish even more that Kai was still with us.

Aaron walked ahead of me, a black beanie covering his copper hair and Sharpie hanging down the center of his back; its silver pommel peeked above the collar of his coat, and the bottom of the sheath stuck out from beneath the hem. Ezra trailed behind me, wearing a ball cap pulled low to shadow his pale eye and scarred cheek, watching everything from beneath its brim. I strode along the sidewalk between them with my hood pulled up. Robin’s gray backpack hung off my shoulders, stuffed with the cult grimoire, our customized summoning ritual, and the case with Nazhivēr’s blood.

My combat belt was around my waist, hidden under my jacket, but the back pouch remained empty. Hoshi hadn’t returned.

We didn’t know yet where we’d build a new summoning ritual, or even where we’d hide out tonight, but like Kai had said, none of that mattered without Robin. Though we had the ritual and instructions, we weren’t Arcana mythics. Only sorcerers could build working sorcery arrays.

So our destination? Robin’s apartment.

It was a risk. Odin’s Eye knew about her involvement, and they were probably hunting for her too. However, unlike me and Aaron, Robin hadn’t listed her real address in the MPD database. She might be hiding at home, and that gave us a chance to beat the bounty hunters to her.

At least, that’s what I told myself as we left the high-end Coal Harbour neighborhood and entered Gastown, the always-bustling tourist area where I’d once attempted to land a waitressing job. Old-fashioned streetlamps glowed cheerily as we followed the redbrick sidewalk past quaint historical buildings.

As we stopped at an intersection, waiting for the light to change, I noticed a café with an empty sidewalk patio, the yellow umbrellas folded up. Inside, a waitress carried a tray of food past a brightly lit window.

That café was the last restaurant I’d applied to, where the manager had revealed that no one in downtown Vancouver would hire me.

As I’d been standing outside the door in despair, a paper with three mythic job postings had blown into my face—and one of the postings had been for the only guild in the city that would’ve considered hiring a human out of the blue, on a day when Clara had been so desperate for help that she’d overlooked my paperwork in favor of a trial shift.

That was some next-level luck. Maybe some would call it fate. Like with Sabrina’s tarot cards, there was magic at work in this mundane world that I didn’t comprehend. That maybe no one comprehended.

But choice was more powerful than fate.

I’d chosen to read a piece of garbage, discovering the job listings. I’d chosen to venture into a bad neighborhood. I’d chosen to accept a trial shift.

And I’d stuck around. Every time things got messy, got ugly, got scary, I’d chosen to stick it out.

Now here I was, nine months later. The hot mess of a girl who’d thrown a margarita across three customers in a fit of temper had grown so much, changed so much, shaped by happiness and love as much as by fear and anguish.

I clasped Ezra’s and Aaron’s hands. Ignoring their questioning looks, I waited for the crosswalk light to change, then marched across the road.

Gastown’s quaint buildings disappeared, replaced by utilitarian structures that grew increasingly dilapidated as we ventured into the disreputable Eastside. We wound through an alley and halted where it met a cracked sidewalk. Several blocks north of us was the Crow and Hammer, and a block south was Robin’s apartment building.

“Do we split up to scout the neighborhood?” Aaron muttered. “Or stick together?”

I tightened my grip on their hands. “Together.”

Aaron nodded and set out again. I finally released them so we could assume a more casual formation, trying to blend in with the sparse foot traffic—except the number of pedestrians was increasing. And they were all heading in the same direction as us.

Ahead, unusual light leaked past the three- and four-story buildings: red and yellow flashes, with a steady orange glow that tinged the dark sky.

The breeze shifted, and the potent tang of smoke hit my nose.

Ezra, Aaron, and I exchanged alarmed looks, then sped up. Not quite jogging, we raced to the intersection, sprinted across, and wheeled around the corner.

A huge red firetruck with lights flashing blocked our way forward. A large crowd of people and two news vans filled the street behind a temporary barrier. Beyond it, five more firetrucks were haphazardly parked on the road, and a group of firemen strode out of the building’s smoky front entrance while others aimed heavy-duty hoses, thick streams of water raining down.