I recognized her bottle-blond hair. Cearra, an apprentice sorceress who’d mocked me for having a small demon.

“We’ll want to inflict as much damage as possible,” an older man replied, “and fire is a good option. We could ask the alchemists to make us firebombs.”

“And some nasty-ass smoke bombs,” someone else jumped in. “Blind the bastards so the demons can’t spit us like damn pigs.”

“But we need to be able to see what we’re doing.” That was Darren, the tall bully of a sorcerer who’d been slightly nicer to me since I’d almost drowned in the storm drains. “Bleeding them out would be better. We should be planning the easiest ways to slit some veins.”

As the debate lulled, I cleared my throat. “Those tactics …”

The people nearest to me turned, surprise on their faces when they saw me standing there.

“They probably won’t work,” I finished tentatively.

The dense cluster of combat mythics shifted, opening a gap to reveal Aaron, perched on his stool and blinking bright blue eyes at me. Tori sat beside him, Ezra on her opposite side. I tried to smile but couldn’t manage it.

“What do you know?”

I started at the rough question. Darren. Of course. His guilt-fueled sympathy for the poor little contractor who’d almost drowned while on his team had run out.

“I’m a demon contractor.” I straightened my glasses, annoyance flitting through me. “But I’m sure your experiences are valid too, Darren.”

His jaw flexed. Before he could retort, I turned to Aaron—almost missing Tori’s half-suppressed grin.

“Fire can burn legally contracted demons,” I explained, “but at least one cult demon is so loosely contracted that he can wield his magic. Fire could make him stronger.”

Aaron’s mouth dropped open. “Stronger?”

“Demons can convert heat into magic.” I tried not to think about Zylas’s reaction. I was revealing demon weaknesses to the evil hh’ainun. He wouldn’t be pleased. “To burn them, you’d have to apply heat faster than the demon can absorb it.”

I paused, remembering Nazhivēr’s bellow of pain when a certain volcanomage had hit him with a fistful of molten lava. “Alistair can do it, but I’m not sure about regular fire.”

Everyone stared at me. Was this information that shocking?

“Cold can only kill a badly injured demon,” I added. “Bleeding them out won’t work very well, either. Their blood is thick and clots quickly. Even deep wounds stop bleeding within a couple minutes.”

Darren folded his arms angrily. “How are we supposed to kill them, then?”

“Hmm.” I debated concealing the demons’ ultimate weakness, but I couldn’t hide it when lives were on the line. “Vampire saliva?”

At my hesitant suggestion, the combat mythics all looked at each other like I’d proposed they kill demons with concentrated puppy cuteness.

Though it seemed obvious, I explained, “If you inject demons with a large dose of vampire saliva, they collapse.”

Aaron rubbed the back of his neck. “How much is a ‘large’ dose?”

“Um.” I pictured the syringe Nazhivēr had injected into Zylas. “About like … a couple of tablespoons?”

Cameron—the lanky sorcerer who wasn’t as nasty as Darren and would probably be a nice guy if he ditched his toxic friend—combed his fingers through his hair, oozing frustration. “Where are we supposed to get that much vampire saliva?”

“We can barely find one vampire lately,” Darren sneered, shaking his head. “Their numbers dropped off a cliff after the December surge.”

Oh. Hmm. Was that because we’d killed Vasilii? Either way, it didn’t seem like a bad thing.

“We’ll look into vamp spit,” Aaron decided. “But as always with demons, our best bet is taking out the contractors, and that’ll be our focus.”

Ah yes. The classic “kill the contractor” strategy. My favorite.

“Thanks for the tips, Robin.”

I blinked at Aaron, surprised by his gratitude.

As he addressed the combat mythics, movement beside me caused me to turn. Tori had slipped through the group to join me.

“Can we talk?” she asked softly.

I nodded, and she hooked her arm through mine. We started across the room, Tori assessing every mythic we passed. Her steps slowed, then stopped, and she stared around the pub with a deep crease between her brows.

Was she afraid for her guildmates, who were preparing to go up against Xever’s cult, or was her apprehension rooted somewhere else?

“Tori?” I murmured.

She blinked, gaze darting toward me, then hastily pulled me into a dim corner away from everyone else and asked, “Any updates?”

“Not yet,” I admitted. “We’re working on it.” When her worry deepened, I leaned closer. “It isn’t a simple process. I know you’re impatient, Tori, but as far as I can tell, unmaking a demon mage has never been done before.”

“I get that.” She glanced around, then lowered her voice even more. “It’s just that Ezra doesn’t have much time left.”

The day a human became a demon mage, the clock started counting down to his end—a violent end heralded by an increasingly swift descent into madness. Though I hadn’t seen any clear signs of instability from Ezra, he’d admitted his days were numbered.

“We found the demon mage ritual in the grimoire,” I revealed. “It’s a complex set of spells. We thought the host body acted like an infernus, but looking at the rituals, it seems more like a summoning circle. Once a demon is inside a summoning circle, the only way to get him out is to destroy the circle or move him while he’s inside an infernus.”

“So … what? Ezra needs to swallow an infernus?”

“Uh.” Hadn’t she seen the size of an infernus? They weren’t small. “No, the infernus would need to breach Ezra’s essence, not just his body.”

She pressed her lips together. “His soul. That ex-summoner we talked to said some people believe the demon is inside the human’s soul.”

“And that’s the problem,” I agreed with a nod. “But there must be some way … I’ll keep trying, and Zylas will help too.”

Assuming he cooperated, which he wasn’t in the mood for lately. He was focused on the Vh’alyir Amulet.

Tugging at the infernus chain around my neck, I considered what would come next—what would happen if or when we separated Ezra and Eterran. “I don’t know what it will look like yet, but saving Ezra will involve some sort of ritual. We’ll need a private location where we can set up a Demonica circle. Can you find one for us?”

Tori straightened. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“If it has an existing circle, that would save us some time.”

“Leave it to me,” she said confidently.

Well, that was one less thing to worry about. I could focus on my other tasks: accomplishing the impossible by inventing a ritual that could unmake a demon mage, finding the leader of a powerful demon-worshipping cult, and defeating his unbeatable Second House demon.