It could be worse. It could also be way, way better.

Amalia and I debated who would sleep on the sofa, until I sat on it and the whole thing sagged with the obnoxious creak of ancient springs. Deciding to share the queen bed in the bedroom instead, we left Socks in Zylas’s care and passed out.

Dull morning light dragged me from a restless sleep. Lifting my head off the musty pillow, I squinted at the narrow window, the drapes too old and thin to block out the light. Amalia, curled on her side with her back to the window, snored quietly.

Careful not to jostle the creaky mattress, I climbed out of bed, dressed in last night’s clothes, and tiptoed through the kitchen to the bathroom. I freshened up, put in my contacts, and dragged my hair into a ponytail, then ventured toward the living room.

Zylas sat on the dusty hardwood floor beside the large window, which offered a voyeuristic view of another apartment window ten feet away, plus a sliver of unobstructed cityscape. Socks was curled up in his lap, fast asleep.

I sat against the wall beside him; the floor was slightly more comfortable than the sofa. “I wonder where Ezra and Tori are. If guilds are hunting them, I don’t know how we can set up another summoning ritual to separate Ezra and Eterran.”

“We can’t. Nazhivēr is hunting us. Anywhere we go, Nazhivēr will go too.”

I bit my lip. “Could we defeat Nazhivēr if all of us worked together?”

“Maybe, but it is too much risk. I cannot use vīsh where hh’ainun can see. Neither can Eterran.”

And with bounty hunters on Ezra’s tail, we couldn’t keep our battle with Nazhivēr private. “We can’t help them, can we?”

“No.”

I fidgeted with the hem of my sweater. “What are we going to do, then? Nazhivēr is hunting us, but so are guilds.”

He propped his arm on the windowsill. “What do we need to do?”

“We need to …” I pressed my fingertips to my temples. “We need to defeat Nazhivēr and Xever before they kill us. Nazhivēr is the more urgent threat, but if we stop him and not Xever, Xever will keep coming after us, especially since he seems to want your blood for something.”

“Yes. Nazhivēr is the greatest threat.” His jaw flexed. “If the hh’ainun had come later, Eterran would be free. He and I could have killed Nazhivēr.”

“Is that why you waited so long to warn us that Odin’s Eye had shown up?” I pressed my lips together. “You should’ve said something sooner. We might’ve been able to escape the building without being seen.”

“Nazhivēr was there. He was waiting for me.”

And Zylas couldn’t best Nazhivēr alone. My demon-magic-fueled cantrips had held the demon off, but I wasn’t naïve enough to think I could defeat him. I wouldn’t have the advantage of surprise again.

“Together,” I said, “do you think we could defeat Nazhivēr? If we both use your magic?”

Zylas considered that. “If I am close to Nazhivēr, you cannot attack him without hitting me. But if we attack together before Nazhivēr is too close … maybe. But it would not be dh’ērrenith.”

“Running away from Nazhivēr doesn’t work, though,” I pointed out bleakly. “He can fly. It’d be better if we went after him instead of always getting ambushed, but how do we find him?”

“Maybe with the book. But she took it.”

“Who … oh.” I squeezed my eyes shut, furious with myself. “Tori took the cult grimoire. Why didn’t I grab it? That’s our only clue about what Xever is trying to do!”

“He wants to open a portal. We have information about the portal—more than him. We have your grimoire and the imailatē.”

Right, the Vh’alyir Amulet. It contained a portal-magic spell.

Pushing to my feet, I hurried back to the bedroom. Amalia lifted her head groggily as I dug into my suitcase and pulled out the Athanas grimoire’s metal case.

Returning to the living room, I set the case on the coffee table. “Egeirai, angizontos tou Athanou, lytheti.”

A pale shimmer ran across the steel. As I opened the lid, Zylas sat beside me and deposited Socks on his lap again. She poked her head up, whiskers twitching as she sniffed toward the case.

I lifted out the amulet and set it in front of him, then withdrew the Athanas grimoire, laid it on the table, and opened it to the matching illustration.

“Okay …” My burst of determination waned. “Where do we start?”

He flipped the amulet to its back, where tiny, intricate arrays were etched. “The portal vīsh is connected to the demon spell.”

“Is it?”

“That is my … guess.” He scowled in obvious dislike for any speculation where magic was concerned. “I do not know how to make the spell awaken. The words do not work.”

“You mean the ‘evashvā vīsh’ incantation?”

“Var. It means … magic release. It awakens all spells, except special ones.” He prodded the amulet. “This spell is a special one.”

“Do you have any idea what the incantation could be?”

“No.”

“Maybe there’s something similar in the grimoire.” I started turning pages. “Anthea couldn’t have created that demonic spell until she’d discovered the demon world, so let’s jump to right after she perfected the portal spell.”

I navigated back to the portal spell, then flipped ahead to Anthea’s next experimental array, the precursor to the modern summoning array. Zylas shifted closer, his arm bumping mine as he leaned over the book. A tingle ran down my spine at the innocent contact, and an abrupt memory filled my mind: Zylas’s dark stare roving across my near-naked body in the shower.

I frantically banished the memory and focused on the page in front of us. Faithfully copied notations filled the page, including neatly crossed-out corrections and Anthea’s notes to herself.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” I murmured as I turned to another page of experimentation. “Anthea managed to open a portal and … I’d guess she at least saw a demon, right? She’d just discovered a new world populated by a whole race of never-before-seen magical beings … and the very next thing she did was start working on a spell to abduct them from their home and enslave them. Why would she do that?”

“Power,” Zylas rumbled. “Hh’ainun are weak. She wanted our power.”

I’d marveled at Anthea’s genius and dedication, but my admiration steadily soured the more I discovered. I flipped another page. “Slavery was common in her time. Maybe she didn’t see anything wrong with it, but I still don’t understand why her first—”

His hand covered mine, stopping me from turning the page. Several lines of demonic runes had been carefully drawn out, with arrows indicating where they would appear in the array.

“Is that part of the amulet magic?” I asked eagerly.

“No.” An emotion I couldn’t identify edged his quiet voice. “It says, ‘Enpedēra dīn izh.’”

That sounded vaguely familiar.

“It should be ‘Enpedēra dīn nā.’” He snarled, the sound rough and throaty—and furious. “‘Izh’ is him. Enpedēra dīn izh. Kasht!”