But then, was I really surprised? I was a twenty-year-old college dropout who’d spent most of her life running from anything resembling magic, whose only accomplishment was an accidental contract with a Twelfth House demon.

And without the infernus, I didn’t even have that.

“Not again!” Amalia’s furious shout reverberated through the wall. “How is it jammed again?”

“You are too loud.” Zylas’s low, complaining tone was almost indiscernible.

“Shut up.”

I blinked slowly at the bedroom wall, then refocused on the ancient grimoire sitting on my lap. My notebook was open beside it, but I could hardly look at its lined pages. Saving it had cost me far more than I ever could have guessed.

The whir of Amalia’s new sewing machine resumed. She’d bought it from a department store this morning to finish the hex-gear outfit she’d started for Zylas several weeks ago, salvaged from her room before we’d fled the apartment.

Latin handwriting swam in my vision as I scanned the text. I was supposed to be looking for information about the Vh’alyir Amulet and portal magic, but instead, I was aimlessly turning pages, my thoughts in a disorganized haze.

Xever and Nazhivēr. The portal they needed for unknown reasons. Their new desire for Zylas’s blood. What did they want? What were they trying to accomplish?

And did we have any chance of stopping them?

No word from Zora yet. Was she out on the streets already, searching for the trail of those cultists?

A mechanical popping noise interrupted the whir of the sewing machine.

“Ugh! I hate this thing!”

I sighed and flipped another worn page.

The bedroom door swung open. Zylas walked in, grumpiness all over his face and Socks hanging off his shoulder.

“She is noisy,” he grumped. “More noisy than the sewing machine.”

“Hmm,” I murmured vaguely, returning my attention to the grimoire. He’d removed his hoodie—probably so Amalia could measure him some more—and the Vh’alyir sigil on his breastplate glinted.

He scooped Socks off his shoulder and dropped her on the foot of the bed, then climbed onto the mattress. Stretching out on his stomach beside me, he pillowed his cheek on his folded arms, eyes skimming lazily over me.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“You are always thinking.” The end of his tail flicked side to side. “I could not always hear your thoughts, but I could feel you think, think, think.”

I scowled. So maybe I was prone to anxiety-fueled overanalysis. Lots of people—human people, at least—spent a lot of time thinking.

“Are you happy to be rid of my thoughts in your head?” I asked, trying to sound playful. It came out defensive instead.

“No.”

I squinted sideways at him. “No?”

“I like knowing what you think. You let me hear more since you gave me your strawberry to eat.”

A slow flush rose up my cheeks. How could he mention that so casually?

Another flick of his tail. “Did you like hearing my thoughts?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “I wish I could’ve heard more. It was hard to get any detail. You think really fast.”

His wolfish grin flashed. “Hh’ainun are slow in all ways.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Demons are rude in all ways.”

“Rude?” He considered that. “That is the opposite of nice?”

“Yes.”

“We are rude,” he agreed shamelessly.

Snorting, I turned another grimoire page. It was the notation with demonic runes that had upset Zylas yesterday—the invocation of the King’s Vow that twisted their magic against them.

I’d learned early on that demons didn’t lie, but I’d given little thought to how their society viewed honesty. Zylas valued his word enough to risk his life to keep the promise he’d made me, and demon leaders were held to an even stricter level of integrity than the average demon. There was so much violence in their society, but it was defined by a brutal frankness.

“What will you do when you’re home again?” I asked softly, flipping past the damning page. “Will you … raise children like other Ivaknen?”

Why had I asked that? The question had just popped out.

He rolled his shoulders, working out stiffness. “No.”

“Why not?” I lightened my tone. “Because you’re scared of female demons?”

He chuffed dismissively. “All males fear payashē. I will not have young until I am strong enough.”

“Strong enough for what?”

“To be a good sire.” He closed his eyes. “If I am not strong, I might die before I can teach my sons to be smart warriors who will survive.”

My teasing smile melted away. His father had died when he was young, leaving him alone in a mercilessly deadly world. I still didn’t know how he’d made it to adulthood.

Turning around, I set the grimoire on my pillow and stretched out on my stomach beside him, cheek resting on my arms to mirror his pose. As he cracked his eyes open to watch me, I searched his face, questions piling up in my head.

“Will you have any young?”

All my queries vanished like popped bubbles. He was asking me?

“I always assumed I would, someday, so I could pass the grimoire down to my daughter … like my mom did for me.” Resting my chin on my folded hands, I scrutinized the ancient book. “But now I don’t know. Anthea accomplished incredible magic, but her legacy is tainted by what she did with it. Part of me wonders if … if the grimoire should be destroyed.”

Even as I said it, I shook my head slightly, unable to imagine destroying such a momentous piece of mythic history.

“Destroying it would not erase summoning,” Zylas pointed out quietly.

“No … but I’d erase summoning if I could.” Puffing out a breath, I dropped my cheek back onto my arms. “As for having kids, I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it much.”

“Hnn.” He tilted his head slightly. “There are many things to do and see and learn in this world. Will you do those things instead of raising young?”

I’d always imagined my life as a carbon copy of my mother’s—a quiet, domestic life with my small family and a quiet, simple job that I enjoyed. Preferably one involving books.

But picturing that now, it felt so … flat and empty.

“Maybe,” I answered softly. “I think there are things I’d like to see and learn. Apprenticing with a sorcerer and learning Arcana properly. Visiting ancient, famous libraries. Seeing history for myself. Maybe … writing a book about it all.”

Creating my own compilation of words and thoughts to add to humanity’s accumulation of knowledge—before all this began, I’d never have considered it. After all, what new knowledge and experiences could I have offered? But now …

I smiled hesitantly. “There’s also your book of landscapes. I’d like to see some of those places.”

A shadow moved through his crimson eyes.

“Maybe we could see one or two?” I suggested, insecurity leaking into my tone. “Before you go home? Once we have an infernus again, we could … figure it out.”