I nervously studied the night-swathed park where, what felt like a lifetime ago, Zylas and I had chased down Tahēsh. The surrounding streetlamps cast an orange haze across the winter grass of the park, interrupted in one corner by a dark grove of mature trees.

It unnerved me that Ezra had chosen this spot, where the First House demon had died, as the location of our meeting … and our trade.

Tugging my jacket tighter around me, I glanced from Amalia, who was squinting around suspiciously, to Zylas, who stood on my other side. He was back in his armor—chest plate over his heart, bracer on his left forearm, and greaves protecting his lower legs—but his shoulder looked oddly bare without the matching shoulder plates.

Without shifting his attention off the grove, he bared his teeth. “They are here.”

I nodded. “Let’s go.”

The dark trees loomed as we approached. Zylas’s feet were silent on the grass while Amalia and I crunched across dead leaves. I hesitated as we reached the prickly bushes, wondering how we were supposed to get through.

Zylas pointed. A few yards away, a narrow trail led into the trees.

The demon’s softly glowing eyes caught mine, and a faint murmur of warning ran between us, so subtle I wasn’t sure if I was hearing his silent thoughts or if it was just my imagination. Then he turned and slunk away in the opposite direction, circling the grove.

Pushing my shoulders back, I strode toward the path. Amalia followed, unusually silent and probably regretting her last-minute decision to come along. She usually left the dangerous stuff to me and Zylas.

This shouldn’t be dangerous … but I wasn’t letting my guard down.

Darkness enveloped us, the dense branches of coniferous trees dimming the glow of the streetlamps. I slowed my steps, letting my eyes adjust to the low light. A cold breeze rushed through the trees, stirring the branches, and I shivered.

The underbrush crowded in, branches scraping over the sleeves of my jacket, then the grove opened into a small, hidden clearing.

Ezra stood in the center, waiting—and he wasn’t alone.

With her curly red hair tied in a ponytail and tight leather pants clinging to her long legs, Tori radiated rough, tough coolness. And on Ezra’s other side, his mage friend Aaron had his arms folded, the breadth of his shoulders warning of strength. A powerful pyromage and one of the Crow and Hammer’s top combat mythics, he wasn’t a man to underestimate.

I clenched my jaw. When Zylas had said “they” were here, I’d thought he meant Ezra and Eterran.

You could’ve been clearer, I complained silently.

A flicker of amusement echoed back to me, and I knew Zylas was somewhere nearby, watching. A faint view of the clearing from a different angle reached me—somewhere high, the demon’s gaze on the three mythics’ backs.

“You’re late,” Ezra murmured.

Not for lack of trying, but it was impossible to rush Amalia.

Inching into the clearing, I gave Tori and Aaron another searching glance, wondering why they were with him. Witnesses? Backup? Part of the trade?

“Why are we meeting here?” I asked cautiously.

Ezra twitched his shoulders in a light shrug. “Some of us prefer open spaces and room to maneuver.”

In other words, Eterran and Zylas might need space to do battle. And I didn’t like that at all.

“I see.” Folding my cold hands together, I locked my gaze on the demon mage. “We’re ready to hear your trade.”

Ezra met my intent stare without flinching, then gestured at Tori. She slid a cloth bag off her shoulder and handed it to him. I frowned as he withdrew an oversized book, the black leather cover gleaming faintly.

He weighed the book in his hand, his expression as unreadable as a stone statue. “Robin, it turns out we share an enemy … except I know him as Xever.”

My breath caught. A common enemy. That could only mean one person: Claude.

A faint sheen of red washed through Ezra’s pale left iris. He stretched his arm out, offering the book.

No, not a book. A grimoire.

“This belongs to him.”

I stepped closer, my movements slow and heart pounding. Claude’s grimoire? It couldn’t be … could it? My fingers closed around the cool leather, the cover embossed with an unfamiliar symbol: a three-pointed crown inside a circle.

Gripping the book tightly, I asked, “This is what you want to trade?”

“No, not that. Tori?”

He turned expectantly toward the redhead, and her gaze darted from him to me, her brow creased. She hesitated, lips parting as though to speak, then shoved her hand into her pocket.

She lifted a fine chain out. Its length slid from her pocket, then a flat disc came free, dark metal that absorbed light more than reflected it. For an instant, I thought it was an infernus.

Then shock vibrated through me—Zylas’s shock.

A sliver of light from beyond the trees caught on the swinging medallion, shining across the Vh’alyir emblem at its center.

“The amulet.” The words escaped me in a breathless whisper. “Vh’alyir’s Amulet.”

The lost relic of Zylas’s House. The artifact that held the secrets to opening a portal to hell. The key to everything.

Ezra’s stare bored into me. “That is what we’re here to trade.”

Chapter Three

Ezra’s words took a moment to penetrate my brain. They might’ve taken even longer if I hadn’t felt the sharp snap of Zylas’s wariness.

Ezra had the amulet. He’d found it. When? How?

My first thought was that he’d acquired it as part of the urgent task he’d run off to complete a few nights ago—but then I remembered the battle that had taken place in this very park almost four months ago. Ezra, Tori, Aaron, and Kai had faced off against Tahēsh, the amulet’s previous owner.

After the battle and the demon’s death, the amulet had gone missing. Zylas and I had even searched the park for it.

Ezra—or one of his friends—had taken it. He’d already possessed it when he’d approached me in search of information about its magic. He’d even said, I won’t let him—or rather, us—anywhere near that amulet until I understand exactly what will happen.

How carefully he’d skirted around lies that Zylas would have detected. He’d admitted that Tahēsh had tried to give him the amulet, and I still hadn’t guessed he was already in possession of it.

I pulled myself together. “And what do you want in exchange?”

He pointed at the book I held. “I want you to use that grimoire and find a way to break the demon mage contract binding me and Eterran so he can leave my body.”

Use the grimoire? Wasn’t that the point of the amulet—to break the contract magic? How would this grimoire help?

“She knows?”

I started at Tori’s sudden shriek. The redhead whirled on Ezra, the amulet hanging from her fist and disbelief splashed across her face.

Snorting under her breath, Amalia cocked her hip. “Well, duh.”

“Since when?” Tori demanded.

With a flash of crimson across Ezra’s left eye, Eterran answered, “Since you went to Enright, leaving Ezra and me to find out what she knew about the amulet.”