Zylas thumped down beside me—and pitched forward onto his hands and knees. The glowing wings arched off his back as he gasped for air, his whole body shaking. The pulsing veins of magic burned brighter, and the wings lost their solidity.

With a soft hiss of magic, they dissolved into shimmering streaks that drifted away from his back. The power crawling over him faded, then disappeared. Darkness swept in, the glow of the high-rise apartments barely enough to make out his silhouette.

He collapsed into the sand.

“Zylas!”

I lunged to his side, grabbed his arm, and pulled him onto his back. His chest rose and fell with heavy breaths, his limbs quivering.

“Zylas, what’s wrong?” I fumbled through my pockets, found my phone, and activated its flashlight. The bright glare hit his face and he squinted, turning his head away—but not before I saw his pitch-black eyes.

Of course they were dark. Otherwise, I’d have been able to see their glow.

I shone the light down his body, searching for injuries but finding only the slash in his thigh, then returned the light to his face. “Zylas, please! Tell me what’s wrong.”

He grunted between pants. After a moment more, he rasped, “Vīsh.”

“Huh?”

“The vīsh … to fly.” He grimaced. “Burns everywhere.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Heat.”

I looked around wildly, shining the light across a long stretch of sand. Water sloshed against the beach on one side, and on the other were trees, grass, and a walking path lined with benches. By my best guess, we’d landed on Sunset Beach, six blocks from the penthouse.

There was nothing here to warm him up with.

Sticking my phone in the sand so it’d stand upright with the light shining on us, I lay beside him, pressing against him and throwing an arm across his chest. I couldn’t do much, but I could at least block the worst of the cold sea breeze blowing off the water.

I tucked my face against the cool side of his neck, counting the timing of his breaths. Relief stole through me as his harsh, rapid huffs gentled.

“I can’t believe we survived that,” I mumbled.

He grunted. “I did not know if we would.”

“That magic you used … to make wings. I didn’t know demons could do that.”

“They can’t.”

I blinked, wishing I could see his face. Silence stretched between us and he breathed in and out, lungs moving easily now.

Finally, he spoke, so quiet I wouldn’t have heard him if our faces hadn’t been so close.

“It is not normal vīsh. It is special, secret vīsh that no other Dīnen know.”

His arms tightened around me, then relaxed.

“It is the magic of payashē.”

Chapter Twenty

I leaned against the headboard, my legs stretched out. Beside me, Zylas lay on his stomach, head resting on his folded arms, naked except for his dark shorts.

He’d just returned from a thirty-minute shower to recover some magic. He usually spent longer in the shower, but the hot water here wasn’t endless. The shabby furniture and weird layout weren’t the only downsides to this old building.

Sprawled facedown, he was too exhausted to even twitch his tail. Socks, her green eyes blinking lazily, lay in the middle of his back, a tiny heater adding her warmth.

Our respite on the beach had lasted less than ten minutes before we’d headed back into downtown. Choosing an apartment building at random, Zylas had broken into an unfortunate person’s ground-floor unit and stolen human clothing, then we’d taken a cab to the safe house.

We’d made it back. Somehow, we had survived.

My gaze flicked across his shoulders, where the phantom wings had risen, then turned to the phone in my hand. A string of text messages glowed on the screen, all from Zora.

I saw you and Z fall please tell me you’re alive

 

We made it out ok

 

Do you need help? We circled the building, we can’t find any sign of you

 

Your phone is ringing. Did you actually fall?

 

Please answer

Guilt squirmed in my gut. At least they were safe—though she hadn’t mentioned Taye. What had happened to him? Why had he stopped answering?

My thumb reached for the reply box, then I quickly turned the screen off.

Zora, Drew, Venus, Gwen, and Andrew had been in the midst of fleeing the office when Zylas and I had fallen out the window. Even if our bodies were never found, that was five witnesses who could truthfully claim they’d seen us die. As much as I wanted to reassure Zora, was it better this way?

It would be much easier to begin my new life as a rogue if the old me was dead.

The squirming guilt morphed into churning dread. Zora might be willing to overlook my illegal contract with Zylas, but the others? No way. They’d seen Zylas walking and talking like a human—then watched him turn to crimson light as he was called into an infernus. I was already being hunted for illegal Demonica activity, and now my own guildmates had witnessed my illegal contract. It was better if they all thought I was dead.

Through the bedroom wall, I heard the rattling dryer shut off. The metal door banged, and a moment later, the washing machine started up—probably to clean the clothes I’d changed out of when I got home.

Amalia pushed the bedroom door open with her shoulder, her arms full of blankets. She dumped them on the foot of the bed, then circled to Zylas’s side, picked up the first blanket, and flipped it over him. As it fluttered down, he glanced toward her, then closed his eyes again.

I lifted one edge, the fabric hot from the dryer, and the Socks-sized lump under the blanket wiggled toward the opening. The kitten’s head popped out, ears bent sideways in displeasure.

Amalia laid two more heated blankets over Zylas, then circled back around and sat on the mattress by my feet. “How’re you feeling?”

“Exhausted.” I lifted the phone a few inches, my whole hand trembling faintly. “And still shaky.”

“Well, you did fall off a skyscraper.” She squinted at Zylas as though imagining the wings I’d described while he was showering, then pointed toward the bedside table. “Let’s take a better look at that.”

I set the phone down and picked up the piece of Xever’s map I’d torn off. Setting the paper scrap on the blanket between us, I spread out the crinkles. It was a six-by-eight-inch corner showing both land and water, with several lines in red pen crossing it.

“These are anchor lines,” I said. “Xever had a spot marked out on a hilltop, but I couldn’t tell what landmass the map showed.”

“So wherever these lines intersect,” Amalia said, tracing one with her fingertip, “that’s where the spell is.”

“Finding the spot will be difficult. The coast is dotted with islands and inlets.”

“Xever probably wants another ‘pure’ location, meaning it could be in the middle of nowhere.” She shook her head. “And he’s got our favorite murdering abjuration sorcerer helping him. I can’t believe Saul is alive.”

His survival had caught everyone off guard. Zora hadn’t realized who her team was tracking, probably because Saul’s albinism wasn’t as obvious as his sons’; older men often had white hair. And Zylas hadn’t noticed the sorcerer’s scent in the penthouse because Venus’s alchemic reek had deadened his sense of smell.