The way Tori backpedaled from the demon’s growling tones and guttural accent told me she wasn’t used to Ezra and the demon swapping control. Even Aaron retreated a couple steps.

Eterran pivoted to me and Amalia. “We have made our offer. Will you accept it, or will we finally spill each other’s blood, Zylas?”

I tensed. For a moment, no one moved, eerie silence descending on the grove—then Zylas’s quiet laughter shivered through the night.

Tori and Aaron spun around, searching the trees for the source. Eterran turned more slowly, his gaze already angled up toward the tree branches.

Zylas’s eyes glowed, two spots of crimson in the darkness. “Escaping your hh’ainun prison does not mean escaping the hh’ainun world, Eterran.”

A tree branch rustled, then Zylas dropped to the ground, landing in a crouch only a few feet away from Tori. As he rose to his full height, she lurched backward. Zylas followed, smiling viciously.

Tori had seen Zylas behave like a puppet, but now she was seeing the truth—and my demon was enjoying every second of it.

She backed into Ezra, and he put a comforting hand on her waist. “Tori, Aaron, meet Zylas.”

Zylas widened his grin, flashing his pointed canines. Tori didn’t seem soothed by the introduction, her trembling inhalations loud in the quiet clearing. I remembered the overwhelming fear I’d felt the first time I’d realized how easily Zylas could kill me—that foolish moment when I’d first touched him through the summoning circle’s barrier and he’d grabbed my hand.

As he loomed over Tori like a nightmare specter, I sighed. “Zylas, could you try not to terrify her?”

His irritation buzzed through me. Reluctantly, he stepped back. “No fun. When do I get to scare hh’ainun, na? Never.”

I rolled my eyes. “At least you don’t have to pretend to be enslaved right now.”

He snapped his tail against the ground and Tori flinched. She took a couple of deep breaths, and a few paces away, Aaron slowly released the hilt of the sword jutting up from behind his shoulder.

The crimson glow in Ezra’s left eye brightened. “Well? Do you accept the trade, Zylas?”

Right, the trade. Zylas, what should we do?

He studied Eterran with narrowed eyes.

We needed that amulet, but in exchange for it, Ezra and Eterran were asking for the impossible. Separate a demon from his demon-mage host? Save them from the madness and violent death that was their inevitable fate? How was I supposed to do that?

Assuming it was possible, we’d have to set everything else aside to focus on that task first; Ezra’s clock was ticking. Finding the answer could take weeks or even months. Did we dare delay our efforts to find Claude? Did we want to involve ourselves even further with the demon mage, whose existence was more illegal than my contract with Zylas?

My attention drifted to Zylas’s left side, where a layer of fabric and leather crossed his shoulder, the buckles for the armor plates empty.

Letting out a noiseless breath, I walked past the demon mage and Tori to stand beside Zylas.

I think we should accept, I told him silently, the grimoire cradled under my arm.

Amulet or no amulet, Ezra and Eterran had saved Zylas. They’d rushed back to us, fresh from their own battle, and without hesitation had expended a huge amount of magic to heal Zylas’s mortal wounds.

Maybe they’d only done that because they wanted Zylas alive and able to trade, but it didn’t change the outcome: they’d saved his life.

And now Ezra and Eterran were asking me to save theirs.

Zylas’s attention swung back to the demon mage. “One condition, Dh’irath.”

“What is that?”

“When you are free, you will bring no harm on me or my hh’ainun.”

I blinked. The demon language didn’t have plural markers as far as I could tell, so I didn’t know if he meant one human or multiple humans.

Pushing Tori out of his way, Eterran stepped closer to Zylas and extended his left hand.

Magic lit up his fingers and raced up his arm in twisting veins. In response, Zylas stretched his arm out. Crimson power blazed across his hand and wrist, the red glow washing over the dark trees. The eerie scarlet haze stole all the color from Aaron’s and Tori’s faces, highlighting their alarm at the realization that Zylas could wield magic.

Demon and demon mage pressed their palms together, and the magic surging over their hands crackled dangerously. As the temperature around them dropped, I waited for one or both to create a spell circle.

Instead, their power tangled between their hands, twisting but not mixing.

Zylas stared into the demon mage’s eyes. “Enpedēra dīn nā.”

“Enpedēra dīn nā,” Eterran rumbled in response.

The spell, whatever it was, faded and darkness closed in again. I exhaled in a rush. Tori’s expression was anxious, while Aaron and Amalia observed the drama from the sidelines.

Zylas extended his hand toward the redhead. “Give it to me, hh’ainun.”

Clutching the amulet against her chest, she looked at Ezra for instructions.

He smiled faintly. “It’s okay. You can give it to him.”

“But he’s …”

“It belongs to him, Tori. Zylas et Vh’alyir, King of the Twelfth House. The Amulet of Vh’alyir is his.”

Surprise widened Tori’s eyes all over again and she glanced at me, probably wondering if that’s why I’d been searching for information on the amulet. Or maybe she hesitated because she knew about the amulet’s power to interrupt demon contracts.

Offering Tori a small smile, I nodded my permission. She didn’t need to worry. The amulet couldn’t interrupt my contract with Zylas because he was immune to contract magic.

With a final glance at the etched face of the amulet, she held it out.

Zylas’s fingers clamped around the metal disc.

The chain slid from her hand as he pulled the amulet away. Stepping back from her and Ezra, he balanced the medallion on his palm. We watched him carefully examine it, Tori and Aaron tense with readiness as though expecting Zylas to launch at them in a savage rage at any second.

Amalia paled slightly but otherwise didn’t react. I’d told her about my discovery and why summoning the Twelfth House was forbidden, though we hadn’t discussed it since. She preferred not to think about the fact that Zylas was completely unbound aside from the infernus commands.

Turning toward me, Zylas looped the chain over my head. The amulet settled on my chest, clinking against the infernus. His lips curved in a wolfish smile, then crimson light washed over him. He dissolved into light and streaked into the infernus.

Darkness returned to the grove.

“Uh.” Tori blinked at me. “So … you’re going to find a way to save Ezra, then?”

“I’ll do my best, but …” I cleared my throat. “Separating a demon from a demon mage is … well, it’s considered impossible. The Vh’alyir Amulet might help, if I can figure out how to use it.”

“It won’t help,” Ezra said quietly.

How did he know that? When we’d talked about the amulet a week ago, he hadn’t known whether it would save him—but if he’d since learned it couldn’t help him, that explained why they were giving it up so easily.