“We will create dh’ērrenith.”

My attention swung to Zylas. He stood eerily still, observing us with a predator’s eyes.

“You cannot always wait for dh’ērrenith. Sometimes you have to make victory. We can do that now. We have time to prepare.”

“Prepare … what?” I asked. “We don’t even know where he made the portal.”

“We can figure it out with that piece of map you stole,” Uncle Jack said. “Shouldn’t be that difficult.”

I blinked at him. “You’re going to help?”

He exhaled roughly. “I made a lot of selfish decisions, Robin. Decisions that got your parents killed and put you and Amalia in danger. I can’t change that, but I can help you change this. The Athanas legacy is as much mine as yours.”

Eyes narrowed, I pursed my lips. “You want to help us end summoning forever?”

“Yes—and I’d also like the chance to stick a knife in Xever’s back.”

I peeked at Zylas. The demon watched the summoner, then gave me a slight nod. My uncle was telling the truth.

As I smiled in relief, Uncle Jack dusted his hands together. “Get the piece of map and let’s figure out where that bastard hid his hell portal.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Amalia’s eyes moved across the page, a crease between her eyebrows as she read. I watched her with my hands twisted together, trying not to fidget too much.

Finally, she lowered the notebook—but she didn’t look up at me, continuing to stare at my handwriting. “So Myrrine fell in love with her demon.”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“And you’re in love with Zylas.”

Heat flushed through my cheeks, and I wished I could sink through the floor and vanish—but we needed to have this conversation. Us not having this conversation was why she’d walked out.

“Yes,” I choked.

At least we were alone for my confession—and somewhere much more comfortable than Amalia’s hotel room.

Uncle Jack had chosen our new hideout: a furnished loft apartment in downtown with three bedrooms and a huge open living room with more than enough space for our preparations. He, with Zylas’s help, was unfolding a huge stack of maps in the main room. His solution to our location dilemma had been surprisingly simple: there were only so many topographic maps of the province.

So he’d bought all of them. We simply needed to match the torn piece to an existing map.

While they’d gotten to work, I’d cornered Amalia in her room, where she’d just finished setting up a new sewing machine, and showed her my translations of Myrrine and Melitta’s journal entries.

Amalia blew out a long breath, a lock of blond hair fluttering away from her face.

“I don’t get it.” She ran a finger down the page, passing across Myrrine’s confession. “I mean, I get it a little bit, but … he’s a demon.”

Instead of furious or disgusted, her declaration was simply bewildered.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” I said softly.

“I guess love is never all that logical, is it?” She flicked a glance up and down me. “So?”

“So … what?”

“Did you do it?”

“Do what?”

She rolled her eyes. “Are you sure you’re not a virgin?”

A blazing blush engulfed my cheeks as I belatedly clued in. “I’m not—that—that’s private.”

“No way! You did?” She goggled at me. “And you’re still in one piece?”

“Of course I’m in one piece,” I grumbled, mortified.

“Was it good?”

I clenched my jaw and stared at the floor, face flaming.

She let out a slightly giddy laugh. “Holy shit.”

“Just—just drop it, all right?”

“Right, okay, but I’m curious now. How big is his—”

“Amalia!”

“Ugh, fine.” She huffed, then leaned back, hands propped on the mattress. “So you’re in love with Zylas—and banging him.”

I glared.

“What about all your plans to send him home?”

Pain struck without warning, piercing my heart. I hunched forward. “He’ll be going through Xever’s portal.”

A moment of silence.

“Does he feel the same way about you?” she asked quietly.

I raised my head, gazing toward the bedroom door. On the other side, Zylas was working to identify the portal location. He wouldn’t rest until he’d ended what his predecessor had begun. Even if he hadn’t promised a payapis that he’d change the world, he had to do this for Vh’alyir and for Ahlēavah.

Knowing that, I could only give one answer—the same one he’d given me.

“It doesn’t matter.”

We were prepared for battle.

At one end of the spacious living room, a large topographic map lay across the floor, the matching piece of Xever’s map taped to it. We’d extended the anchor lines to their point of intersection: the spot where he’d created the portal array.

My initial searches hadn’t panned out because I’d been looking in the wrong direction. The landmass had resembled a peninsula or island, so I’d been looking for a matching shape along the coast. But Xever had gone in the opposite direction.

From the Pacific Ocean, the Burrard Inlet stretched fifteen miles inland, a swath of salt water that separated Vancouver from the North Shore Mountains. And ten miles into the inlet was a fat little peninsula called Admiralty Point. It was a forested foothill with a few hiking trails along the coast, but otherwise uninhabited.

The peak of the foothill was the spot Xever had chosen for his portal.

At the other end of the living room, our supplies were laid out. The biggest and possibly most useful items were hex-clothing outfits for me, Amalia, and Uncle Jack. Their inner linings were embroidered with hardening cantrips, allowing us to make our clothing nearly impenetrable for thirty seconds.

Amalia had made Zylas an outfit too, but since it couldn’t go into the infernus with him, we’d decided to leave it behind.

Beside the clothes was a small stack of newly made artifacts for the three humans to divvy up. Two duplicates of my impello artifact, one each for Amalia and Uncle Jack, plus a few more options we thought would work well against Nazhivēr—and possibly cultists.

In the middle of the room was a six-foot-wide spell circle drawn directly on the floor. An infernus glinted under the overhead lights, positioned in the array’s principal node. The center of the medallion was blank, waiting for a House sigil to appear.

I paced back and forth in front of the circle. Thirty more minutes, then we could gear up, collect our things, and head out.

Straight to Xever’s portal.

Dawn was just under five hours away, and we intended to be at the portal well before then. As soon as the infernus was fully charged, Zylas and I would bind ourselves to it. Then we’d be ready to go.

Dizzy from pacing, I padded across the hardwood floor. As I passed the doorway to Amalia’s bedroom, her and Uncle Jack’s voices floated out, debating some facet of our plan. The only one missing from our new hideout was Socks. We’d checked her in to a cat condo yesterday … just in case we never came back.