For the briefest instant, he and the Dh’irath demon faced each other, cold appraisal in their stares, then Zylas released me, pushed me behind him, and turned toward the other two first-rank demons.

Nazhivēr turned as well, he and Zylas facing the others side by side.

For a moment, I just stared, as dumbfounded as the other demons by the sight of the Second House demon beside Zylas in his human gear—but it wasn’t the first time they’d fought together. Faced with the bloodthirsty and indestructible fae Vasilii, they’d briefly allied once before.

But why now? What was Nazhivēr doing? Was it a trick?

As Nazhivēr squared off with the First House Lūsh’vēr and Zylas eyed the lighter-weight Ash’amadē demon, I shook off my shock and bolted away from the impending violence. My attention homed in on the spell circles—and Xever.

The summoner, standing in the smallest of the three circles, had turned toward the four demons, his stare locked on his most loyal servant.

“Nazhivēr.”

He didn’t speak loudly, but his voice vibrated with blood-chilling rage.

Nazhivēr turned sideways to bring his summoner into view, his lips peeling back in a cruel smile. “Yes, master?”

“What are you doing?”

“Helping you.”

“You just killed one of my demons,” Xever snarled.

“For your own good,” Nazhivēr crooned viciously. “That was the first clause you made me swear. To act only in your best interests.”

Xever’s hands curled into fists. “Betraying me isn’t in my best interests.”

“No? I believe it is.” His wings unfurled. “It’s also in mine. I have waited twenty years for you to open a portal so I can return home in the only way left to me.”

And in mere minutes, maybe seconds, the portal would open. Nazhivēr had been waiting for his chance to escape Xever, his contract, and this world.

Xever bared his teeth furiously. “Kill them both!”

The First and Fourth House demons lunged at Nazhivēr and Zylas. Crimson magic exploded, a cold wind whipping across my back as I faced Xever, twenty-five feet between us. His furious stare swept dismissively across me, then he focused on the portal, raised his arms, and began to chant.

The sky had turned cobalt. A purple tinge lightened the eastern horizon.

The portal spell was complete, the magic already in the process of opening a gateway between worlds. Whatever spell Xever just begun, it wasn’t part of the portal.

I stretched my hand out, red sparking over my fingers as I tapped into Zylas’s magic. Xever stood alone. This time I would defeat him. This time—

“Ori astra feriant!”

I spun toward the voice—and a hail of two-inch blades of golden light hit me. Pain tore through my limbs and I fell backward.

Saul strode across the plateau, his face contorted with murderous hatred and a silver dagger in his hand, the point aimed at me. “Ori ignes—”

Pain scrambled my brain and I couldn’t picture a single cantrip.

“—siderei urant!”

“Indura!” I screamed, throwing my arms over my head.

Golden streaks like miniature falling stars with flaming tails blasted me, tearing through my leather jacket—but they didn’t pierce the underlayer embroidered with Amalia’s cantrips.

Though the magic barrage didn’t slice me open, it hit with bruising force, the flaming tails scorching me through my clothing, and I gasped as I was thrown back into the rocky ground a second time.

Weight slammed down on my torso, driving the air from my lungs.

Saul clamped both hands around my throat and squeezed. “If I had the time, I would spend a week or two destroying you piece by piece while you begged for death.”

I grabbed at his wrists, Zylas’s magic glowing over my fingers, but I couldn’t use a cantrip if I couldn’t speak the incantation.

“Everything I dreamed of and worked toward for twenty years is about to happen,” he spat, squeezing harder, “and my boys aren’t here to see it. Because of you.”

My lungs screamed for air. I scraped my fingernails over his hands, then dug my fingers under his pinky—and wrenched it backward.

His finger dislocated with a crunch, and his hands loosened enough for me to gasp out an incantation.

“Ori eruptum impello!”

A silver dome flashed out from my artifact, throwing Saul off me, but it hadn’t fully recharged and the spell was weak. His feet scraped across the ground as he threw himself at me again.

My glowing rune appeared between us and his eyes bulged with disbelief as he recognized it—but he couldn’t stop his momentum. He lunged right into it, the glowing magic disappearing inside him.

Terror flashed over his face, and for a split second, I wasn’t sure I could do it—but then I remembered Yana and all the other women he’d killed. Had their fear ever inspired mercy in him?

“Rumpas!”

I couldn’t see whether the rune inside him had activated, but I heard it: the sound of shattering bones.

The “break” cantrip.

Saul collapsed, his dead weight falling across my legs, his dagger lying beside him.

I dragged my legs from beneath him and shoved onto my feet, my knees trembling. Blood trickled from the slices covering my limbs—Saul’s first attack—and bruises throbbed from his second spell.

As I spun, my gaze swept across the plateau—past Amalia, positioned protectively in front of her father, who held his infernus, controlling his demon as it grappled with one of Xever’s demons; past Zora as she drove her sword into the chest of a different demon, another one trapped in ice while the fourth lunged at her; past Nazhivēr, magic swirling over his arms as he slashed his talons at the Lūsh’vēr Dīnen; past Zylas, his glowing wings gone, as he aimed a spell up at the airborne Ash’amadē.

I spun past all of them to face Xever, Ancient Greek flowing from his lips in smooth verses. The portal’s pink glow was nearly blinding, light gathering in the central ring where the interdimensional doorway would appear. Whatever spell he was casting, he was aiming to unleash it at the same time the portal opened.

Orange light stained the horizon. The sun would breach the treetops at any moment.

Breathing hard, I stretched my hand out again. Zylas’s hot magic flashed through my chest, and a ten-foot rune appeared a yard in front of my palm. I would blast Xever right out of the circle, interrupting his incantation and ruining his spell.

“Impello!” I yelled.

The air boomed from the rush of force—then boomed again as it struck an invisible barrier, ricocheting off. I staggered, eyes widening as a faint ripple danced through the air, revealing a familiar shape: a transparent dome.

Xever was inside a summoning circle barrier—and it had blocked my cantrip.

He continued to chant, lips curled in a smirk.

I rushed forward, hands outstretched—and slammed into the barrier. It didn’t merely block magic but physical bodies as well.

Stumbling backward, I flung my arm up again, visualizing a glowing rune inside the circle with him—but nothing appeared. I couldn’t reach him inside the barrier. I couldn’t stop him.

Behind me, magic exploded over and over, but I didn’t dare turn to look again—didn’t want to see Zylas grounded and exhausted while battling the more powerful Ash’amadē demon. Didn’t want to see Zora, Uncle Jack, and Amalia somehow holding off four demons on their own.