We were seated at the breakfast bar, the cult grimoire open in front of us. I had my laptop and reference texts beside me. Amalia had lost all her Demonica texts when her house had burned down, so she’d checked out a few books from the Arcana Historia library and borrowed a few more sensitive tomes on Demonica from her father.

We’d been working on deciphering the demon-mage summoning ritual for an entire week now. It was so complex that, even making steady progress, we were no closer to breaking the contract than when we’d started.

“All right.” Amalia pointed at the array, which featured two side-by-side circles contained within a larger ring. “This small one here is a normal summoning circle. The demon gets summoned into it. That makes sense. But this big circle is also a summoning circle. And the reversed array is also a summoning circle.”

“Three,” I muttered. “Why three summonings?”

She raked both hands through her hair. “Hell if I know. I’ll start translating the section about the contract.”

As she pulled the grimoire closer and copied out a page of Latin, I peeked behind us.

At the other end of the apartment, Zylas sat on the floor near the balcony. The Vh’alyir Amulet lay on the carpet in front of him, and faint shimmers of crimson light flickered out from it as he tapped a claw against its face.

While Amalia and I worked on the demon-mage puzzle to save Ezra, Zylas was attempting to unravel the spells in the amulet—specifically, the one that was mostly demon magic. And unlike his human roommates, who required food and sleep, he had no need for breaks—so he didn’t take any, except for wandering the city at night.

He was consumed by his most important goal: unlocking the portal magic that we needed to send him home.

“This is insane,” Amalia muttered, her pencil scribbling across her page. “The entire contract seems to be, ‘demon agrees to bind himself to the human’s soul.’”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah. It’s even more vague than your contract. How do you find a loophole in a single clause? If there were a way around it, Eterran would’ve figured it out by now.”

“And Ezra said the Vh’alyir Amulet’s contract-breaking spell doesn’t work on demon mages.”

“Is that because of the ‘bind yourself’ contract … or because of the way the demon is sealed inside the host?”

Having no answers to offer, I turned my attention back to my notes. Three summoning circles. One to summon the demon. One to … transfer the demon into the human host? And one to … what? The demon couldn’t be summoned again, and what other purpose did a summoning circle have?

Sighing, I tugged the grimoire away from Amalia and flipped from one page to the next. Summon the demon. Insert the demon into the host. Bind them with a contract.

If that was it, then the Vh’alyir Amulet’s contract-nullifying spell should be enough to free the demon from its host. So what …

My gaze shot back to the third, extraneous summoning circle. “Amalia, is there anything in here that resembles the ritual for binding a demon to an infernus?”

“There is no infernus,” she replied distractedly. “Demon mages don’t need them.”

“Yes, because the demon mage is the infernus. That’s what the ex-summoner from Odin’s Eye told me.”

Amalia set her pen down. We bent our heads over the grimoire and carefully flipped through each page detailing demon-mage creation.

“Nothing,” she declared. “If there’s nothing in this ritual that turns the host into a living infernus, then how the hell does the demon end up trapped in the human?”

“I was wondering …” I pointed at the third circle. “This one is weird, right? It’s reversed, directing the magic inward.”

Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she stared at the magic. “You can’t be thinking … that when the demon is summoned into the human host, the human becomes a summoning circle?”

“It would explain why the demon can’t escape the human’s body, and why the Vh’alyir Amulet doesn’t help. Summoning circles aren’t part of a contract, and they’re impenetrable to demons.”

“Shit. If you’re right, then Ezra might be screwed. The only way to remove a demon from a circle is to either break the circle or put the demon inside an infernus first.”

I rubbed my face. “What about Claude’s special ritual to bind a demon to a second infernus? Could we use that to bind Eterran to an infernus, then call him out of Ezra?”

“No. You can’t call a demon into an infernus through a circle.”

Eyes squinching, I remembered the basement where Claude had bound Zylas—and remembered the summoner thrusting his new infernus through the invisible barrier before calling Zylas into it. “Then the only way is to break the circle.”

“Which would mean breaking Ezra somehow. And not just slicing his skin. Otherwise, a paper cut would mean the end for every demon mage.” She snapped the grimoire closed. “We’ll have to translate the rest of the ritual before we can figure out anything for sure. Let’s pack this stuff up and get ready to go.”

Nodding, I helped her collect everything into a pile, then we carried it into my bedroom and stashed it all under my bed beside the Athanas grimoire case.

As Amalia hurried out again to change and do her makeup, I glanced at the clock beside my bed. We had an hour before the guild meeting. It wasn’t the usual monthly meeting all members were required to attend, but an emergency one Darius had scheduled. According to Tori’s last text, the meeting would address the Court of the Red Queen’s presence in the city.

Worry flickered through me. I stood for a moment, then squatted again.

The cold metal of the Athanas grimoire’s case chilled my fingers as I slid it out. I whispered the incantation, then opened the lid. The ancient grimoire waited in its paper wrapping, but I lifted out my notebook instead.

Feeling strangely guilty, I once again read Myrrine’s impassioned words.

I offered a demon my soul, and then I offered him my heart. Madness, perhaps, but if this is madness, I will keep it.

She’d given the demon her heart without realizing he had no claim on her soul. Only after her death, and moments before his own, had the demon revealed that his banishment clause with Myrrine hadn’t worked.

Had the knowledge that her life would end in two years affected Myrrine’s decision? Had it made her more reckless? But how had she given everything to a demon she’d expected to kill her for her soul?

If her demon had been returning to his world instead of taking her soul, would she have chosen differently?

“Robin, what are you wearing?” Amalia’s voice floated into my bedroom. “I never know what to wear to these stupid meetings.”

Panicking, I shoved the grimoire case with my foot. It slid under my bed, the mattress knocking the lid shut with a clack. I tossed the notebook onto my bedside table.

“Well?” She strode through my doorway, carrying two pairs of pants. “What do you think?”

“Uh. Whatever’s more casual, I’d say.” The Crow and Hammer was always casual.

“Yeah, guess so. Jeans it is.”