Honorable scribe,

Today, I finished what my sister began. The grimoire is complete, each word loyally recorded. In the final pages, I compiled Anthea’s masterful work, as my predecessor did. I add nothing except this plea.

Honorable scribe, please do not erase my sister from these pages. I know her additions to this precious tome are arrogant and improper, yet I beg you to keep them. Her words are all that remain of her.

She died for Anthea’s legacy, and for me.

The enemy killed her but a year after she began her transcription. Many times in that year I doubted her perplexing affection for a demon, but I will never forget that final night. I will never forget how I found them together.

He held her close, as though he could still protect her, even though she was already pale and still.

Do not take her soul, I thoughtlessly begged him.

He answered, Her soul was never mine. Her command never bound me, so her soul could never save me. I should have told her.

Those were his last words, for his wounds were terrible and the night was so cold. He perished where he lay, holding my sister to his heart.

I do not know if he loved her as she loved him, but I buried them together in the hope that wherever their souls go, they will go together.

Myrrine died for this book, and her legacy deserves preservation as much as Anthea’s. If we must protect this hellish prize with our lives, let our lives be inscribed upon its pages. If Anthea would arm our enemies with the same terrible power we guard, let us arm each other with the conviction to carry on.

I, and those who follow me, will need that conviction desperately.

Without the lost amulet, without the secrets or the truth Anthea deemed too dangerous for the written word, we will never know why she cursed us so. But I ask you this, daughter of my daughter, honorable scribe, survivor, sorceress:

When will it end?

– Melitta Athanas

A tear slid down my cheek. Melitta’s grief and despair clung to her words. How much time had passed between Myrrine’s death and Melitta’s plea to the future scribes of the grimoire?

Myrrine … I would never know what had happened between her and her demon. I’d never find out if, or how, she had confessed her love. I’d never learn what his response had been or if he’d shared her feelings—if a demon’s heart could love as a human’s could.

But he’d held her as she’d died. He’d held her even after she was gone and his own life was slipping away.

I slid my fingers across my hasty print until they rested just below the ancient Vh’alyir’s final words. Her command never bound me, so her soul could never save me.

My skin prickled, every hair on my body standing on end.

Her command never bound me.

I could hear Claude listing clause after clause for his new contract with Zylas. I could hear Zylas’s hissed acceptance. The ritual had tied him to the infernus. Claude’s command had forced him into the pendant.

The vīsh did not bind me.

Zylas had wounded Claude, despite agreeing not to harm the summoner. Their contract hadn’t worked.

Never summon from the Twelfth House.

If Myrrine’s contract with a Vh’alyir demon hadn’t worked, and Claude’s contract with a Vh’alyir demon hadn’t worked, then my contract …

The notebook fell from my numb hands.

Chapter Twenty-Two

As my notebook hit the tabletop with a smack, I shoved off the floor. My knee bumped the table, the bowl of strawberries rocking precariously. The room seemed to whirl around me as I rushed across it.

My bedroom door struck the wall with a bang, and Zylas, stretched out on my bed, jerked upright. With a frightened yip, Socks leaped off my pillow and dove under the bed.

Awake in an instant, Zylas twisted toward me, crouched in the middle of the mattress and ready to do battle as soon as I told him where the enemy was.

I strode to the bed and stopped, breathing hard. “Zylas, do we have a contract?”

His eyebrows drew down. “Na? Vayanin—”

“Do we have a contract?” I yelled.

His eyes widened. He shifted backward, tail lashing side to side. “Vayanin—”

“Answer me!”

“I am bound to the infernus.”

Demons didn’t lie. He was evading my question.

“That’s all you’re bound to, isn’t it?” I stared at him as though I’d never seen him before. Maybe I hadn’t. I’d been blind all along, trusting in magic that wasn’t there. “You didn’t obey the clauses of your contract with Claude.”

“It did not work.”

“You knew it wouldn’t work. You knew the contract would be powerless, and that’s why you told me to agree.”

“It was the only way to escape the circle.” He was still skirting the truth I wanted. “The only way to protect you.”

My unsteady hands curled into fists. “You don’t have to protect me. You’ve never had to protect me. That’s why I couldn’t figure out the terms of our contract—because we don’t have one!”

“We do. I promised to protect you. You promised to bake food for me. I promised to act like an enslaved demon. You promised to search for a way I can go home.”

A tremor ran through me. “How long have you known?”

His crimson stare searched mine, probing for answers to questions I couldn’t fathom. “I guessed by the second day that the contract vīsh did not bind me. I do not know why.”

“Because you’re from the Twelfth House. Eterran was wrong. The amulet isn’t the reason summoning Vh’alyir demons is forbidden. It’s forbidden because no Vh’alyir can be bound into a contract.”

“Why are we different?”

“I don’t know.” My jaw clenched. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He dropped backward, sitting on the mattress, and pressed his hands to the blankets. “Because you did not trust me and I did not trust you.”

I tried to step closer and my shin hit the bed frame. “What about later? Why didn’t you say anything yesterday after we got away from Claude?”

“I could not tell you.” His voice dipped into huskier tones. “If you knew the contract vīsh did not sheath my claws, you would fear me. I did not want you to fear me more.”