I peeled myself from his hold and headed for the guild’s back door. “What about you? I didn’t know you were coming in today.”

“I want to check with the officers if there’s anything I can help with. Maybe I can cover Felix’s shift or something.”

Zora, Felix’s sword-wielding sorceress wife, was still in critical condition after the battle against Varvara’s forces. We were all waiting anxiously for good news from the guild’s healers.

Holding the door for Aaron, I didn’t point out that he could’ve called Girard or Tabitha instead of showing up at the guild. It was second nature for most Crow and Hammer members to return to the guild during times of uncertainty. This place was their safe haven.

“That’s considerate,” I began, nervousness shooting through me as I followed him into the narrow kitchen, “but instead of volunteering for shifts, maybe—”

I broke off. Almost too quiet to hear, someone sniffed wetly. Aaron frowned, and we both looked toward a nearby door, open a crack. Another sniffle sounded. Was someone crying?

Stepping sideways, I swung the door open to reveal Clara’s office, her desk piled so high with folders that it resembled a model of Manhattan’s skyscrapers.

The assistant guild master jumped when the door bumped the wall. She whirled on her chair, holding a handful of crisp white papers. A courier envelope lay in her lap, the top torn open.

“Oh!” She wiped hastily at her face. “Tori, Aaron! Good morning! Or—oh—afternoon, I guess. Good afternoon!”

“Clara …” I took in her rumpled brown hair and trembling mouth with concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” She clutched the papers to her chest as though trying to hide them. “I’m fine.”

She ruined her firm declaration with another sniff.

Aaron pointed at the papers. “What’s that?”

“Nothing. You shouldn’t be back here, Aaron. Kitchen staff only.”

“Okay, but what are those papers?”

“Paperwork, and it’s none of your concern.”

“Clara.” I gave her a gentle but firm stare. “What’s wrong?”

All the fight went out of her, and she slumped miserably in her chair. “I guess you two already know anyway.”

She held out the papers, and Aaron took them. I leaned close as we scanned an official document, the MPD logo filling the top left corner.

“It’s just so sudden,” Clara mumbled, tearing a bit of cardboard off the stiff courier envelope. “No one so much as mentioned …”

The title at the top of the page burned into my brain: Guild Transfer Request.

“He never said anything … then to just … so sudden …”

Aaron’s fingers bit into the papers, crinkling the crisp white surface, but even as the packet shook with the force of his grip, I couldn’t miss the name on the form.

Kaisuke Yamada.

Ripping more pieces off the envelope, Clara sighed heavily. “I just can’t imagine the Crow and Hammer without Kai.”

“He’s transferring out?” I whispered. “He’s leaving the guild?”

Clara’s head snapped up. Her face paled as she took in our expressions. “You … you didn’t know?”

The documents crumpled in Aaron’s fist, then he shoved them at me. Turning on his heel, he swept out of the small office. I held the form, fighting the urge to tear it up.

“I—I’ll call him,” I said unsteadily. “Convince him to—to wait.”

Tears welled in Clara’s eyes. “The transfer is already done, Tori. That’s the signed paperwork for our records.”

I flipped to the last page. There at the bottom was Kai’s sharp, slashing signature. Below it was Darius’s scrawled autograph, and beneath that, a loopy name. The signatory: Makiko Miura, Acting Guild Master, MiraCo.

My jaw clenched so hard pain built in my teeth.

Tossing the papers toward Clara, I rushed out after Aaron. She half-heartedly called me back, but I continued through the empty kitchen and shoved through the saloon doors.

Aaron sat on his usual stool at the bar, elbows braced on the countertop and forehead resting on both hands as he stared at the scuffed wood. Aside from him, the pub was deserted, the neatly arranged chairs waiting for the dinner rush. I stopped across from him, breathing hard as I fought to calm my emotions.

“I should’ve expected it,” Aaron muttered. “They want to bury him in that guild as deep as they can. Of course they’d transfer him.”

I pressed both hands to the bar top, fingers splayed.

“We joined together.” He slid his hands up into his hair. “I’ve never been a member of the Crow and Hammer without him. I’ve never been a member of any guild without him.”

“He’ll be back,” I whispered. “He said he’ll figure it out. He promised.”

Aaron didn’t reply, his fists clenching in his copper hair. After a long moment, he dragged his head up. “I need a drink.”

I slapped my butt, searching for my phone so I could check the time, before remembering I’d left it at home on Philip’s orders. No electronics allowed during my witchy nature ritual. But even without my phone’s clock, I knew it was nowhere near four, when the pub officially opened.

With a quick look at Aaron’s morose pallor, I decided to ignore that. “What do you want?”

“Tequila. Lots of tequila.”

I got out a pair of shot glasses and fetched a bottle of silver tequila off the back shelves. After pouring two shots to the brim, I slid one to him.

He didn’t pick up the glass. “What the hell are we going to do? Kai’s left the guild, and Ezra is …” He swore, his voice hoarsening. “What do we do?”

I took hold of his hand and pushed the shot against his palm. Then I lifted my glass to my lips and stared at him until he raised his. In unison, we tossed the liquor back. I swallowed against the burn.

“Aaron.” I set my glass on the bar and picked up the tequila bottle. “You can’t volunteer to take Felix’s shift.”

He watched me refill our shot glasses. “Why not?”

“Because we have something else to do.” I slid his shot over and lifted mine. The cold glass pressed against my lower lip. “I don’t know what we can do for Kai right now, but Ezra needs our help.”

Aaron’s fair skin lost what little color it had left, and he threw back his shot like it was the only thing keeping his stomach down—which made no sense to me. Tequila had the opposite effect on my stomach.

His glass thudded against the counter. “There’s only one thing we can do to help Ezra.”

I poured the tequila down my throat, then slammed my glass down beside his. “Bullshit. I know you and Kai looked into it years ago, but neither of you has connections to the world of black magic. Zak did—or does.” I grimaced. “Whatever. What I mean is I asked him about it.”

“What did he say?”

“He said whatever the MPD knows about Demonica—or what they admit to knowing—is the kid-gloves version. It’s the basics and nothing more. Zak said that summoners are like druids, and that master summoners guard their secrets, never revealing them to anyone but their chosen apprentice.”

Aaron clenched and unclenched his jaw. “Zak is a lying bas—”

I raised my voice over his. “I also talked to an ex-summoner from Odin’s Eye, who told me there’s no standard method of creating a demon mage, and each summoner who does it has a different technique.”

Pressing my hands to the counter, I leaned across the bar. “To unmake a demon mage, we need to know how he was made. We need to dig into the dark magic of Demonica—the scary, illegal shit that MagiPol doesn’t want anyone to know about.”

“And how will we do that?” he asked with a mutinous scowl, like I was suggesting we cancel Christmas.

I exhaled harshly through my nose. “I get it, Aaron. You don’t want to hope. You already tried everything, and you’ve been steeling yourself for this for years. It’ll just hurt more to try again and fail.”

“If you understand, then why—”

“Because I won’t ignore a chance, no matter how slim. I don’t care if the odds are one in a million. I’m going to try everything before I let you or Kai or Darius end Ezra’s life.”

He absorbed my vehement words, then huffed. “I’m not doing anything about Ezra without Kai, but Darius knows what happened. You can’t stop him from—”

“I can. I already did.”

Aaron’s eyes widened.

“I talked to him. He’s going to wait. He even cleared my shifts so we can leave immediately.”

“We—leave? What? Where?”

I splashed more tequila into my shot glass and raised it in a toast to no one. “We’ll go first thing tomorrow. I just need to arrange a few things, and talk to Kai … and Ezra.”

“Go where, Tori?”

Knowing he wouldn’t like my answer one bit, I tossed the shot back and smacked the glass down. I met his demanding glower with a steady stare.

“We’re going to Enright.”

Chapter Two

Thanks to a cold walk home, I was sober enough to hesitate as I swung open the door to my basement apartment. Poised at the top of the steps, I listened.

Silence.

And that was all kinds of wrong.

My hand went to my back pocket, where for eight months I’d carried the Queen of Spades. But my trump card was no more, and I hadn’t replaced any of my magical defenses. I didn’t even have my phone on me.

Well, if trouble was waiting for me, I’d just have to improvise. With my fists.

“Hoshi,” I whispered.

A silver shimmer. She appeared behind me, paws resting on my shoulders and nose bumping my cheek.

“Are there any fae or druids down there?”