Before I could ask what he meant, the sound of stomping footsteps interrupted us, but it wasn’t Aaron or Makiko returning.

“What the hell?”

Blake’s annoyed shout rang across the lawn. The terramage strode toward us from the hotel’s main entrance, his quarterstaff thumping the ground with each step.

Panic shot through me, and Kai shoved to his feet, hauling me with him. Justin scrambled up, favoring one leg. As Blake stalked closer, I braced for the first attack, desperately hoping Kai had some lightning juice left.

He stopped a few paces away, scowling. “I heard someone babbling about gunshots and a man on fire in the parking lot. They called the police.” He thumped his staff against the ground. “You said you were leaving!”

I stared at the terramage, confused as hell. First, why would he approach us like this when he could’ve attacked us from a distance, which was the terramage specialty? And second, his expression was all annoyance.

No apprehension. No real anger. No twitchy nervousness, fearful glances at his surroundings, or suppressed loathing—which meant our sudden appearance neither concerned him nor angered him.

Either he was the world’s best actor, or he was neither a cultist nor being blackmailed by the cult.

“Oh shit,” I blurted.

Kai and Justin looked at me with tense frowns.

“The assassin wasn’t here for us. She was here for Blake, and we got in the way.” I pointed at the terramage. “Someone else in the Keys of Solomon is a cultist mole, and that person wants us all dead—including you, Blake.”

Chapter Eighteen

I felt so much better. Really fantastic. My whole body was numb and a little chilled, and damn, I was enjoying it. Getting internally barbequed had not been fun.

Perched on the edge of a clinical bed in an otherwise nice bedroom, I waved cheerily at the healer’s back as she exited through the open door. I waited approximately eight seconds, then bounced out into the hall. Following the sound of a rumbling male voice, I found a living room—or rather, the waiting room. Healers’ houses were weird that way.

“Hellooo,” I sang cheerily. “How are y—”

Aaron, Kai, and Makiko all shushed me. Scrunching my nose, I stuck out my tongue at them.

Blake was pacing at the other end of the room, his phone held to his ear. “Right … I appreciate your help. Yes, I’ll do that. Take care.”

He ended the call, then turned to the trio on the sofa. “Same thing. That’s four guild members who hadn’t heard anything about trouble in Enright or any teams being sent to Portland. It looks like my reports never made it to the rest of the guild.”

“Who were you reporting to?” Kai asked.

“The fifth officer. I don’t know him well. We’ve only met in person a handful of times.”

I planted my hands on my hips. “The officer must be the mole, then. He sent an assassin after us.”

An assassin who, despite having two mages hot on her heels, had disappeared right out from under their noses.

“The GM could be the mole for all we know,” Aaron countered. He gave me a squinty once-over. “How’re you feeling?”

“Really freakin’ fine. Karen hooked me up with the good stuff.” I twirled in a graceless pirouette and finished it with a karate chop. “I’m ready. Let’s kick some cultist traitor ass.”

Everyone stared at me.

“Where’s Justin?” I asked, shrugging off their judgy looks. “Did he get some happy potion too?”

“Turns out he did have a concussion. Karen is still working on him, but she said he’d be good to go in an hour.”

“That’s good.” I squinched my gaze in Blake’s direction. “So how will we identify the cult mole in the Keys? If we find them, we can find the Praetor.”

Blake rubbed a hand over his face and into his messy fauxhawk. “I can’t uncover a mole by myself. My mentor, the second officer, has been with the guild for twenty years. He predates the Enright cult and has a real hatred for demons to boot.”

“You trust him?” Kai asked.

“With my life.” Blake raised his phone. “Let’s see what he has to say.”

As the terramage pulled up the officer’s contact info on his phone, I dropped onto the sofa between Aaron and Kai—except it was a three-person sofa with three people already on it. I landed on their thighs, half-sinking into the gap between them.

“Budge over,” I ordered.

Snorting, Aaron pressed into the armrest while Kai slid over until he and Makiko were nearly sharing the same cushion. I leaned back with a satisfied smile.

“I missed you guys,” I murmured, slinging my arms over their broad shoulders.

Aaron bumped my side with his elbow. “I never went anywhere.”

“Yeah, but when Kai isn’t around, it’s as though part of you goes missing too. You’re like a lightbulb with half its glowy wire thing burnt out.”

He shook his head. “That was almost poetic, then you ruined it.”

“Meh, you know what I mean. You’re gloomy without Kai.”

Blake’s phone rang on speaker.

“Russel here,” a gruff voice answered.

“Russel, it’s Blake. Are you in a private location?”

A pause. “I can be. One moment.” Muffled noises, followed by a door closing. “Go ahead.”

“Are you aware of my recent report about the discovery of an active sect of the Enright cult in Portland?”

“The Enright—” A garbled curse. “No, I was not aware. When did you report this?”

“Two days ago. I spoke directly to Anand, who said he’d send two teams to investigate immediately. I don’t think those teams were ever sent. As well, information I reported about the guild that spearheaded the investigation was leaked back to the cult.”

“How do you know that?”

“A demon mage from the cult referenced details from my report. I don’t see how he could’ve gotten the information from any other source.”

A sharp inhalation. “There’s a demon mage in Portland? Right now?”

“Yes, sir. No ID yet. He isn’t in the database.”

“Have you reported this to the MPD?”

“Not yet.”

I squirmed guiltily. We had quite a few reasons for not reporting the demon mage—starting with how the Crow and Hammer wasn’t licensed for international bounty work and finishing with how we were hiding a demon mage of our own—but I didn’t know Blake’s rationale. Maybe it was the Keys’ policy to report Demonica crimes only after the guild had gotten a shot at “the kill.”

Russel breathed into his phone for several long seconds. “Blake, return to HQ as quickly as possible—and bring the other guild team that’s investigating, if they’re willing to come. I may need their testimonies.”

“What about the demon mage? And the other cult members—”

“They aren’t going anywhere. We need to deal with the information leak here first. I can’t move our best teams into Portland to exterminate a demon mage without risking the cult finding out. Have you spoken to anyone else about this?”

“Not yet.”

“Let’s keep it that way. And”—his voice roughened with worry—“be careful, Blake. Depending on where the leak is coming from, this could be very dangerous.”

“Understood. Be careful as well, Russel.”

“I will. See you soon.”

With a click, the line went dead. The terramage let out a long breath, and we all exchanged bleak glances.

“Will you come?” Blake asked. “If Russel wants your testimony, then he probably suspects the fifth officer.”

“We need to discuss.” I grasped Aaron and Kai by the wrists. “Let’s go check on Justin.”

They didn’t protest as I hauled them out of the living/waiting room and down the hall, leaving Makiko and Blake behind. I didn’t actually know where Justin was, so I led the guys into the room where the healer had examined and dosed me.

Closing the door, I leaned back against it. “This is bad.”

They nodded in unison.

I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I mean, it’s bad enough that the Enright cult is not only still active but somehow has a mole in the very guild that almost wiped them out. But the really bad part is we need a summoning grimoire, and—”

“—and finding one is about to get real complicated,” Aaron concluded grimly.

My whole plan was based on the understanding that the cult had been wiped out. I’d come here to search for an abandoned grimoire, not a prized relic the cult would be actively protecting. Kai and Aaron—and Makiko, I supposed—were talented and deadly mages, but they alone couldn’t safely take on a demon mage. Not without Ezra.

We might’ve been able to manage the Praetor and his little circle, but Daniel the Demon Mage had come from somewhere else—and was taking orders from someone else.

I pressed my hands to my face, a tremor running through me as icy despair drained the strength from my limbs. “We’re so screwed. What are we going to do? Ezra won’t last much longer, and with the Keys involved, there’s no way to find a grimoire. We—we’re just—”

A warm arm settled over my shoulders, and Aaron pulled me against his side. “We’re just gonna have to figure out who’s pulling the cult’s strings, aren’t we?”

I slowly lowered my hands, squinting up at him. “But—”

“Finding a dead summoner’s grimoire was like searching for a needle in a haystack.” A hard, decisive note edged Kai’s voice. “But somewhere, there’s a living person running this show. If we unmask them, we’ll find their grimoire.”

“We just have to make sure we get our hands on it before the Keys do,” Aaron added.

I stared between them, still tucked under Aaron’s arm. “But—”