“You do not command me,” he snarled, stepping aggressively closer. “You do not control me.”

Panic jumped in my chest. Daimon—

He grabbed the front of my sweater and hauled me onto my tiptoes, the sudden movement interrupting my thought. Fear thrummed along my spine as we glared at each other, our faces inches apart, his fist clenched around my sweater and my hand gripping the infernus.

Which was faster? The agile demon or the two-word command that would send him back into the infernus?

“Don’t make me use the command,” I said quietly, “and I won’t use it.”

A tearing sound as his claws pierced my sweater. His fury singed the air and the faintest hint of crimson power flickered up his forearms. If our mysterious contract wasn’t enough to prevent him from hurting me, I was about to find out the hard way.

His upper lip curled. He opened his hand and I dropped back onto my heels. Tail snapping, he strode into my room.

I let out a shaky breath, my pulse thundering in my ears, and climbed back onto my stool. Amalia stood for a moment longer, then righted hers and sat down.

“That was … intense,” she muttered.

“Y-yeah. I’ve n-never …” I gulped back the tremble in my voice and tried again. “I’ve never challenged him quite like that before.”

“It was good. You did good.” She lowered her voice. “He might only be doing that shit—touching you and stuff—to get a rise out of you, but what if he decides to take it further to see how you’d react?”

Icy dread rolled down my spine. I wanted to say he couldn’t do that, but I had no idea what he could or couldn’t do. Our contract was dangerously simple: he protected me and I baked for him. I’d made the critical oversight of failing to define “protect,” which meant Zylas was obeying his own definition. I didn’t think he could arbitrarily decide what the word meant to him—he was bound by his genuine interpretation of it—but I had zero clue what his interpretation was.

Fear shone in Amalia’s eyes as she observed my reaction. I dealt with Zylas the most, but the contract protected me. Amalia had nothing except Zylas’s promise not to kill her as long as she was helping us. How brave was she to keep coming back to this apartment day after day, never knowing what the powerful, violent demon might do to her?

She cleared her throat and turned to the papers scattered over the counter. “Okay, so, this is all legal stuff and completely useless, but I did find one valuable tidbit.”

She slid a document in front of me and pointed.

I squinted at the first lines. “‘This agreement is made and entered into by and between Jack Harper of 2936 Blackburn Road and Claude Mercier of 302 Theodore Way, hereafter collectively referred to as the Partners.’”

“Claude’s address,” she declared triumphantly.

“We aren’t looking for Claude …” I straightened on my stool. “But Claude is looking for Uncle Jack.”

Claude, my uncle’s enigmatic—and treacherous—business partner, had straight up told me he’d been working for years to get his hands on a demon of the Twelfth House. He wanted the grimoire for himself, and he’d nearly killed his partner’s children to get it. Clearly, their relationship wasn’t as buddy-buddy as we’d all thought.

“How much do you want to bet Claude is the one who broke into the safe?” Amalia asked. “He knows it’s there, and you said his demon is in an illegal contract. Maybe it used demon magic to break the safe open.”

I nodded. “So we’re going to investigate Claude?”

“We’re going to turn the bastard’s place upside down and find out everything he knows about my dad—and whatever else he’s got his slimy hands in.”

I grinned, fighting back nerves. “Sounds good. I’ll talk to Zylas. If there’s a chance we might have to go up against Claude and his demon again, he needs to decide our plan of attack.”

“Go talk to him, then. Maybe a good demon-on-demon fight will settle him down and he’ll leave us alone for a few days.” She gazed dreamily at nothing, as though remembering what her life had been like before having to share her living space with a demon. “I’m going to run to the grocery store. Want anything?”

“I’m good.”

I hopped off my stool, feeling fired up for the first time in weeks. Our progress had been painfully slow so far. First, I’d gotten sick and lost nearly two weeks to an on-and-off fever. Then Zylas had gotten me kicked out of the Arcana Historia library and I had yet to work up the nerve to return. But finally, we were making progress.

As I walked into my bedroom, the front door banged shut behind Amalia. Mind on the coming challenge of breaking into a dangerous summoner’s home, I belatedly noticed the hissing.

I stopped dead.

His back to the rest of the room, Zylas was crouched on top of the dog crate, balanced on the balls of his feet as the steel bowed under his weight. The kitten inside was plastered into the farthest corner, hissing and spitting with terror.

“Zylas!” I shouted, sprinting toward him. I grabbed his arm. “Get away from her!”

As usual, my best efforts couldn’t budge him. His tail lashed in annoyance, clanging against the bars. The kitten arched her back and spat more loudly. The poor thing was scared out of her mind. Zylas peered down through the bars, head tilted as he observed the small, terrified creature.

Protective fury singed my blood and I didn’t even think to use the infernus command. Releasing his immovable arm, I grabbed his tail with both hands and hauled the demon backward with all my strength.

Next thing I knew, I was on my back on the floor and a hot, heavy weight was crushing me into the musty rug. Pain throbbed through my face.

The weight vanished off me and a weird dual sound filled my ears—high-pitched hissing and low-pitched snarling. Something wet ran down my face.

“Payilas zh’ūltis! Eshathē hh’ainun tādiyispela tūiredh’nā ūakan!”

Zylas’s face appeared above me, his eyes blazing. I pressed my fingers under my aching nose. Blood coated my fingers. I was bleeding?

“You are bleeding,” Zylas accused angrily.

I pushed up onto my elbows. When I’d pulled him backward off the crate, he’d fallen on me, his miserably hard head smacking into my squishy human face. I gingerly prodded the bridge of my nose, but it felt solid. Not broken, thank goodness.

“What is wrong with you?” His snarling voice competed with the noise from the spitting kitten a few feet away. “You pulled on my tail.”

He sounded outright offended. My lips twitched and I might’ve giggled if my face weren’t hurting so much.

Since my shirt was already ruined, I balled up the hem under my nose and pushed to my feet. Taking Zylas’s arm, I dragged him out of the room. He followed me to the bathroom and stood in the doorway as I grabbed a wad of tissue. His nose was wrinkled in distaste; he hated the metallic scent of human blood.

“What is wrong with you?” he repeated in the same acid tone. “Why did you do that?”

I whirled on him, furious all over again. “You were tormenting the kitten! What’s wrong with you?”

He bared his teeth. “I was looking at it.”