In a neat stack beside the grimoire were half a dozen pages of my mother’s translations, the paper crinkled and the ink smudged. Zylas and I had searched the mountainside for half an hour to find them, but not knowing which grimoire pages they went with, I hadn’t yet made much sense of them.

I peered at the textbook again—an exhausting, brain-destroying breakdown of the Arcane jargon used in Ancient Greek—then gave up. As I stacked my reference books, my attention returned to the demon hogging my sofa. Or, actually, the demon and the kitten.

Now that she’d recovered from her injuries and the shock of a new home, Socks was friendly enough with me and Amalia, but she did not deign to cuddle with us, probably because we were intolerably inferior to her favorite sleeping spot.

That spot being anywhere on or beside Zylas.

At the moment, she was curled into a furry donut right in the middle of his stomach, blissfully dreaming cat dreams. When his magic was fully charged, he ran a couple degrees hotter than a human, so it didn’t surprise me that she’d want to sleep on him. What surprised me was Zylas’s tolerance of it.

I hid my smile and continued packing up my work. Looking back on it now, I wasn’t sure Zylas had ever intended to torment the injured kitten, even when he’d perched on top of her crate. A cruel demon terrifying her for his own twisted satisfaction?

Or a curious demon who had no idea how to interact with a small, easily frightened creature of another species?

In some ways, that applied to me as much as it did to Socks. Small, easily frightened … and he had no idea how to handle either of us. He was figuring it out as he went along, just as I was figuring out how to interact with him.

As I scooped up a stack of books, the grimoire resting on top, he opened his eyes again.

“Where are you taking my grimoire?” he asked with a sly gleam in his gaze.

“To its usual spot.” I rolled my eyes. “You don’t need to ask me every time I move it.”

An amused flash of pointed canines. I rolled my eyes again to make sure he’d noticed, then stalked into my room. At every possible opportunity, he pointed out that the grimoire was his. I had given it to him and he got to decide when and where and how I got to use it. He’d even tried to convince me that I had to ask his permission to take it out of its box, but I’d put my foot down on that one. He’d settled for constant reminders.

Annoying demon.

“Drādah mailēshta,” he called from the living room.

“Get out of my head!” I yelled back. The grimoire’s case lay open on my bed—the metal box that only an Athanas sorcerer could open. I wrapped the book in brown paper, settled it in place with my mother’s translations resting on top, and closed the lid. White runes flickered across it as magic sealed the box shut.

I slid it under my bed, then sat on the mattress and heaved a long sigh. In the week since we’d killed Vasilii and reclaimed the grimoire—or rather, most of the grimoire—we’d found no sign of Claude. Not that we’d really searched. Christmas had been on Tuesday, and it was hard to worry about a dangerous summoner and his demon with all the holiday cheer going on.

Amalia and I had decided that, since neither of us had available family members to celebrate with, we would skip all the traditional Christmas activities. Instead, we’d gone for a double feature at the cinema, then ordered enough Chinese food to last us a week.

Since then, I’d been spending hours every day on the grimoire despite the disappointing lack of revelations. What I’d translated so far wasn’t even Demonica but other Arcana that Anthea Athanas had recorded thousands of years ago. I might have to skip ahead.

My wandering gaze fell on the book on my bedside table: The Complete Compilation of Arcane Cantrips. The vivid memory of the fire cantrip in Zylas’s crimson magic rushed through my head—followed by the equally vivid memory of his power flowing over my hand and up my arm.

Pushing to my feet, I returned to the living room. At my approach, Socks uncurled from her ball and stood on Zylas’s stomach, back arching in a luxurious stretch. Hopping onto the floor, she wound around my ankles and meowed demandingly.

I wasn’t worthy of cuddles, but when dinnertime came around, she expected me to provide.

Hands on my hips, I peered down at Zylas, again trying to pry open his head and see his thoughts underneath. I wanted another glimpse of the mind behind those crimson eyes. Of the keen, cutting intelligence, the brutal determination to survive, the dizzying expanse of experiences I couldn’t begin to imagine.

He gazed up at me, impassive.

“How do I hear your thoughts the way you can hear mine?” I demanded.

“Why would I tell you?”

“Because it’s more fair that way.” I pointed at him accusingly. “You were hiding it all this time, that we could speak to each other in our heads. Don’t you think that might’ve been useful before now?”

“Ch,” he scoffed, closing his eyes lazily.

“How did we combine our magic?” I’d asked him this question half a dozen times, and his answer was always the same. At my feet, Socks meowed loudly, then stalked off with her tail held high.

Zylas stretched his spine, then relaxed into the sofa. “I don’t know.”

“Guess, then.”

“Kūathē gish.”

“Huh?”

“Go away. You are noisy.”

I squinted one eye, then turned around. Instead of walking away, I dropped onto the sofa. He might be super strong and halfway to invincible, but even a demon couldn’t ignore a hundred pounds landing on his diaphragm.

His breath whooshed out. Eyes snapping open, he glowered at me. I flopped against the back cushion, sitting on his stomach where Socks had been, my feet dangling above the floor.

“As you can see, I’m not going away,” I declared. “So let’s talk about the whole ‘magic sharing’ thing.”

His nose scrunched in annoyance, then he resettled his head on the cushion, grabbed a chocolate-and-butterscotch grape, and ate it.

I waited a minute, my chagrin growing, then growled, “Zylas.”

“Drādah.”

“You can’t just ignore me sitting on you.”

He pointedly closed his eyes again.

“Tell me about the magic. You must have some idea.”

“I do not know.” He reached blindly for another grape. “I did not think. I just did.”

During the fight, I hadn’t stopped to think about it either. It had felt … natural. Instinctive. As simple and easy as raising my arm and spreading my fingers.

I gazed at my hand, held before my face with my fingers stretched wide. I remembered his presence inside my head, dark and ferocious.

Sitting forward, I aligned myself to face him. Jaw tight with focus, I pressed my palms against his cheeks, my fingers resting on his pointed ears and tangled hair.

Staring intently into his eyes, I strained to hear his thoughts. To find his alien presence. To reform that bizarre, breathtaking connection. I wanted to hear him again. I would make it happen. Catching my lower lip in my teeth, I brought our faces—our minds—closer. Where are you, Zylas?

He stared up at me, then took my face in his hands, fingers catching in my hair. His crimson eyes searched mine, his lips parting.