“No,” I whispered, staring at my feet as I twisted my hands together. “Not since you showed me the—the summoning circle. I wanted to learn more about Demonica so I came down just to … just to …”

He grabbed my upper arm again. “You don’t need to know anything about Demonica. Didn’t your parents forbid it? Stay out of the basement, Robin.” His hand tightened, fingers grinding into my flesh, and tears spilled down my cheeks. “If I catch you down here again, I’ll kick you out of my house in a heartbeat. Understood?”

“Yes,” I choked out.

The moment he released me, I bolted for the stairs. My socks slipped and I pitched forward, bashing my knee against a step. Lungs paralyzed by pain, I heard Claude’s say from the library, “I warned you about her.”

I shoved myself up and ran. I didn’t stop until I’d reached my room and slammed the door behind me.

Chapter Ten

I was getting good at sneaking around.

For three days I hid in my room to demonstrate my obedience. That was as long as I could stand my boredom and restlessness. When I ventured out again, it was with a plan: sneak into the library and steal The Summoner’s Handbook, or a similar book, without getting caught.

If Uncle Jack was determined to keep me away from Demonica and summoning, the information must be important. It could be he was afraid I’d realize he was breaking laws—as if I needed a book to tell me—or it could be more than that. I would find out.

Once I knew what I was dealing with, I’d devise a way to get my mother’s grimoire back from him.

Stealing the Demonica book should’ve been easy, except Uncle Jack and Claude had developed a new obsession with the library. In the three days I’d been cloistered in my room, he and his partner had upped their visits to the summoning circle from once a day to every hour or two, day and night. Claude wasn’t even going home—he was sleeping in a guest room between library sessions.

I’d been stalking them around the house for two days. They weren’t following a schedule, so I couldn’t guarantee a free window in which to sneak down there myself. Getting The Summoner’s Handbook was important, but not getting caught was more important.

Crouched at the top of the basement stairs, I listened to the muffled echo of Uncle Jack’s and Claude’s voices coming from the library. When light flooded the hallway from the door opening, I darted into the kitchen. Sliding onto a stool, I took a huge bite of the apple I’d gotten out earlier and pretended to read the mystery novel I’d left open on the breakfast bar.

Uncle Jack’s voice preceded him out of the basement, his tone frustrated and impatient. “Its breaking point should be any day now. We just have to keep checking.”

“It should have come days ago,” Claude replied.

“Which must mean the demon is exceptionally powerful.” Uncle Jack strode into view. “We can’t miss it or our last chance will be—”

Breaking off, he glared at me suspiciously.

“Good afternoon,” I said politely, glancing up from my book.

He kept walking. Claude followed in silence, his mouth pressed in a thin line that pulled at the scar on his chin, and to my surprise, Travis trailed after them. I hadn’t realized he was down there too, but I supposed it made sense. Travis was Uncle Jack’s stepson, so why not train him alongside Amalia?

I listened to their passage through the house as I finished my apple, pondering my chances of making it downstairs and back again without getting caught. I was just thinking I should try when heels clacked down the hall.

Kathy swept into the kitchen. The way she glared in my direction before opening the oven to check on her casserole made me wonder if Uncle Jack had asked her to keep an eye on me.

I tossed out my apple core, washed my hands in the sink, grabbed my novel, and hastened out of the kitchen. As I stumped upstairs to my room, I mulled over what Uncle Jack had said. A “breaking point.” Did he think Zylas would crack soon? Based on my interactions with the demon, I doubted he’d ever give in, but maybe the summoners knew something I didn’t. Why hadn’t I read The Summoner’s Handbook from cover to cover while I’d had the chance?

My feet stopped of their own accord, and it took my distracted brain a moment to catch up. I was standing in front of Amalia’s bedroom door. I pursed my lips. She was out most mornings but returned for the afternoon. I hesitated, then knocked.

A rustle, followed by footsteps. The door cracked open. “Yes?”

I peered at the sliver of her face. “Can I ask you something?”

“About what?”

“Summoning.”

Her mouth twisted, then she stepped back. “Fine.”

She opened her door wide enough to invite me in. Every inch of wall space in her room was covered in large photographic prints of … cloth. Dizzying close-ups of woven fabric, colorful silk rippling in the wind, patterns and textures, stitching designs, color combinations, even zippers.

She’d shoved her queen-sized bed with a patchwork quilt into one corner, and two very different work areas dominated the rest of the room. Back by the closet door, a flimsy desk buckled under the weight of leather-bound textbooks with Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit on the spines. In the other corner, a long utilitarian table was positioned under the window. On it, two sewing machines sat beside tumbled heaps of fabric and a rack of colorful thread spools. A dress form stood nearby, pins sticking out of the headless female figure.

“You sew?” I asked, surprised.

Her mouth thinned. “Problem with that?”

“No.” I blinked, unsure how I’d offended her. “I think it’s awesome. Do you make clothes?”

“Yeah.” She dropped into the chair in front of the sewing machine and picked up a swatch of fabric. “I’m designing hex clothing.”

I stepped closer to see the fabric. Sewn into the floral pattern was a discreet cantrip. I recognized it—impello, the push spell.

“Wow!” I exclaimed. “So this would be, like, a self-defense shirt?”

She grinned, pleased I’d caught on so fast. “Exactly. It’s tricky, though. Not nearly as simple as drawing or etching a cantrip.” She tossed the fabric onto the table and twisted her blond hair into a bun. “My dad thinks it’s a waste of time.”

I glanced at the books threatening to collapse her desk. “Because it takes away from your summoning apprenticeship?”

“I don’t know how he expects me to study ten hours a day when I already spend every morning with my language tutor,” she complained. Grabbing a fabric pencil off the table, she stuck it through her bun to hold the hair in place. “So, what do you want to know?”

I hesitated, then sat on the edge of her unmade bed. “On his way up from the library, I heard Uncle Jack talking about a breaking point. Do you know what that means?”

“Oh yeah, that’s basic stuff.” She held a hanky-sized sample of patterned cotton up to the sunlight streaming through the window. “Usually, demons agree to a contract within a few weeks, but sometimes, you’ll get one that refuses to take a contract for whatever reason. So we wait.”

She returned the cotton square to the pile. “Once a demon is summoned into a circle, it gets weaker as time passes. At around nine or ten weeks, almost every demon caves and agrees to a contract. That’s the breaking point.”

“What happens if Uncle Jack misses it?”

“The demon dies.” Amalia reorganized a few thread spools on the rack. “They can’t survive in those circles indefinitely. You have to catch them right before that, when they’re most desperate. They usually give in. Demons have a strong survival drive.”

My stomach twisted strangely. “So … you’re saying … summoners call demons into this world, imprison them in a circle for weeks on end, force them to accept a contract, and if they don’t, you let them die?”

Amalia shot me a scathing look. “Good god, how much of a bleeding heart are you? They’re demons, Robin. You saw the one under the greenhouse. It’d kill us all in a heartbeat. Yeah, we let them die. We can’t set them free—they’d massacre the entire neighborhood in the time it took the MPD to put out an alert.”

“Why not send the demons back?”

“Summoning is a one-way ticket, and even if it wasn’t, why would we send them back? If we did, no demon would ever agree to a contract.”

“What does a contract involve, exactly?”

She studied me for a long moment, then answered with chilling simplicity. “Complete surrender.”

She pushed to her feet and walked to her desk. After rooting around among the books, she tossed something to me. I caught it, fumbling the long silver chain. It was a round, flat pendant the size of my palm, with runes engraved over its surface.

“That,” Amalia said, dropping into her chair, “is an infernus. It’s the key to a demon contract. Assuming we’re talking legal, MPD-sanctioned ones, a contract is pretty simple. The demon gives up its autonomy. Its spirit is bound to the infernus and the contractor’s will. The contractor controls the demon like a puppet.”

I stared at the silver pendant.

“Allow the demon any free will, and it’ll find a way to kill its contractor.”