Son of a bastard, Lee had twisted the chakra curse in my church. Hand over my mouth, I stared at the pile of sticky ash beside the circle, knowing it had once been a person. Bile rose, and I forced it down. The scent of ozone was long faded, but it was obvious that someone had died there.

  “When . . .” I whispered, books held tight to me as I inched forward. But the answer was obvious. He’d made it last night when I’d been at Trent’s apartment. Lee had killed someone in my church to make a spell, then coolly gone to the festival the next morning. He must have been surprised to find me there.

  “Stef?” I whispered. I reached for my phone to call her, fingers trembling. She was okay, seeing as she’d been at the hospital all night, but I didn’t want her to walk in on this.

  The stairs behind me squeaked, and I spun. “Stef, is that you?” I called, and then froze, expression empty. It wasn’t Stef. It was Lee. And he had a stack of books in his arms. My books.

  “Rachel,” he said, his smile as pleasant as if there wasn’t a dark pentagram adhered to the floor behind me. “I thought I heard someone come in. That wasn’t your car I heard drive up. I was hoping it was Stephanie.”

  “Where is she?” I said, my fear for Trent redoubling.

  Lee sniffed, his gaze going to the rafters before dropping to me. “Work?” he guessed. “They were incredibly busy when I left. I imagine they’re asking everyone to stay late, and she is so conscientious.”

  The grip on my bag tightened as I looked at the books in his arms. How the hell did he get past Al’s wards? But then I remembered he had been Al’s familiar once. He probably knew the password.

  “I know you’re the mage,” I said. “So does the I.S.”

  He frowned, a hand going to a shirt pocket. “Thank the Turn I don’t need to wear that stupid costume anymore. I bought it for Trent’s little party in the hopes of doing some snooping in his lower labs. But the costumer could never get the eyes right. Or the voice.”

  My gut tightened when his smile became predatory. “Rachel, what have you been doing?” he mocked as he pushed me deeper into the sanctuary one step at a time. “Illicit, dark magic?” he added as he dropped my books on Kisten’s cracked pool table and tugged his sleeves down as if ready to do a trick. “Do me a favor.” He settled his feet, balance firm. “Run, so I have a reason to use excessive force to bring you in.”

  I shook my head, retreating until that greasy ash circle was between us. “You know I didn’t do this. It’s not going to stick. Parker . . .” My voice faded. Anything Parker had said was now hearsay. It was my word against his. “Vivian knows I’d never do anything like this,” I said instead. “Where is Trent?”

  “Illicit magic books,” Lee said, glancing at the pile he’d taken. “Check. Possession of illegal artifacts to perform dark magic, check. Evidence of using them to perform dark magic . . . big red check there. You are so screwed. Right to an Alcatraz wall.”

  Alcatraz? An icy drop of remembered fear slid through me, and I retreated again until my heels found the small rise to the stage and I stepped up onto it.

  “Refusal to meet with coven representative to explain possession of illicit materials,” Lee said, ticking off his fingers. “Absolutely. You stood Vivian up.”

  “I had to go,” I said, not knowing how he knew, or why I was explaining this to him. The ugly yellow-wax pentagram was between us, like a guilty secret laid bare. Even if I could scrape it off, the oil from the candles and the residual fat from the ash circle would stain it forever.

  Lee halted three feet from the pentagram, an ugly smile quirking his thin lips. “You are a hot mess on steroids.” His chin dropped, and he eyed me from under a lowered, sarcastic brow. “You murdered someone in your own living room. I’m going to have the pleasure of bringing you in. Straight to Alcatraz. No hearing. No trial. You’re a bad witch with a reputation.”

  I shook my head, the threat of Alcatraz stiffening my spine. “You threw Trent under the bus, didn’t you,” I said in disgust. “Seriously, Lee? Do you really think—”

  I stiffened as Lee yanked on the ley line. Instinct pushed me into motion, and I sprang to the side as he threw a spell at me. Gasping, I hit the stage and rolled off, books sliding out of my bag. The wall behind where I’d been flared a brilliant purple as Lee’s magic dripped to the floor and dissipated.

  “Hey!” I shouted as I stood, safe under my protection circle. Please don’t come in, Jenks. Stay in the garden. “Watch the walls! And what’s your game, Saladan? You and Trent are two sides to the same coin. Getting greedy?” I mocked, and Lee’s lip twitched. “Half the world not enough? You need it all?”

  “This has nothing to do with Brimstone,” he said, his clenched hands dripping an oily magic. “It’s necessary. Made illegal by frightened humans who don’t want an Inderland drug to be the only thing between them and a set of sharp teeth and a short life of servitude. I make it. I sell it. I don’t care who buys it. Trent is the one playing God! Choosing who will live and who will die. Tinkering with people’s lives. Selling life from death for a dollar.”

  His daughter, I thought. Revenge moved him, not money. I was in deep shit. Money I might be able to reason with him, but not revenge. Not the broken heart. “Lee, I’m sorry about your daughter,” I said as I dropped my protection circle and looped my bag over my shoulder again and out of the way. Maybe if I looked as if I wanted to find a peaceful solution, he might calm down. “You should have talked to Trent. He would have—”

  “You know nothing!” Lee shouted, and I flung out a hand, energy arching through my palm as I sent a ball of unfocused magic to slam into his. The two struck, hissing and sparking between us until Lee’s magic overloaded and popped.

  “Trent would have cured her,” I said, coming closer as he did the same, both of us shifting around that perverted pentagram.

  “I will not be owned by a Kalamack elf!” he shouted, and my clenched jaw eased.

  “Maybe once he might have wanted to own your fealty, but he’s changed.”

  “Such naivety,” he mocked. “Nothing is free. No one changes.”

  Lee stopped, standing almost on the stage. He had given me the door. I could sense my books behind me, and my pulse quickened. Plan B. Grab the books and run like hell. But if he wanted me to run, that was the last thing I should do.

  “I suppose you’re right,” I mocked as I shifted to get between him and my books. “How terrible would it be if he saved your daughter? Don’t make me defend myself, Lee,” I said as I backed up to my books. “We both know I haven’t done this. Vivian knows I wouldn’t ever twist that curse. Who do you think she’s going to believe? A wax pentagram carries the aura of the one who makes it. Your signature is all over it. This is not going to stick.”

  Lee rubbed his chin as if amused. I could feel him slowly bringing in line energy, his aura almost visible as he gathered all he could hold. “It will,” he said. “Vivian wanted me to tell you, but I convinced her that it would be easier to catch you in a lie if you didn’t know.”

  My books were right behind me. I didn’t like that he had touched them. “Know what?” I said as unfocused power dripped from his fingers.

  Not answering, he flipped his lapel up, showing me its underside and the emblem there.

  Shit. It was a Möbius strip—it was a dull copper instead of the bright, sparkling silver that Vivian wore, but it was still a Möbius strip, the emblem of the coven of moral and ethical standards.

  “I’m the coven’s new plumber,” he said, and my gut twisted. “Seems after finding out witches were stunted demons, they wanted one in their club.”

  “N-no . . .” I stammered, cold as I remembered seeing him and Vivian at the spell shop and the directive tone she had with him. It was true. He was coven.

  “Now you understand,” Lee said, his low voice almost gleeful. “And as coven, what I say counts more than what you can twist to your advantage. Better yet, I can do whatever I need to bring you in. The coven has wanted you dead for a long time. I bring you in, and I’m set for life.”

  Suddenly plan B had a new appeal. Lee was allowed to do illicit magic to uphold the law. He would frame me with the ease of erasing one answer and scratching in a new one. There’d never be an analysis done on the magic etched into my floorboards. No one questioned the coven. Lee would be listened to, believed. And with me in Alcatraz and Trent fighting whatever claims were made against him, Lee would champion Trent’s legal woes, leaving Trent a pauper and everyone who trusted me in the lurch. I’d had one shot with Vivian, and I blew it because I was afraid to trust her.

  Well, no more, I thought, my resolve strengthening. “Yeah, okay,” I said, and his expression hesitated, surprised at my reaction. “But I let you beat me the last time we fought.”

  Face twisting, Lee shouted a word of Latin and threw a spell. I deflected it with a word, and it went spinning into a corner. “You did not let me win!” he said, his cheeks reddening. “I beat you to a sniveling pulp. Left you crying over your dead father!”

  “Sure, I cried,” I admitted, chin high. “But I let you beat me. I didn’t want to be Al’s familiar, and why would he take me, a sorry-ass milksop crying over her dad, when he could have you? Big, strong, powerful witch with demon blood. How did that go, anyway?”

  Furious, Lee lobbed three spells at me. Moving like a dancer, I evaded the first, blocked the second, and then caught the third, holding it hissing in my grip as my aura slowly absorbed his, making the curse mine. The books in my bag seemed to glow, and I took strength in it.

  Suddenly unsure, Lee retreated a step.

  “You might have fooled everyone, Stinklee,” I mocked, using the insulting moniker Jasmine had saddled him with. “You might have the law in your pocket and Trent scrambling. But you forget one thing.”

  Lee traced a circle with his toe, rightfully concerned I was going to throw his own magic at him. “What’s that?”

  I tossed his spell from hand to hand, hearing it sizzle, watching it shift as it left my aura and then returned. “I’m not just a witch with demon blood. I fought them. I bargained with them. I flew on the hunt with them, watched them destroy their deranged son, Ku’Sox. I caught the demon Hodin, who sold them out to the elves. You think a witch can do that? I am a demon, Lee, the only one welcome on both sides of the ley lines, and I’m going to prove you twisted that curse. It will be you in Alcatraz, not me.” Smirking, I absorbed the spell in my hand, stifling a shudder as the foul thing untwisted in me and raced back to the ley lines as pure energy. “Now, if you will excuse me.” I picked up the books he had left on Kisten’s pool table and put them in with the rest. I could replace everything that had been in my bug-out bag with a quick stop. “I have to find Trent. He owes me a coffee.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  Lee’s words brought me up short. He was smiling bitterly.

  Ice dropped through me. Lee knew where he was. And he wasn’t going to tell me. I glanced at my ring, pulse hammering. The pearl was white. And yet . . .

  Anger flooded me. Ticked, I dropped my book-heavy bag on the table with a thump. Lee’s confident expression faltered, then vanished when I pulled on the ley line, inhaling power as if it was a drug. “Where is he?”

  “He wanted to be somewhere safe, so I put him where no one will find him. It’s cold up there this time of year, though. Rains a lot. He’s going to—”

  I’d had enough. “Voulden!” I shouted, throwing the curse at him. It hit Lee’s fast-implemented protection circle, popping and hissing before it spent itself.

  “He’s going to die,” Lee said, safe in his circle as I paced forward.

  “You first,” I said, then threw a pool ball at him, following it with a new spell.

  Lee incinerated the eight ball with a puff of magic, and then my spell hit him. Gasping, he staggered away as his magic rose to beat the spell out. He was out of his circle.

  Hands reaching, I lunged, plowing into him and sending us both to the floor. “You can’t win, Lee,” I said as I clawed my way up his body as he fought me. “You aren’t nearly pissed enough.”

  I reached for his head, and he hit my arm, shoving me off him. Wiggling, he stretched for a wand stuck in his sleeve. “Teneo!” he shouted, and I dodged the arc of power, feeling it as it hit my quickly invoked circle—and burn, and burn, and burn, until it broke through.

  It was coven magic, and I tried to douse it, failing as fire and ice tingled over me.

  Black coils of smoke wrapped up and around me, imprisoning me in a grip that tightened with my every movement. I was bound by legal, dark magic, and I lurched to fall against Ivy’s piano. Caught.

  “Where is Trent!” I shouted, furious, and Lee grinned, his confidence restored.

  “Cold, wet, and out of your reach,” he said. “Probably treading water by now, if he’s still alive. I hope he is. I really want to see him living in a hovel and visiting his girls for an hour on the weekends.”

  He is alive. Fear for Trent twisted my gut. Panicked, I wiggled and twisted, gasping when I felt my balance shift, and I toppled from the piano to hit the floor with a thump. His shoes inched closer, and I hated him as I heard the familiar sound of his phone taking a picture.

  I needed a knife. I needed a magical knife.

  And then I had it. “Hey, Lee,” I said, and he looked up from his cell phone. Reserare, Jariathjackjunisjumoke, I thought, jerking as my mind fell into the vault. The presence of long-dead demons seemed to start, rising up at my hatred of Lee, clamoring for me to take what they made, use it to kill those who threatened what I loved. Ugly, unspeakable curses, but that’s not what I wanted, and as they pushed and shoved to force a way into my mind, I reached for the memory of Al and the dagger he had made from a curse. It was here. It had to be.

  Quaere! I thought, and in my mind, a dagger made of light exploded into existence. Serve me as you serve Algaliarept. I offer you the blood of a total ass.

  But I truly didn’t need to ask for its help. I had summoned it and it was mine. My eyes flashed open, and satisfaction was a warm balm as I saw Al’s dagger in my hand, called from the demons’ vault. All I had to do was angle the blade to touch the black coils withering around me like smoke, and with the sound of nails on stone, the coven-sanctioned dark spell was overwhelmed and it parted.

  I was free.

  I spun, rising from a crouch and into a stand in one smooth move as Lee gaped at me.

  He’s not afraid. Not yet. Dumbass. “You might have shared that picture a little too soon,” I said, and my grip tightened on the hazy dagger made of energy.

  “Al gave you access to the vault?” he whispered, and I sprang forward, pinning him to Ivy’s piano.

  Lee snarled as my arm went under his chin, pressing on his neck. “Where is Trent?”

  Lightning sprang from his fingers and palms as he tried to force my grip from him. Fiery tiger teeth pierced my arm, and I welcomed them, grinning wildly as I took his energy and turned it against him. Yelping, he dropped the line. “Where is Trent!”

  He shoved himself away from the piano, and we fell. I never let go, hooking my foot behind his and spinning us around to land on him. His head hit the floor with a thunk, and I pressed my arm against his throat again, the dagger hovering over his neck as he tried to focus.

  “Where. Is. Trent,” I intoned, Quaere’s blue flame gleaming on his neck.

  “Three days,” he snarled up at me. “You left me there for three days.”

  I pulled the knife from him in shock. “You put him in the camp’s well?” I said, and then he shoved me. I rolled to my feet, Al’s dagger in my grip. “The well was dry!” I shouted, my heels edging that dark pentagram. “It wasn’t as if you had to tread water!”

  “You left me to sit in my own shit and piss for three days!” he exclaimed, spittle spraying from him.

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t have killed Jasmine’s baby duck!” I exclaimed, only now remembering it. She had been in tears. And though he insisted it had been an accident, we had played jury and executioner, dropping him in the well as punishment. One day became two, then three before the reality of what we’d done hit us and Jasmine and I “found” him, almost comatose from cold and starving at the bottom of a dry well. Lee had never told on us, but it had been the end of all our innocence, and the very next week, they kicked me out of the camp for good.

  That’s why I threw Trent into the tree, I realized, only now remembering it. He had wanted me to leave Lee to die there, and I had said no. Son of a bastard . . .

  In a mental fog, I turned to the front door. “I gotta go,” I said, not sure what to do with the dagger. I couldn’t just shove it between my sock and calf. My books were still on Kisten’s pool table, and I paced forward, fear for Trent filling me. It had been raining for three solid days. The camp was closed. It wasn’t as if I could call someone to go out there. I was going to have to buy a line jump, and the only demon I halfway trusted other than Al was Dali. No, I have to buy three. One to get there, and two to get back.

  “You’ll never make it. Trent is going to die,” Lee said, his voice ringing in the rafters with the surety of a minister preaching hell and brimstone. “And you are going to live with the knowledge that you couldn’t reach him in time.”

  I jumped, shocked when Lee’s spell slammed into the pool table, engulfing it in a weird purple and blue flame.

  He hadn’t been after me. He’d been after my books.

  “Dilatare!” I cried, throwing the explosive ball of air at the flames, and the fire vanished, blown out to leave only smoke rising from the burnt felt. My bag was singed, but the books were fine. Not even warm when I gathered them to me like kittens. Dumbass. He tried to burn my books!

  “What is your problem!” I shouted as I spun to him, my books held to my chest. “I’m sorry about leaving you in the well for three days. But I was twelve. Everyone is stupid when they are twelve. It was a mistake.”