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At the top of the stairs, Emerie fought against a medium-sized Demon that looked like it had been grotesquely mashed between a lizard and a human. It wasn’t very tall, but it was thin and fast. It was completely human in form besides its tail, with pale patchy skin, but it was covered in scales and spikes.

It kind of reminded her of Ingram, just ugly and without a raven skull.

Delora perched herself on top of the throne’s backrest and kept the other Demons at bay. They were one person down; it would have been a lot easier with Reia here.

Behind her, Emerie heard the clatter of a fight. Slaps, snarls, and gasps echoed, and the only time she saw anything was from her peripheral.

At one point, Lindiwe had taken to hovering in the air while solid, like her cloak was giving her the ability to float for a few seconds. Jabez would materialise in front of her, allowing himself to fall as he tried to grasp her before she turned incorporeal.

The Demon grabbed Emerie’s arm to protect itself when she attempted to cut it across the face, causing her to wince when its claws began to cut into her arm. It was too big and strong, and the diadem did little to protect her skin this time. However, it yowled in pain when it tried to grab her head, yanking its hand away from directly touching the diadem.

With the help of Delora, who shot the lizard Demon in the eye, Emerie was able to slice across its neck.

Then Delora moved, going to the rest of the throne room littered with Demon corpses. She took the attention of the two remaining monsters who still breathed, and the winged one took flight to stop her from shooting from the air.

This was Emerie’s chance.

Jabez obviously didn’t see her as a threat.

Why would she be? She was human. She was the weakest one out of all of them.

That was his mistake.

Emerie uncoiled her whip from her weapons belt, along with the enchanted rope that already had a securing loop ready. She held it by the knot while threading her hand through the hole, and waited while keeping her senses open for the last two monsters in case they approached.

Lindiwe pushed him closer and closer to Emerie. Then she flung herself at him and clamped her arms and legs around his torso, trapping his arms to his sides. Black sand wrapped around his body like tentacles, trapping him further.

Emerie leapt forward and grabbed a chunk of his long hair before he could dematerialise. She squeaked when everything went black, like she’d closed her eyes despite them being open. Then she was shoved back into light, and the dimness of the room was suddenly too bright.

Overcome with dizziness, Emerie was disorientated and couldn’t work out where she’d ended up. She felt like she’d drank an entire bottle of booze and had woken up with a killer hangover, and her head lolled when it felt like the room was spinning.

Humans werenotmeant to teleport. She grimaced.

None of this was enough to stop her from shoving her hand fisting Jabez’s hair downwards as she pushed the rope up.

“The fuck?” he spat, as he spun in a circle and Emerie followed.

He lost interest the moment Lindiwe dropped from the air above him.

She had just enough time to secure the rope by tying his hair into a knot before he teleported away. The rope was short, with only two metres of leeway, but she secured the loop on the other end around her wrist.

Their original plan had been to anchor him to something, but Emerie had other ideas once she saw Lindiwe’s barrier. A link was created between them, one that would stop him from materialising behind her. Wherever he went, Emerie would go too.

When Emerie teleported back into the room, her spinning sight searched for the woman with a bow and arrow.

Now Delora just needs to...

She winced when she saw her body lying on the ground, while the winged Demon, the only one remaining, held her decapitated head by her shoulder-length hair. When it started withering away into ash, it tossed it like it’d lost interest before stalking towards them.

Despite how much it would have hurt, Delora was gone, and that was what she needed.

“Emerie,” Lindiwe called, and she spun to her.

Jabez had her by the throat until she became intangible and floated back. He gave a menacing snarl.

“I grow tired of this. Two are dead, Witch Owl. All that is left is you and this human.”

Lindiwe and Emerie shared a look, and a thousand silent words were spoken.Thank you. I’m sorry.These were the two sentences that were the loudest from Lindiwe.