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“Lean on your demon,” she tells me. “I think that’s why I was able to stay as long as I was. They like to say their only magick is in bargains and portals, but whatever reason the Goddess has for pairing us with them, it means something.”

“I will,” I tell her.

With that, Emilia leaves. My mother goes with her, keeping an arm at the small of her back while she helps her from the room. Sitting back down in front of the desk, I tuck the letters and the grimoire back into the bag Joan gave me and wait for her to return.

When she finally comes back into the room, my mother crosses to take a seat behind her desk again.

“What are you thinking?” I ask. “About all of this? What theories do you have about what’s going wrong with the bargain?”

I don’t know if she’s going to tell me, but with my time in this realm running out, I don’t feel the need to dance around the subject any longer.

“Magick corrodes over time,” she says slowly, eyes still a little unfocused as she considers the problem. “Even great magick like the bargain. It could be that a renewal is needed.”

“Alright,” I say, letting out a breath. “So, how do we do that?”

She shakes her head. “Magick like that… I don’t know if even I could do it.”

“No,” I agree, stubbornly. “It has to be me. ‘A deal with a demon prince’, the voice in the book said, I think I’m the only one who could accomplish that now. I mean, Eren’s a king, but I think the point still stands.”

I hope the point still stands. Really not in the mood to play semantics with an ancient, cursed book.

A flash of irritation crosses her face. “This is not magick to be taken lightly.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Anger and frustration born of years of this—being sidelined and kept in the dark, being underestimated—bubbles to the surface all at once.

“I know that,” I snap at her, unable to keep everything I’m feeling from my voice. “Believe me, I’m well aware I’m in over my head. I went into this mess completely blind.”

My mother at least has the good grace to look guilty. “Allie, I never meant to—”

“It doesn’t matter what you meant to do, mom. It still happened. The Tithe still chose me and the bargain is still hanging by a damn thread. Are you going to help me fix it?”

“Allie,” she says, haltingly. “It’s not that simple.”

“So spell it out for me.”

“Since Emilia returned, we’ve all been well-aware that there’s something very wrong with the magick of the bargain, and we’ve all been working on finding out how to fix it.”

“Great. So let me help. I can go back into the demon realm—”

“The rest of the coven leaders want to seal the pathway through the Veil that leads to the demon realm.”

The words drop into absolute silence between us for a few long heartbeats.

“What?”

No. Absolutely not. How can they even… no. I slump back into my chair, heart pounding in my ears.

“It’s the only solution we’ve been able to find,” she says, voice cracking a little.

Part of me registers the emotion in her voice and written clearly on her face. It’s so far removed from the usual masked of calm and composure she wears that, if I wasn’t having my own internal meltdown, I would be dumbstruck by it.

Right now, though? I’m in no headspace to deal with anyone’s emotions but my own.

“You can’t,” I croak.

“Allie,” she says, clearly trying to soothe me. “The magick the first witch used to make that bargain is beyond what most of us can even imagine. It’s likely soul magick—realm-alteringmagick—larger and more complex than any of us would dare attempt.”

“And sealing the Veilisn’t?”