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W hen the meeting ended, Jae and I both invested another hour glad-handing with the Towpath family I’d joined or Griffith would argue, re joined. Many remembered me from my early childhood and still more knew my dad. Teddy had never assumed an official leadership position in the guild, but that was only lines in the paperwork Griffith filed with our region’s governing council. Everyone had known Griffith, Teddy, and Clark had been as good as brothers, if not closer, once upon a time. The guild boss had placed a lot of faith in his most trusted confidantes and had relied on my dad and Clark for missions he’d wanted to keep off the guild’s books and under the radar. That was a public secret understood both within and outside the Towpath. Other guilds recognized the practice because they did it, too.

Glory hounds sought power inside guild infrastructure.

The ones who held legitimate power operated outside political constraints.

Few Towpath kids suffered the same suspicious antagonism as the redhead and her pair of friends upstairs, too. Me? They didn’t care about, but my demon was their rock star, especially after Jae circumvented the odious social bullshit following every guild meeting to show sincere interest in the teens and tweens the guild system had been created to protect. He talked with the kids, not down to them. He siphoned off a precious sliver of his demon magic to amuse the Towpath’s youngest members amid a warbling and pitchy chorus of “whoa” and “omigod” and “do that again.” Which he did, a shower of red sparks raining on the rear corner of the cafe floor set off another carol of cackling whoops.

First Blood demons genuinely did like kids.

Weird.

Since my demon couldn’t be bothered with annoying adults, those responsibilities fell to me to handle, and I didn’t begrudge Jae that. Tried not to, anyway. I had as much interest in politicking as my demon, but after two decades plus as Teddy Mace’s son, first as an insider and then as removed from the magical community as I could get, no one had been more prepared to manage the bullshit than me. Wherever I stumbled, Griffith was never far to right my ship and by the time clouds moved in and sunset drew near, local coven leaders and alchemists who hoped I’d inherited my father’s professional acumen alongside his druidic skill at growing whatever rare ingredient their magics required had stuffed my pocket with their business cards.

“Any idea how we’ll get back to my mountain?” I asked Griffith once most of my fellow guildies had departed.

The guild boss nodded to Jae, still holding forth at the center of a group of kids while they swapped wild stories, most of which might be true. “A heavily warded Point A to a heavily warded Point B is much more difficult to trace so, if he hasn’t squandered his well of power on the kids, he can portal you home and if he has, oh well, he can tap you for some power without weakening you.”

I winced. “I don’t have much.”

“Enough to return home.” Griffith shrugged. “With this morning’s nastiness out of the way, you’ll both have plenty of time to recharge.”

“Assuming the other demons don’t find us.” I winged up an eyebrow. “Or whoever killed my dad.”

“Or the Chicago Maces.” The guild boss grimaced. “I’ve heard noises from the north. Nothing concrete, but Teddy’s kin are dangerous people. You two need to be careful.” His gaze swept the Towpath. “Despite the drain on your magic and his, travel here and only here by portal until further notice.”

I sighed. “Would have been so much easier if we could’ve portaled into the Towpath this morning.”

“His magic wasn’t familiar to our wards yet.” Griffith shrugged. “As long as he’s with you, portaling into our offices should be no problem for the pair of you from now on.” His gaze shot up toward the ceiling at a faint scream that echoed throughout the valley. “Clara and Menolac resigned from the chase, but the others haven’t given up the hunt yet. Add in the Maces and Teddy’s murderer…Hunkering down will be your safest option for a while.”

Didn’t I know it. I shuddered, though, because so far, Jae hadn’t sucked me through any wormholes to travel and I wasn’t looking forward to that experience, not least of which because portaling would tax an extravagant amount of power and energy from my demon. Magical partners though we may be, even temporarily, the strength and health of us both would be required to survive and newly exercising mine after a long decade of drought and disuse, my magic wasn’t reliable or particularly suited for defense. I counted on Jae far more than he depended on me. For the time being.

Weakening my demon partner did not appeal. Draining my own power even less so.

Neither did battling a path through a crowd of frenzied demons to reach home, though.

I looked up. “Roof or…”

“If Bea succeeded at pushing back the protestors, the plaza outside our front door will do.” Griffith lifted his fingers to his mouth to let out a piercing whistle to get Jae’s attention. “Time to go.”

That seemed to be Skip’s cue, because he latched onto my left arm with a happy bounce. “Are we crashing the Ourean’s party? Say we are. Please, please, please.”

Stifling my groan, I scowled at my erstwhile roommate who was now legally my familiar. “Do you know how much the licensing and processing fees—and insurance—for an imp cost me?”

Skip waved my snarl away. “What do you care? My supervisor at the dispensary already texted me with an offer for a strain of pot that, thanks to your druid power, will rake in a pile of treasure, as much as you could ever desire. You won’t have to lay a single finger on your trust fund’s capital and still end with mountains of cash.”

“Fighting a war on multiple fronts isn’t smart, whether or not I can financially afford one.” I wagged a finger. “No cult battles or ambushes. Be nice.”

“They started it.” Skip’s mouth thinned. “I just live here.”

Unfortunately, that was more than enough to launch a rumble with the Ourean cult, who would seek to protect the territory claimed by Ourea, the God of the mountain, from intruding deities. “It wouldn’t kill you and the Goddess to lay low for a few weeks.” Failing to do so might kill us, though. Skip especially.

“The cult isn’t genuinely antagonistic. Cumberland is far enough from Garrett County to give everyone space to breathe. If the Oureans didn’t agree, they would’ve sent more than a token contingent to picket the Towpath.” Finnegan ducked around Skip to thread an overly affectionate arm around my waist. “If he doesn’t taunt them, it’ll be fine.”

I arched an eyebrow at his arm anchored around me. I assumed to ensure he didn’t miss the portal back home? I frowned at Griffith. “You’re still detailing me with your spy?”

“The spy is useful.” The guild boss smirked. “If you loosen up, he can be a net positive to you, too.”

“Are you old enough to vote?” I asked, tone heavy on the sarcasm, but I could see Griffith’s point. I hadn’t worked with Skip as my familiar before, not so far, and I had no sign of what a low-level fire mage might be capable of contributing in a legit fight, but most of the hunting demons hadn’t given up yet. My father’s killer was still free, too. If he or she had any hint that I’d discovered my dad’s grimoire, my days were numbered. Plus, my psychopathic grandparents. The more magicals I had on my side to back me in a fight should the proverbial shit hit the fan, the longer I’d live. “Whatever. Fine. You can come.”

“Can you handle portaling three?” the guild boss asked my demon, who had reluctantly left his tween fan club of guild youth to join us as we walked to the cafe’s front door.

I jumped, my anxiety getting the best of me, when Jae reached across Finnegan to grasp my arm and an electric jolt buzzed through me—a share of my magic draining from me and into my demon. He smiled at me, baring sharp white teeth. “Issa.”

Asshole. I rubbed my arm. “That hurt.”

“Weak.” He rolled his scarlet eyes, then jerked his chin at the teens he’d left in the rear corner. “They are tougher. Any of the younglings could best you.”

I pressed my mouth into a grim line. “I invite you to reject the promise I made to you and bind with any of them instead. Feel free.” I waved, despite the ache in my arm where the demon had siphoned my magic from me again. “Is there an incantation or spell to release you to forge another bond? Because I’ll do it.”

Griffith glared at me. “Shut the fuck up.” Then he clapped his hands together and forced a rigid smile. “I have some responsibilities I can’t avoid here, but considering the danger, I’m bringing a security team of mages to you guys. We’ll take a circuitous route to shake anyone tailing us, but we shouldn’t be too late if we don’t drag our feet now. I don’t want to be up all night getting this done.”

“I’m ready.” Finnegan shrugged to settle his bulging backpack more firmly on his shoulder. “Not my first portaling rodeo. Let’s do it.”

With disconcerting glee, Skip eyed the protestors waving signs outside the glass door. “Cool.”

That Skip had portaled to Cumberland under the guidance of Anand occurred to me, and shortly thereafter, I realized I would be the only portal novice in our group. Jae had portaled through the nexus, after all, and Finnegan had been portaling with his mentor to fight wildfires for several years. I was the only newb.

Fantastic.

I reached forward to push open the door.

The moment I breached the seal of the door, the chants of the protesting Oureans rang out, loud and boisterous. “Whose mountain? Ourea’s mountain,” the group of cultists repeated in an angry burst, shoving their signs high when they spotted me, Skip, Finnegan, and my demon crowding the Towpath’s entrance.

“Go Back Where You Came From,” one sign declared. “Western Maryland is Full,” read another. I flinched when a belligerent protestor thrust a sign forward. It read, “Deport Migrant Imps.”

“Good Lord,” I said.

Griffith grunted. “Let’s leave that God out of this mess, shall we?” He pushed me outside and, with our arms linked, Finnegan and Skip along with me.

Once the cultists clapped eyes on my familiar, the volume of the chants rose. They stabbed their signs toward us like battle pikes. “Ourea’s mountain!”

“You would think,” Skip said on a mocking drawl, “that sincere supplicants to a God of the mountains would understand that Anand is Goddess of the earth—all the earth. And that mountains are part of that earth.” He turned to wink at me. “Greeks, though. What are you gonna do?”

Finnegan scowled at him over the roar of the chanting. “None of these people are Greek.”

“Their God is, though.” Skip sniffed in disdain.

I may have been cut off from the magical community for a decade, but my dad had never slacked in educating me in all matters magical before then, including deities associated with the major cleric cults. “Anand is an Irish goddess. Ninth century. Ourea is primordial Greek, sixth century BCE.” I side-eyed my familiar. “Ourea technically outranks her.”

Skip gasped. “Proto-Celtic,” he said, correcting me with a grimace. “The Mighty and Bountiful Anand’s earliest cult predates this mountain upstart—” He waved at the protestors. “—by many, many centuries.”

Griffith growled in frustration. “Argue the origin and evolution of cultic worship later. Daylight’s burning.” He jerked his stare to Jae. “Remember to grab your druid first.”

“Wait—” I said, my muscles tensing as though bracing against a blow, but my demon snatched my hand.

My ears popped. Every molecule of my body seemed to expand but also condense in less than a heartbeat. My pulse skyrocketed as the air left my lungs in a swift and painful whoosh. Panic overwhelmed me because I couldn’t catch my breath, couldn’t breathe —

I fell to my knees in the thick grass carpeting the lawn of my boyhood home and I sucked in oxygen as my ears popped again. “God damn it, Jae,” I said and, my heart hammering, I swore some more. As much as I could anyway, considering how much I struggled to convince my body to process breathable air, that I’d only been without oxygen for a stingy second.

“What?” My demon blinked at me. “We are in your safe place and you are alive.”

“Probably should have told you to hold your breath,” Skip said, snaking his arm out of my grip. “My bad.”

“Well. Now he knows.” When Finnegan released the arm he’d draped around my waist, I collapsed to the grass in an awkward tumble. Uncaring, the fire mage spy stalked to the steps leading up to the front porch. “Stop being a baby.” He let his backpack fall in a dull thunk to the porch floor, and bending, he unzipped a compartment to withdraw Teddy’s grimoire, which I’d hidden with Finnegan during the trek to the community center after judging him as the least likely to die.

He tossed the book to me, which I scrambled to catch, what with my difficulty in remembering how to breathe and all.

“C’mon, lazybones,” Finnegan said, nudging his glasses higher. “We have work to do.”

Much to Finnegan’s displeasure, I insisted on a shower and fresh, if ill-fitting, clothes from my dad’s dresser rather than spending one more minute in the blue jeans and T-shirt the Towpath had scrounged up for me. Those clothes were fine. Alchemic additions to the fabric were possible, even at such short notice, perhaps a protection spell or maybe a tracker, but I doubted that. The clothing didn’t feel different. They just weren’t mine.

My dad’s old clothes weren’t mine, either. They didn’t fit, though this time I’d stumbled over threadbare gray drawstring shorts and a tank that hugged my wider chest only a little. But what came from my father’s bureau drawers felt comfortable. Like home.

Irritating Finnegan was just a perk.

When I made my way downstairs, my short hair still damp from my shower, Finnegan bent over the coffee table while he arranged reference books he must have fetched from the crates in Teddy’s storage room off the kitchen, the grimoire resting at the center. I glanced at the barb that would wreck my newly healed thumb with trepidation. “Where’s Jae?” I asked, voice low, almost a whisper. The quiet unsettled me, the tick of Ma’s grandfather clock plucking my nerves after the cacophony of the community center run, testing, and the guild meeting.

“Out back.” Finnegan’s pensive glance darted toward the kitchen. “Tapping your power wasn’t enough. Portaling still drained your demon’s well of power dangerously low, so Skip is building another bonfire to rejuvenate him.”

I fidgeted at the foot of the stairs. “He can—”

“No. Stealing magic from you is too dangerous. We need you both at full-strength.” The mage spy lifted a silencing palm. “Nowhere is safe, including this place, no matter how strong your dad warded it. Now that you are officially a level-ten druid, we can’t afford to take chances.”

No one understood the risks more thoroughly than I did. Teddy’s magic hadn’t saved his life and his wards wouldn’t save mine, either. They’d bought us time. But that was all. The ticking of Ma’s clock needn’t warn me the hours my dead father’s sacrifice had purchased for me were running out. I knew. I just did not know what we would do once the secret bolt hole of my boyhood home was discovered. Not a single clue. Where we’d run to until the heat slacked off, how we’d reach it, what we’d have to give up to survive…None of that bore close contemplation so I marched to the coffee table and nudged my childhood action figures aside to grab Teddy’s grimoire.

Here, at least, was a legit shot at living another day. Dad’s magical array may not save me and Jae. Solving the puzzle of what power Teddy believed we’d need would push us one step closer to the freedom and security I’d never experienced in my whole life, though. Worth a try, anyway.

I lifted the book and saluted Finnegan with it. “I need Jae to continue working out Dad’s array.”

“I wanted to talk to you about that.” My former roomie frowned at the grimoire. He waved to a reference book he’d fetched from my dad’s storage room. “The array starts as a protection spell, very advanced, not your basic defensive ward at all, but the elements of the first layer are a call for refuge, for shelter.” Finnegan tapped his chin with his fingers. “I just don’t think protection or invulnerability is what this magic is ultimately meant to accomplish. It’s too complex. There’s more, so much more, that doesn’t fit that schema.”

“Teddy was no fan of complicated. He was capable of advanced spellwork, taught me a little of that before he died, but my dad wasn’t one to summon a fireball when a Bic would suffice.” Sighing, I anchored the bungee cord more firmly around the fat bunch of pages to hold the grimoire shut. Wouldn’t do to lose the samples Dad had crammed in there. “This doesn’t feel like his craft.” I shrugged at Finnegan’s skeptical sniff. “Parts of it do. The second layer? The double extraction tincture with a hint of kratom? Teddy had been perfecting that ever since I could remember.”

“I can’t imagine why he would’ve let you—a little kid—anywhere near that.” Finnegan scowled. “The kratom alone is extremely dangerous.”

“A little death potential never stopped Teddy.” I rolled my eyes. “But no, this was one of the rare projects he steered me clear of. I wasn’t allowed in the greenhouse whenever he worked with kratom. Effective painkiller when the practitioner manages dosage properly and the leaves give a stimulating effect that focuses our power…Whatever, not the point.” I chopped my free hand through the air. “The tincture in the second layer that includes pulverized kratom? That’s Teddy or someone very like him. No one except another powerful druid would’ve included that specific tincture because no one else could work with that combination of ingredients, not the way my dad did.” I nodded to the grimoire. “But other elements of that array are so far outside Teddy’s experience and skills set, they might as well be magicked into being by green moon men.”

“So Teddy borrowed pieces of his array from other magicals. Big deal.” Finnegan bit his lower lip. “We go to excessive lengths to collect the grimoires of long-dead level-ten magicals because most in the higher ranks of power try to build on the discoveries and acquired knowledge of the past.”

Maybe. “I don’t think my dad borrowed elements of historical magic,” I said. “I believe old magic borrowed Teddy.”

“Six of one, half dozen of another.”

I jerked my shoulder in a dismissive shrug. “Either way, I need Jae. I can’t decipher the grimoire longer than a few minutes without a blood bond between us disrupting the blood magic my dad sealed his grimoire with.”

“Your demon’s magic is too weak after portaling.” Finnegan frowned. “He needs fire to recharge.”

“Fine. I’ll work outside.” My demon could dangle an arm from the bonfire. We’d figure it out.

“Give me a sec to gather this up.” He waved to the books he’d spread on the coffee table. “I’ll meet you there.”

A nice person would’ve stopped to help my roomie gather up the stacks of books he’d laid out, but I was not a nice person. That at least some of those tomes held answers to mysteries contained inside my dad’s grimoire, I entertained no doubt. Teddy wouldn’t have hung onto the references if that weren’t true. Normally, stuffing them into crates in a junk room wouldn’t have been an indicator of value and importance, but we were talking about my father, the king of impulse and chaos. Finding a secret elixir of immortality jammed into one of those crates wouldn’t surprise me. The key to unlocking a strange and secret magical array? No problem.

But I also needed to see Jae, lay my eyes on him. My pulse skittered, a sense of danger and foreboding growing inside me. The stress of the day had worn me down and talking with Griffith’s Towpath spy about how safe none of us were hadn’t helped ease the burgeoning disquiet inside me. I needed my demon. Right now.

I headed to the door to the kitchen and was halfway across my mother’s temple to dated sunflower décor when I shivered—not because of the emotional blow of grief for my lost childhood, for once. Goosebumps pebbled my skin when I glanced at my forearm because the kitchen was cold.

Suddenly cold.

Unnaturally cold.

Still, my brain didn’t process the connections and interpret the phenomenon until my breath plumed in the dim space.

Oh shit.

“Jae,” I screamed in terrified warning, but it was too late, far too late.

Ma’s kitchen exploded into a ball of fire and a whirlwind of slivered wood shrapnel as I stumbled, the floor shuddering under my bare feet. A purple haze just above my skin popped around me, so only a few slicing shards of shattered cabinet, wall, and countertop found their mark to penetrate my body. I yelled again as the house rocked and I tumbled to the floor.

Another volley of fireballs slammed into my childhood home.

One corner of the kitchen ceiling sagged perilously when I pushed onto my hands and knees. I shook my head to clear the infernal ringing, my heart beating like a wild thing at a dump of adrenaline-fueled fear.

The enemies Finnegan believed I couldn’t count had found us.

But which enemy? Who?

Despite the blaze racing through the house, my breath still plumed with my every panted breath, the frigid cold making my grab to reclaim Teddy’s grimoire from the disintegrating and melting linoleum floor clumsy. Fire pointed to demons hunting us. The attack should have come from other demons. They were closest.

Clara and Menolac notwithstanding, demons didn’t mess with ice magic, though. The cold would kill them just as fast as it would end my Jae.

Fuck, I had to get up.

Trembling, belly flipping, I climbed to my feet despite the shocks and shudders of the house. I lurched to the door and called behind me, “Finnegan!” He was a lousy mage, but fire was his element. Even with the purple haze of protection surrounding me, my roomie would be better protected against any attack involving fire. Plus, he was smarter than I was—he’d know what to do.

Shouts rang out from the direction of the living room, but I couldn’t make out the words My hearing had dulled, maybe my eardrums bursting? At least I knew Finnegan was still alive and fighting.

Terror chewing me with razored teeth, I streaked out the kitchen door like my ass was on fire…which after the conflagration tearing through my boyhood home, who knows, maybe I legit was on fire. I tripped down the back porch steps and rolled across the yard. Grass tipped with incongruous frost crunched beneath me.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Smoke billowed over the backyard, from the house fire or something else I couldn’t see yet. I grabbed the grimoire, which I’d lost again in my awkward tumble, and I leaped to my feet. “Jae!” I screamed again, but it was Skip who emerged from the gray, choking smoke that tasted of sulfur and malevolence.

“Come on,” he said with a shriek while grabbing my biceps. “You need to melt the ice.”

He dragged me toward the firepit across the dying detritus of my mother’s old garden, his hard grip keeping me upright when I would’ve stumbled. The gusting swirl of another fireball blast behind us cleared the thick smoke, though only for a moment.

Oh, dear God.

Next to the firepit, Jae crouched, frozen inside in a glittering cocoon of ice.

My heart stopped.

Concentrate. Summon a tropical biome. My trapped demon whispered into my mind, faint, his strength flagging. Cold could kill him. I knew that, but this? Jae couldn’t move, the ice too thick and formed too closely around him to allow him to blink. Already drained from portaling, that he wasn’t dead or unconscious was a miracle. Draw the power to grow whatever most needs the heat of the sun.

Swimming up from my fear and panic, I heeded my demon. I closed my eyes to focus and brought into my mind the inventory of seeds and bulbs my father and I had sunk into the soil of our homeplace what felt like a thousand years ago—our fiercest and final defense should the worst shatter his wards to attack us. We’d preloaded this patch of earth with everything, from the monkshood that would poison shapeshifters to ivy that could choke the life from the fiercest mountain troll. So many plants to choose from, too many. I didn’t know who had launched this assault, but Jae was right. I didn’t need to know who, not yet. I needed to free my demon from his glaze of icy death.

Overtaxed as I was from drawing magic that day, I concentrated the half-measures of power available to me and called the simple wild hazel to sprout. Under my toes, curled to dig into the shuddering earth of my backyard, the seeds answered me while above, the smoky air heated to welcome the seedlings below. Next to me, Skip snatched my hand, his fingers curving into mine, and my senses lurched as his energy, full to the top and brimming over, boosted my magic for the first time.

Amid the screams and shouts and thudding blasts of whatever attacked the house, the haze cleared around Jae.

The ice dripped. Inside the deadly cocoon, his jaw flexed.

Now he could speak. Couldn’t reach for any of the sigils etched on his skin to bring forth his own magic, not yet. But soon.

Around us, thin twigs shot up from the dirt. My shrubs reached up to grow and mature as fast as my familiar-boosted power could hasten them. Shiny new leaves unfurled in an explosion of color, the nutty scent overwhelming the stench of smoke in my nostrils.

“More heat,” Skip said in an encouraging murmur. “Set him free.”

I shook, sensing a dome of frigid cold pushing against the tropical climate I’d created. Sweat trickled down my temple and slicked my armpits. The ice encasing Jae cracked under the desperate clacking of his claws. It finally shattered, loosing one of his hands, but my nipples under the flimsy tank top pebbled, a brief burst of arctic wind slamming through the humid paradise my magic had built around the three of us. I cringed as, overhead, the ear-splitting cry of an attacking demon pierced the dull thud of my damaged hearing.

The hunters bent on killing us had arrived. Why wouldn’t they? The ice magic drawn up to neutralize Jae by whatever enemies attacked us could hurt the other demons too, but none of them would pass up an opportunity to end Jae while he was weak.

My demon was no sacrificial lamb, though. He busted through the ice to free his arm and, with my tropical temperatures holding, he beat through the rest of the melting ice that had trapped him.

“Get down,” Jae shouted as a piercing whistle zipped closer, another volley of fireballs passing less than a yard over our heads.

Skip shoved me to the dirt and my breath left my lungs in a painful grunt when he landed atop me. The purple haze of power around me thinned but also expanded to include my familiar, which was fortunate.

Because Dad’s greenhouse exploded.