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I should’ve yelped in terror. Any sane person would have shot to his feet and demanded a speedy evacuation to anywhere else. The community center council would have circled the nexus with guardians to watch over this plot of ground by now, at least until mages and sorcerers from the state or national arrived to assess what had happened here. Why had Jae portaled through a dormant nexus? Was the veil between his world and ours thinning? Was the nexus awakening?

Other magicals would come too, hike across these woods and explore the crags and peaks of the mountain for only the hope of accessing the power flowing into me. I’d bet twenty bucks that members of the Brass Hats, the guild packed with academics operating in Frostburg, had already fielded a team to research this stretch of woods, maybe set up a range of magical experiments to compare with an identical control group in the vast library the Brass Hats had claimed as its headquarters.

The demons who hunted Jae and I both no doubt also visited this place to boost their own powers for their manhunt.

The whole lot of them would search for me. At least one of them had murdered my dad and wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to kill me if they could. I was positive of that, especially if rumors that I’d found Teddy’s grimoire had leaked. The mercenaries my dad’s kin had sent to end me and destroy our home wouldn’t give up, either.

Jae had delivered us into the hands of all our enemies by portaling us to the nexus.

But the energies here would’ve squelched attempts to detect or interfere with our jump. No one could or would follow us. I also liked the soft hum of magic tethering me to this patch of earth and to my demon. Druids cherished the interconnectedness of life that nature represented. Teddy had treasured it and taught me to prize it as dearly as he had. That Jae had joined me in that circle warmed the frozen spaces inside me. Replete and content, I smiled at the caress of his claw tracing my palm. “The nexus isn’t dormant anymore.”

“Ne.” The corners of his mouth bowed. “I cracked the door when I portaled to you, but the way has not fully opened yet.”

Pleased the magic fueling his translation sigil had recharged enough to improve his communication skills, I sighed. “Feels open to me.”

“That’s only because you’ve never experienced an active nexus before, only this one, which slumbers.” Skip continued to jab at his campfire, adding thicker sticks and tree branches he dragged up from the surrounding brambles. “Power focuses in these places. You sense only a sample of that now. When this nexus fully awakens, the intensity will stupefy you. Also, wherever the veil between worlds thins, beings can sometimes stumble through.” He shot me a wry grin. “Not just your demon. Portaling demons are rare, but other creatures from the daemonica realm can occasionally become lost, if only briefly. Birds, insects, lizards. Plant life from his world will creep into ours.”

Subtle alarm shivered through me at the notion of invasive species overtaking my mountains, but that had never happened at any other nexus. I’d know. “The nexus’s power must contain them.”

My demon nodded, silent, staring.

“None of the life forms so foreign to us and our world can survive detached from the source of magic that fuels each nexus.” Skip jerked his chin at my demon. “Just him and other demons like him. And they don’t last long without binding a magical partner. The simple fact is, without you and your magic to sustain him, he’d die, too. Same as any other life form crashing through the veil.”

I frowned because I was nothing special. A powerful druid, you bet, but as the Maces from Chicago proved, those of us who could draw the fiercest and most intense natural magic were many. As thoroughly as my dad had trained me as a kid, I’d barely tapped the potential of what my druid powers could do, and my magic had only begun to grow. If Jae hadn’t discovered me near the sleepy nexus bordering the botanical garden, he would’ve found another magical. A better magical. Since this was Frostburg, a sorcerer. The Brass Hats boasted most of western Maryland’s contingent of sorcerers in their membership, all powerful in their own rights.

“Ne. Even so close to death, I would have exacted a binding promise from no other,” Jae said, arching his spine to stretch, which showed off a disconcertingly delicious span of taut muscle. “It could have only been you.”

“Get out of my head,” I said, but the words lacked resentment this time. The heat of my doubts and fears fled at his reassurance and whether I understood didn’t matter. Mistake or not, he’d chosen me. That was enough. For him , I was enough. The tricky question was, was Jae enough for me?

I’d tried my best to not imagine binding my demon or truly opening to the connection building between us. He hadn’t sealed the magic by giving me his oath. He could yet sever the link my flimsy promise to him in the Grove had forged between us. That was still possible. I’d even hoped he’d leave once he recovered and grew strong. Over the weekend, when Jae had ranged far and explored at night, I’d both quaked in fear and celebrated. Since he refused to give me his promise to complete the spell, he might’ve ended the binding magic to portal back to the daemonica realm. That could have succeeded—if triggering the blood magic to unseal Teddy’s grimoire by slicing my thumb hadn’t compelled him to return to my side to render me aid.

He’d almost left me.

Perversely, because my demon had nearly fulfilled our singular wish to part ways, shatter the binding so he could return home, I’d trusted him less. At the same time, I’d clung more fiercely. If only inside my head, Jae wasn’t the demon anymore, not after I’d almost lost him. He’d become my demon. Mine. All mine. True, he’d abandoned me—everyone did—and with a little more determination and grit, he could try again. In the darkest and most secret corners of my heart, though, Jae belonged to and with me. I hadn’t wanted to see that. But I knew.

I didn’t want him to go. I never wanted him to leave my side again. This time, I needed someone—him—to stay.

Startled, I stiffened when Skip clapped his hands. “All right. You’ve both had a teeny tiny break to soak up this place’s energies, you magical sponges. Feeling better now?”

Oddly, he wasn’t wrong. My demon stared at me now with vibrant red eyes and I sensed the thundering power in him like a steady vibration, a hum under my skin. Instead of unsettling or irritating me, the vibe Jae fed into me through whatever bizarre magic linked us together comforted me. I’d strengthened him. Me. Mundane masquerader and squelcher of all impulses magical, the guy who hadn’t focused a single iota of power since before I’d grown hair on my chest or realized what my dick was for. I had restored and recharged a demon drained almost entirely of his power and of his physical strength.

But Jae had also rejuvenated me. The loop of power flowing into him and back to me hadn’t only filled the well of my power and returned vigor to my exhausted body. I felt like I could do more, be more than I ever had, as though with my demon at my side, we could accomplish anything together.

Is this what binding a demon would be like? This demon? If Jae and I nurtured and built this connection between us to full maturity?

“Issa,” he said and my pulse skipped at the warm satisfaction in his voice

I stared at him, my heart full, the power of our shared magic almost drugging me in a haze of wonder and bliss.

If Jae and I stopped pushing and picking at each other, maybe, just maybe, keeping my demon instead of driving him off, might be…okay.

He chuckled, the sharp tip of one claw tapping my open palm. “Still so very stupid, though.”

Because his snarl lacked his usual disdain, I laughed with him. “You aren’t as badass as you think you are.”

“Bad enough. I hope so, anyway.” Skip stalked the stingy paces from the now crackling campfire to hover above Jae and me sprawled in the dirt. “In the meantime, work.” He snapped his fingers. “Honeymoon later. Lots to do.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Let’s see what Finnegan packed for us in his bag of tricks.”

Turned out, my spying ex-roomie had stuffed his backpack to the point of bursting with so much random shit, my eyes bugged out of my head when I swept my stare over the assortment once we spread his loot across the ground to assess what resources we had to work with. He’d packed a clean long-sleeved T-shirt, priceless because temperatures dropped after the sun set—our abnormal streak of brutal heat so late in fall breaking. I jerked the dry shirt over my head while Skip draped my damp and discarded tank over jutting twigs of scrub brush nearby to hasten drying.

Finnegan had packed socks, too. I could almost understand that. My spying roommate was a hiker like me. He’d enjoyed exploring nature and the untamed woodlands surrounding the city had called to him often. Most who disappeared into the mountains for prolonged treks learned the wisdom of stowing extra socks in their packs.

But he’d also included hiking boots.

My size. Not his.

Add to that a bottle of liquor as big as Jae’s muscular thigh. Finnegan wasn’t much of a drinker. With Ma’s history of alcoholism, I wouldn’t have been able to handle the binge-drinking parties that were the norm among my fellow students, so when I’d searched for roomies to share a house with, I’d paid attention. Skip liked his cannibus . But when I’d looked at the room available in the decrepit house across the bridge in West Virginia, I’d peeked into their shared fridge first thing, before I’d clapped eyes on the room in which I would’ve slept. The refrigerator had contained no beer. No stray bottles of vodka or rotgut whiskey had littered the counters and tables, no liquor stash under the kitchen sink. No collection of empty White Claw cans heaped in the trash, either. No hard lemonades or seltzers.

I’d happily signed on the dotted line to add my name to the lease, confident that hard-partying roommates wouldn’t trigger flashbacks of my teens with my alcoholic mother.

The vat of Everclear that Finnegan had stuffed into his pack wasn’t the choice most would make for casual drinking, but the cane alcohol provided a versatile base for a wide variety of tinctures. Teddy had drafted my aid in brewing many potions, elixirs, and extracts when I was a boy. He’d catered alcohol bases to specific tinctures to enhance each’s magical properties. I’d learned that gin, for instance, contained juniper berries which boosted any blend or brew to ease digestive problems. My dad kept a large inventory of high-proof alcohols and vinegars to craft tinctures to be most effective, but nothing had beaten Everclear for flexibility and ease of use. That the highest proof was illegal to sell in the tri-state hadn’t mattered to Teddy. His regular road trips to Ohio to restock his supplies had been more than worth it.

Finnegan wouldn’t have obtained this standby of tincture-making easily.

The mortar and pestle Skip had extracted from Finnegan’s pack had gone a long way in explaining how the bag got so heavy, but made zero sense otherwise, nor the delicate amber bottles swaddled in a cocoon of bubble wrap. As soon as we unearthed the solar charger, Skip snatched Griffith’s smartphone from my pocket and plugged it in, despite the sun having set an hour ago. “The battery might be full.”

And, astonishingly, it was.

Finnegan had also packed a tin melting pot, a bag of wax flakes, several wicks, and a candle form in the shape to create tapers. Twine and masking tape. A roll of bills held in a tight cylinder with a rubber band that Skip counted out—more than the fortune I paid every month for my rent.

“But he couldn’t have known.” Numb, I stared in bewilderment at the treasure Finnegan had carried in that damn backpack. “He couldn’t have guessed we’d need any of this.”

“Finnegan’s a little precog. Weaker than your dad was, though.” Shrugging, Skip tossed a bag of jerky to Jae, who tore it open and stuffed strips of dried meat into his mouth. “He’s a little of lots of things.”

My eyes rounded on Skip because… ”What?”

“You humans and your silly fondness for labels.” My familiar scowled my way. “Your council shoved him into fire magic because, of all the powers at Finnegan’s fingertips, his affinity with the fire element is legitimately his strongest.”

“But he’s a shitty fire mage,” I woodenly objected. “Weak as a newborn kitten.”

“He is.” Skip nodded. “He’s also a slightly worse earth mage, a witch, sorcerer, and I wouldn’t leave any dead animals in his vicinity for long. Let’s just say that.” Skip grinned his wicked delight. “If Finnegan is a kitten, he comes equipped with lethally sharp claws. No one better to have at your back in a fight. None of his powers are strong, but his adaptability in a fight can’t be matched.”

“Do not worry about the traitor. He is a worthy adversary and already his magic quickens his healing.” Jae grunted his agreement. “The traitor is also not stupid.”

“Stop calling him that.”

My demon frowned at me. “You believe him stupid?”

“Seventeen years old or not, Finnegan is the cleverest mage I know.” I huffed out a frustrated breath. “You’re being deliberately obtuse. You know I meant to stop calling him a traitor,” I said, then stiffened in surprise at my leap to Finnegan’s defense. He’d lied to me and spied on me for Griffith and the Towpath for years. Was that not betrayal enough? The severity of his burns when my house had exploded still brought bile to the back of my throat, though. I didn’t trust Finnegan. I wasn’t sure I liked him, the persona he’d presented to me the whole time I’d believed I knew him as fake as my testing results that morning. Threads of the genuine Finnegan had slipped through the guise crafted to lull me into complacency, just as testing had revealed the pieces of my power I’d allowed through my own lying bullshit. But yeah, I didn’t know him, not the real Finnegan under the mask he’d worn.

I didn’t want him to die, though. Nor, deep down, did my instincts recognize Finnegan as my enemy. I had so many of those that finding a friend or at least a peer who wouldn’t knife me? That was valuable. Maybe priceless.

“He isn’t a traitor,” I said, shifting awkwardly on my feet when my demon scowled at me. “It’s complicated.”

“What isn’t?” Skip trilled a delighted laugh. “Never mind. You,” he said to Jae, waving to the tangle of old growth forest around us, “go hunt. You need fresh meat.” Skip waggled his fingers between me and him. “While you’re busy, we’ll set up our supplies to prepare for activating your dad’s array.”

My stomach flipped. “Won’t I need him to help me decode the grimoire?”

“Later.” Skip surveyed our collection of supplies. “First, we identify where Finnegan’s formidable precog glimpses fell short and what plants and ingredients we’ll need to forage.” He bit his lip in thought. “Actually, that may not have been a lack in his precog abilities.” He studied me with eyes that twinkled. “The tinctures for the array will be more intimately linked to you and your magic if yours is the guiding hand in their creation. The power in the combined magic will be greater.”

Since I couldn’t argue with that logic, I shrugged and leaned forward to help sort Finnegan’s stuff. I nudged the equipment for candle-making in one pile and the crap for making tinctures in another. “Finnegan will be okay? You and Jae aren’t feeding me more lies to prevent me from losing my shit,” I grudgingly asked. I had to know, and that I didn’t trust either of them with the truth was irrelevant.

“Finnegan was never okay.”

I frowned. “But I thought you didn’t like him?”

“Until I saw him and his dad together, I didn’t. Not the senator, his true spiritual father.” Skip hummed under his breath. “He’s a lot more like you than I realized. You both lost your families young. Your dad died, but at least you knew he loved you. Finnegan’s stepdad—the father who raised him—rejected him. Sent him away. His mom, too. He sought his biological father, yes, but still can’t trust him. You have that in common, a bedrock of wary suspicion you both built on past betrayals.” Skip sighed. “But also, like you, he survives. That talent numbers among his many powers.” His eyes sparkled with mischief. “Better at it than you are, too.”

I retrieved the bottle of kratom elixir from my pocket, adding it to the pile of tincture supplies. “I’m here. Still breathing.”

“Not without the demon, you wouldn’t be. Not without me. Or Griffith, Finnegan, the new alliance you struck with Clara and Menolac. Your gift lies in drawing friends and loved ones to you. The mere idea of you seduced a goddess.” Skip smirked at me. “Finnegan survives alone.” His smile faded. “He may or may not be the worst fire mage ever, but he is definitely the loneliest.”

I jutted a stubborn chin. “He has Griffith.”

Skip cocked his head at a curious angle. “Do you?”

I scowled, but…fair point. As my godfather, the guild boss had loved and protected me my whole life, but did I trust him? No. As much as he cared for me, I recognized that his responsibilities to the guild would always come first for Griffith. Finnegan, on the other hand, had dumped off the C&O Canal Towpath from Arlington after his birth family had rejected him…how many years ago? Three? To his credit, he trusted in Griffith less than I did, which was saying something.

Maybe Finnegan and I shared more similarities than I was comfortable acknowledging.

“C’mon,” I said, pushing to my feet. I didn’t want to think about the tragedy that was my lying, traitorous friend too long, so I swept the dark woods around us with an assessing glance, identifying some plant species by firelight. “I don’t remember all the fine details of Teddy’s array, but I know some ingredients we’ll need for the second layer.”

“I can see clearly at night.” Skip handed the heavy barrel of a flashlight to me. “You’ll need this.”

By the time Jae returned to our camp, belly full from whatever game he’d feasted upon, Skip and I had foraged garlic, wild marjoram, and a magical must have once called this nexus home because we discovered rosemary struggling to survive in a stingy and overgrown garden plot next to a decaying shanty. The last of our finds should have withered and died during our harsh western highland winters. The botany student I’d been recalled hardiness zones and the difficulty of growing rosemary in herb gardens in the suburbs, but the magical in me acknowledged the power saturating the nexus while I harvested woody sprigs of fragrant leaves. The lean-to cabin hadn’t survived that long-ago magical’s abandonment. The rosemary somehow had.

Had to be the latent power of the nexus.

His hunger satisfied, Jae plopped to the ground near our campfire and jammed his feet into the flames while Skip and I sorted the gifts of nature’s bounty we’d discovered. I didn’t resent the relief that pulsed through me to see my demon sound, whole, and uninjured by his hunt far from my sight, though the link binding us had reassured me he was well. Maybe it was the nascence of our bound, but I couldn’t quite settle when he wandered from my side.

“You can begin two of the tinctures by muddling the oregano and rosemary. We’ll find more fresh leaves to add to the bottles at daylight, but starting the process as soon as possible is vital.” With an unhappy sigh, Skip gazed at the bunches of plants we’d selected in the dark.

I would’ve preferred a shallow bowl to pick over the harvest for the most perfect and unblemished leaves. I longed for Teddy’s efficient worktables as never before, but the tools I had to work with would have to do. Stripping oval leaves from the rosemary’s stems, I let them tumble from my fingers into the well of the mortar. “The power of this place.” I shivered, in part from the encroaching chill. With the heat wave over, the mountains grew cold overnight in the fall and Finnegan hadn’t packed a tent. We wouldn’t freeze. But sharing body heat would make our rest more comfortable.

The drop in temperatures wasn’t the only cause of my tremble, though. Magic, too, trilled over my skin. “Tinctures usually take months to steep. The longer the base absorbs the energies of the ingredients, the stronger and more effective the tincture becomes, but here?”

“If you pack the bottles tonight, the elixirs will mature in a day, two at most.” Skip shook his head. “The only reason you won’t be able to activate the second layer of the array immediately is the crystals in the first layer need to charge first.”

“Second layer includes moon water.” I grabbed the pestle in my fingers and bore down inside the mortar, grinding the rosemary to release its essence. “Full moon isn’t until tomorrow.”

“Perfect.” Skip flashed a pleased smile while he used thick sections of branches we’d discovered to place the melting pot above the fire. Wax flakes mounded inside, waiting to take the daisy petals I’d already plucked from stems we’d been blessed to discover so late in the growing season. “The crystals will have absorbed an enormous amount of nexus magic by then and since the first layer draws protective energies, I can’t say I’m disappointed we’ll have to wait to continue activating this array.”

“But we still don’t understand what the array does.” I wrinkled my nose, despite my gratification at the wet glistening in the mortar, signaling that the rosemary had released its oils. “I’m putting my faith in Teddy, but building and activating an array whose magical purpose we don’t fully understand…” I shuddered.

“We must search for the totems,” Jae said with a grunt. “Dragon scale. Sliver of heartwood. The hellhound’s claw and bone of the betrayer.” Grinning, he pointed to his hair curling at his temple. “At least one totem is within our grasp.”

“Hair of a First Blood demon.” Skip chuckled. “This is that tribe’s nexus, after all.”

I scowled at my demon. “How did you know that? About the totems.”

Jae rolled his eyes, then swept Teddy’s grimoire with a disgusted glance. “Your sire’s blood magic demands my blood to unseal the book for you and the traitor acted as your scribe while you translated what you read.” He waved a negligent hand. “Did you believe I had no ears to listen?”

I snorted, recalling the hours I’d bent over the pages of Teddy’s grimoire, my hand clasped with my demon’s while I worked. “You looked like you were napping, honestly.”

“Stupid.” Jae chuffed. “So stupid.”

“Look who’s talking.” I grinned at him because affection rather than condemnation riddled our words. “I wasn’t the one dumb enough to demand a binding promise from me, of all magicals.”

“You were dumb enough to give me that promise, though.”

We both chuckled.

“Yes. Very cute. The daisies, please.” Skip stretched out his hand as he stirred the melting wax with a foraged twig.

I mounded the petals in his palm, wincing when he dumped the flower parts into the melting pot. Daisies were common in the mountains and sacrificing these few to form the first candle required for the third layer of Tedd’s array was no burden to that species. All the flora was no trial or challenge to obtain, not to me or to my familiar. The herbs, flowers, and trees grew abundantly in these mountains, native and rich in splendor. My druid heart no less wept at the lack of appreciation and respect Skip afforded to nature, shocking in an imp serving a goddess of the earth. So, as Skip braced the taper candle form and confirmed he’d anchored the wick to take the daisy-speckled wax, I closed my eyes and summoned the chant of thanksgiving my father had taught me, as his father—murderous as the man was—had taught him.

“Blessed be the fruit of the earth.

Grateful are the hearts who receive them.

Generous are the gifts of this spirit.

Joined in life and death are thankful men.”

Jae shivered as the power I’d called upon wrapped around us.

“That’s beautiful, David.” Skip curved one corner of his mouth as he worked. “Sexist. But beautiful.”

“What?” I glared at him. “I’m a man.” I jabbed my thumb into my chest and then waved to Skip and Jae. “You are both males and that is the form of the prayer for men. Female druids use the same plea of thanksgiving. They just change the last word.”

Skip ripped his attention from pouring the wax to furrow his brow at me. “Why do you say I am male?”

My eyes widened. I gestured at my very male familiar. “You have—I mean, the gender the goddess assigned to you when she transfigured you—” Desperate and beseeching, I stared at Jae. “Help.”

“Imps are free of gender designations. Anand made his human body male only for your comfort, because you would accept a man in your company more than a woman.” Jae snickered. “In this, you are on your own.”

I stared, slack-jawed, at Skip. “Your goddess made you a dude because I’m gay?”

“I suspect the Goddess chose the male form for me more because of your mommy issues than your sexual orientation.” Skip sniffed. “Human biology generally demands one gender or the other and males are what you prefer.”

“But before the goddess transfigured you into your human form, you were…” I scraped the stingy knowledge I’d learned as a small child from the deepest corners of my memory. “…both? You preferred neither male, nor female?”

Skip shrugged, then pinned me with a steely stare. “What I prefer is you scraping that ground rosemary into a bottle so our first tincture can begin steeping.”

I jumped at the unsubtle bite in his tone and did as he suggested. Then I broke the seal to the bottle of Everclear so I could fill the first amber bottle to the bottom edge of the thinning neck. “You can be a woman, Skip. If you want, if that’s what you prefer. I won’t freak, I swear.”

My familiar sighed, shoulders drooping. He shared an amused glance with my demon. “He really isn’t bright, is he?”

Jae shook his head. “A slow learner still learns.”

Skip smiled. “Blessed be.”