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Yves’s summoning coin and The Devouring medallion.

By Damien, I had nearly begun a charging ritual with two magickal conductors on my body. Either one could have drawn the current away from me.

A novice mistake.

I gave her a half-hearted smile and said, “Thanks, Mama.”

Once I placed the coin and medallion beyond the golden inlay, I rested my hand against the relics locked inside my bodice to settle them. They were vibrating violently inside the sealed pocket. When I looked back up at Mama, she was still watching me. It was strange. She almost looked like I remembered her. Not the woman who had broken our coven’s tie to the Blood Treaty, or the ghost who I’d chased across the continent. But like my mother.

I hated her, and yet, deep down, I desperately wanted to love her. I wanted to believe she could change, for me. For our relationship. But I was far from ready to forgive her tonight. I had more questions to ask before she earned her way back into my good graces. I needed to know if she had sent Hartley, and I would not give up my only opportunity to confront him because she had once again appeared where she didn’t belong.

I lowered myself onto the cold marble floor and drew in a slow breath to calm my heart.

“This circle is open,” I declared. Side-eyeing my mother, I added, “Let none enter without my invitation.”

The golden inlay glowed, and the candle flames jumped. Now that my circle was open, I was separated from everything else, including my mother, who floated just beyond the gold line. The world fell silent. I no longer heard the wind moving through the live oaks or the muted blows of Yves’s hands against the privacy ward.

However, Mama didn’t leave. Unease made my shoulders tight, and I squeezed my hands into fists.

Mama held out hers, palms open.

I nearly laughed out of sheer frustration. She must’ve repeated that same gesture a million times when teaching me to charge my magick. As a girl, I’d been so eager to do anything right that I kept closing my fists, trying to drag the magick inside my body as fast as possible.

“Stop pulling it in,” she had reprimanded, smacking my wrist. “Let the magick come to you.”

Now, I exhaled, opened my hands, and continued.

“Damien, God of the Underworld, Father of the Dark, I ask for your protection. Lift my voice so it can be heard even in the belly of the Underworld!”

I invoked the power beneath the earth and inside my relics, calling forth a current of demonic magick.

“Let the power within these relics fill what has been depleted in me. Let its energy pass into my blood, but let no ill will travel with it.”

I'd added the last part so Dominique or the others wouldn't get any ideas.

Demonic energy spread from the relics up my throat, across my shoulders, into my hands. Heat shot through my veins. After being deprived of magick for so long, my body drank it in quickly, welcoming it back like an old friend.

Drawing power from the relics was only the first part of a complete recharging. The second was sealing it inside my blood by tapping into my desire.

I closed my eyes and reached for what I wanted most in the world. Scenes flitted behind my eyes. I wanted my magick back. I wanted a little house on the coast where I could become a figure of local gossip. I wanted Della safe. I wanted to find Hartley. And then I wanted to be left alone.

A torrent of magick whipped inside me, like heavy waves against those ships that were dragged to the bottom of Widow’s Reach. None of those desires were deep enough to restore what had been depleted.

My hands clenched into fists once again.

Every instinct told me to hold on to the safer answers I had already offered. I didn’t want to look beneath them because I was afraid of what I might find. More than that, I was afraid that discovering the deepest desire of my heart might rip it into pieces.

Fear rose, and panic followed. The harder I tried to force it, the harder the magick pulled away, retreating inside the relics. If I let it, I’d be left with nothing.

Hesitantly, I relaxed my hands and forced myself deeper and deeper into my heart, like a ship sinking beneath the water, until I reached the desire buried below everything I was willing to admit. And at the very bottom, I saw Adrien sitting behind his telescope with his balcony lantern burning beside him, waiting for Della to return wearing Yves’s ribbon because his father had promised him she would.

Then I saw Yves on the other side of the iron gate. He stood between me and every threat as though nothing in this world could reach me without first passing through him.

My throat closed.

I told myself I agreed to his bargain only because I needed protection. I had told myself my position was temporary. Adrien was merely a child who required my help. Being kind to him was what any good-hearted person would do. And whatever existed between Yves and me would end the moment our agreement did.

But those were lies.