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“Chimere said it was a descendant,” Len says.

“She could have interpreted the vision wrong.” If Chimere’s powers work like Sera’s, maybe she didn’t have the full picture.

“What town is your little witch from, Nix?” Hynde asks, making my blood run cold.

“I don’t know.” I place a foot against the edge of the coffee table and lean back in my chair.

Lennox’s phone chimes where it sits on the coffee table. We all stay silent as he checks it, his brow furrowed as his eyes fly across the screen.

“That’s a contact of mine with another list of places to check out,” Lennox says, shoving the phone in his back pocket. “Hynde, we’ll go.”

“Why me?”

“You want to find the witch, right?” Len challenges. “Jett will watch the record store. Nix will stay on the sisters.”

“Maybe I should watch the sisters and Nix should go with you,” Hynde says.

“You’re with me.” Finality is pushed into the air with Lennox’s command. We may be a team, a family, but Lennox is still the leader of our group.

“Fine.” Hynde snatches his leather jacket off the back of the couch. I don’t look him in the eye, my focus locked on the demon symbol inked on the back of his hand.

I want this over just as much as he does. After I left Sera’s bed early this morning, I was more determined for answers too, but in a different way to my brothers. I wrote down everything I’d learnt about the curse since coming to the human realm. The one conclusion I kept coming back to is that somehow my witch’s bloodline is the answer. She’s the one we’ve been looking for.

I can’t tell my brothers. Not yet.

Hynde wouldn’t hesitate to drag either Sera or Sloane to Hell and force them to remove Catori’s curse, and Lennox would feel obligated to fulfill his duty even if he knows I’ll hurt over it.

He knows me almost as well as I know myself. I can’t deny it. I have grown attached to the witch. She doesn’t know why I’m really in the human realm. It’s not because we’re reformed demons, embarking on a more moral path in our afterlife. We’re here to betray one of her kin, to trick them into thinking they’re helping to destroy a greater force. The betrayal to Sera feels worse than going against Catori somehow.

Should I tell her the truth?

What about my loyalty to my brothers?

I can’t lose them, but I’m not sure I can handle any harm befalling Sera either.

I can only hope I’m wrong about her bloodline, and that she really is here for something else, cos at the end of the day I may have to choose: my loyalty to my warden or my witch.

16

The cool earth settles against my back as I stare up at the moon.

After Hynde and Lennox left, I went down to the record store with Jett. I didn’t want to be alone. I couldn’t. I needed to be around my brother, not further confused by thoughts of my witch. Jett’s the youngest of the four of us. Since the day he joined Catori’s ranks, he’s never appeared to struggle with his new life as a demon, if anything he just felt content to know he belonged somewhere. He didn’t care what he was doing.

A few customers came into the store throughout the day, many of them seeming familiar with Jett. He made it look so easy to blend in with the humans.

I don’t know why Hynde has such a problem with it. There’s no hard rule on how much time demons are allowed to spend in the human realm; most of us just prefer Hell. If you’re born a demon, you have no warden. If your souls are traded or snatched in death, that’s when you’re bound to serve—like me.

This isn’t the first time I’ve questioned my duty, not even close. But it is the first time I’ve seriously considered abandoning my loyalty. Is this something all demons experience? Or is there something wrong with me? That’s the constant thought spinning in my mind as I lay in the middle of the park and beg the stars to give me an answer.

“Nix?” My eyebrows pinch when I hear Sera call my name. Lifting my head from the ground, I turn and find her standing at the edge of the grassed area.

Her hands are tucked into the pockets of a burgundy jacket. Large, black roses are stitched into the wool. Her shoulders are hunched in, and her dark eyebrows are pinched together. She looks so small and defeated. It’s concerning when I’m used to seeing such a resolute woman.

“What’s wrong?” I scramble to my feet, closing the distance between us.

My hands cup her cheeks, and I gently tilt her chin up until her green and gold eyes meet mine. They shine under the moonlight, looking tortured and pleading.

“I had a fight with—”