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Sarah smiled at her best friend. "Next time, don't save the best for last."

"You said it, I get my kicks from torturing you,” Amelia teased. “We will be one step closer to stopping him after tonight.”

“I can’t wait for Lucifer to lose every drop he's been pulling to stay standing while he plays chess with half of New Orleans." Sarah’s smile vanished. "That also means he’ll know exactly what's coming if we pull this off." Sarah felt the whole fight rearrange itself in her head.

"We need to get this done before he’s able to stop us," Elise interjected. “That turns this into a rush."

"He's already desperate. That’ll get worse," Zander pointed out. "That’ll make tonight the worst fight we've had since he clawed his way topside. If we do this right, we will deal the devil a blow that could cripple him."

Sarah got to her feet and grabbed the journal. The Tellstone's weight was already weighing on her, though the relic itself sat in a cloth upstairs. "We need to stop refining the plan and go get ready to execute." She looked around the room at everyone.

Abraxos nodded. "We've got Titans to lock away, a devil to cripple, and a mating ceremony to plan."

"I'll drink to that," Izzy cheered as she began rolling the parchment up.

Sarah stepped close enough to Abraxos for her shoulder to brush his. The bond between them settled into something that felt less like a door now and more like ground under her feet. Whatever waited in Angel's Alley tonight, whatever it cost either of them to close that fault for good, he'd be standing in the center of it with her. She was going to draw every line of that circle as if her life, his, and the whole city depended on it. Because it did.

CHAPTER 19

SARAH

The library had emptied out fast once things had been decided. Everyone scattered to check gear and steal a few minutes before the battle in Angel's Alley. The long table sat abandoned now. It was littered with books, notes, maps, and empty mugs. The ghosts of everyone's nerves were still hanging in the air like smoke that hadn't found its way out. Sarah stood in the middle of all that quiet, feeling the room's size now that it wasn't crowded with the people she loved.

Abraxos hadn't left with the rest of them. He'd pulled two chairs close to the hearth and taught her how to pronounce Enochian, so she got the chant right later. "Enochian doesn't forgive a soft consonant," he had instructed her. "Say it like you mean to tear something open."

"I am trying to tear something open." Sarah had huffed before she repeated the chant. She proceeded to do it again. And again.

She repeated it until the syllables stopped feeling like foreign stones in her mouth and started feeling as if they flowed out of her. Abraxos finally sat back on his heels and studied her with an expression she'd learned to read as pride. It was quiet, edged with something fiercer beneath.

"That’s my female." He reached up and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. His knuckles grazed her cheek on the way down. "You've got it down as if you were born in Heaven. Don’t doubt that you can pronounce every syllable. A lack of confidence "

"I've got it because you wouldn't let me half-ass a single line of it," Sarah grumbled as she caught his hand before it dropped away. She pressed her lips to his palm, making the bond between them flare from the contact. It was like sunlight through glass. "Thank you for not giving up on me."

"That is never a possibility." He drew her up out of the chair as he stood. He glanced toward the doorway that led down to the kitchen. "Amelia and the Rowan sisters have the potion ready. It's time to drink it."

Sarah's stomach growled, objecting to the prospect of anything with grave dirt. The warm feeling from a second ago curdled fast. She knew what waited at the bottom of that cup. She knew there was no way out of drinking it before they left for the alley.

"We can’t keep them waiting," she smiled up at him, hoping she wasn’t going to hurl. She laced her fingers through his, felt his grip tighten in answer, and let him lead her out of the empty library toward the stairs.

It felt as if she were marching to her doom as they descended. The smell of manure drifted out of the kitchen before she'd even cleared the doorway. A lump formed in her throat as they entered.

“Perfect timing,” Pema, the oldest Rowan sister, praised. “Here you go.”

The blonde bombshell pushed the mug toward her. “Ugh,” Sarah muttered as she glanced inside. “It looks like something scraped off the bottom of a swamp.” Grave dirt floated in dark clumps against the surface. Threads of green wormwood curled through a liquid the color of dried blood.

“That’s pretty accurate,” Suvi laughed.

"You want me to drink that?" Sarah asked, looking up from the mug.

"You want to seal a fault that's fed an army of nightmares for weeks, right?" Isis, the middle Rowan sister, clarified. Without waiting for her to respond, the redhead pushed the mug an inch closer. "This is how you are able to do that. Take small sips, unless you enjoy suffering. In which case, chug away."

"I enjoy nothing about tonight." Sarah wrapped both hands around the mug because the alternative was standing in the kitchen, arguing with witches while time ran out. She lifted it, tried to ignore the smell, and drank before her brain could talk her out of it.

The first swallow hit the back of her throat like a fistful of wet earth. Her whole body rebelled. Her tongue tried to physically retreat from the liquid. She had to fight the urge to spit it straight back into the mug. The second swallow went down colder. A chill crawled from her throat into her chest and sank through her ribs.

"Oh, that's nasty." Sarah pressed the back of her wrist to her mouth. "That is objectively, scientifically foul. I want it on record that the ancestor who thought this was the best way to lock powerful beings away is an idiot."

"Magic isn’t always fun and games. Keep going," Amelia prodded. "You need the whole cup."