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Rose shook her head. “We don’t want the demon to realize it’s a cage at all,” she said. “Seth has it figured out so we can have all the sections spread out, with a base we can easily attach to a truck once we’re ready. We know we could move the demon a little in a direction we wanted before. We shove it onto the base, and then we push the walls and ceiling up around it magically.”
“There’ll be glyphs on the locking mechanisms too,” I said. “That thing is going to be completely surrounded by magic.”
Caroline, the posh-looking young woman whose blouse and dress pants looked pretty out of place in this construction yard, clapped her hands. “Well, let’s get to work on that spell-casting, then. The more magic we can pour into these walls, the better they’ll hold.”
“That’s the idea,” Rose said. She wet her lips. “And there’s the other aspect too…”
Lesley, the reserved witch who’d lived with us on Rose’s estate for a few weeks, tucked her mousy brown hair behind her ears. “We’re adding blood to the mix,” she said in a soft even voice. “We know. We all agreed to that part too.”
“I just—I wouldn’t blame you if it seemed a bit too much now that we’re faced with actually doing it.” Rose gave a nervous laugh. “The Northcotts wanted the bloodletting to only happen with enforcer supervision, so I guess we don’t have to worry about it just yet.”
“From what we’ve heard from the witches the Frankfords’ faction used and from their records, it could make a big difference,” I said. From what my brother had said, the faction members hadn’t been completely clear on how the whole bodily sacrifice thing worked. But it had seemed as if sacrifices made with the intention of pushing them back worked more powerfully than any magic on its own.
But when it came to blood spilled not in purposeful sacrifice but random violence, it seemed the demons could use it to their own purposes. That death at the Cliff, the Frankford guard fallen onto the rocks, hadgiventhem power. A thought that made me even more unsettled by the idea of the demon reaching an actual town. How much more powerful would it get if it was murdering hundreds or thousands instead of a handful of people each day?
Rose leaned in to give me a peck on the cheek before moving with the others to the finished wall. I threw myself back into my own job. I noticed distantly when a couple squads of enforcers showed up a half hour later to lend their own magical energy to the cause, but for the most part I wasn’t paying attention to anything except the pieces of metal in front of me. That was the closest thing to magic I knew how to work.
A pink tint was creeping across the horizon with the coming evening when I straightened up from the structure that would form the cage’s roof. I had one more wall to put the final touches on, and we’d need to test out the hinges before we sent everything off with the truck tomorrow, but we were almost there. A prickling burn spread through my muscles as I stretched my arms up and then in front of me.
Rose was leaning against one of the cars, her cheeks wan. Frowning, I went to join her.
“Is everything all right?” I asked. I’d been so lost in the metalworking I’d barely talked to her since she’d arrived—but then, she’d seemed busy with the magic-working every time I’d looked her way. Rose was every bit as dedicated to getting this done as I was.
She nodded and gave me a tight smile. “Just taking a bit of a breather.”
“You’re not straining your spark, are you, putting so much magic into this?” In spite of how tired I was too, a quiver of lust shot to my groin at the thought of the ways we could stoke that flame.
My consort squeezed my arm reassuringly. “No, I’ve got plenty of energy to draw on. It’s just that drawing out the demonic aspect within it…” She looked at the ground, her voice lowering too. “I can feel it, when I delve deeply enough, now that I know to look for it. There’s a hint of that impression I get when I’m near the demons, like a faint aftertaste—but I can condense it if I try hard enough. But doing that takes more out of me than regular magicking.”
I wrapped my arms around her and tugged her to me, taking her weight for as long as she’d let me. “If this works, you shouldn’t ever have to draw on it again.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself.” She nestled her head against my chest for just a few seconds, and then she eased back with a sigh. “I should get back to it. We’ve got a couple more to finish.”
I let her go with a pang in my chest. After everything she’d done to escape her father, his machinations had tied her to the demons anyway. Maybe we should be grateful that her powers might be the answer to stopping this menace… but no one person should have that much responsibility on her shoulders. If I could have taken more of the burden from her, I would have.
As I headed over to the last section that needed detailing, a new car pulled into the lot. Mr. Northcott stepped out with a couple of enforcers. His tall form looked tense as he scanned the yard. His pale eyes came to rest on me. He headed over with brisk strides, running a hand through his gray hair.
“Mr. Lennox,” the co-head of the Witching Assembly said, taking in the wall I’d been about to work on. “Since the day is almost over, I was hoping to get an in-person progress report. Where are we at?”
“We should have the last wall fully constructed by early tomorrow morning at the latest,” I said. “And then of course the final spells will need to be added, and there’ll be some testing to conduct. I can’t see any reason we shouldn’t be ready to put the plan into action by the afternoon, though.”
Northcott’s lips pursed. “There’s no way you could speed along that process? We want to get this cage out there and in action as early as we can.”
The guy had only been on the lot for five minutes, and already he was trying to call the shots. “If you want it done right, we need to take the time to make sure everything will work the way we want,” I said. “And the witches doing the casting will need rest to recover overnight, won’t they?”
His mouth stayed tight, but he couldn’t deny that. “Just see it’s done as quickly as you can manage,” he said. “The demon claimed two more victims an hour ago. The longer that menace is on the loose…”
“I know,” I said, a little sharply than was maybe completely polite. But the Assembly officials had managed to miss the conspiracy under their noses, all the women who’d been hurt by the faction and their demons, for so long before now. Decades upon decades. It was a little much for him to complain about the difference of a few hours.
Mr. Northcott gave me a measured look. “My consort and I don’t take our leadership of the witching community lightly, young man. Every death that happens due to the actions of those under our rule—every death that comestothose under our rule—we must shoulder. We couldn’t have imagined facing a catastrophe like this when we were striving for the position we hold, you know.”
No, I guessed they couldn’t have. “We’re working as hard as we can,” I said, less brusquely. “As soon as it’s ready, you’ll hear about it.”
“Good.” He nodded briskly and strode off to survey the rest of the lot’s activity. My jaw clenched as I turned back to the wall.
Maybe Icouldfinish this tonight. If it made the difference between a few more people dying…
I grabbed the next copper piece and my welding torch. My fingers clamped around the warm metal. Fix it into place with the solder. Meld and bend it with the heat. Just like that. Just a little—
