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“Then you will die,” I said, the ticking of seconds loud as the beat of my heart.
“Four,” Theo said.
“I’ll get out again,” she said. “And when I do, I’m coming for you first.”
I looked at Rosantine and the sigil that glowed against her demon skin. “Doubtful,” I said, but gestured to the army ofhumans, ghosts, and Sups around us. “We’ll all be here waiting for you, and we know your moves.”
Her lips moved in a silent curse, but she nodded. “I agree to your terms.”
The screen lit up in acknowledgment of the agreement, and the sigil that marked her turned from blood red to pale blue.
I took the screen again, handed it back to the attorney. “Appreciate your service,” I told them. They gave me a wink, moved back into the crowd.
“Your time is ticking down,” I told Rosantine. “Three minutes or you’re toast.”
She looked defeated, and I’d have called it pitiful if I didn’t know how dangerous she was. But she reached out, put her hand on the sigil, and the fire rose again. She made the symbol with her other hand, as if uniting the two magics, and chanted words that had magic lifting in the air.
With a roar of sound and magic, flames erupted where the House had stood. But this time, they worked in reverse. As the flames descended to the ground again, the House appeared. The widow’s walk, the dark turrets, the stone and windows, the portico, down to the foundation.
I stayed on my knees, knew tears tracked down my soot-stained face.
And I wasn’t the only one relieved.
Monster’s relief was palpable... and clarifying.
It wasn’t lusting for violence or trying to convince me to use my mother’s sword. It wasn’t hypnotized by the lure of whatever power already was bound there.
It wanted to gohome. It wanted to be reunited, rejoined, reconnected to the part of it still bound there.
Tears flowed now as a shard of guilt struck at my heart. I had misunderstood it for so, so long. And I had fought it that entire time.
I’m sorry, I told it.I didn’t understand. But I do now.
***
The House was dark, and looked cold and lifeless. Anger began to build, mixed with a heady dose of fear at the possibility the vampires and people inside hadn’t survived the exchange, or the portal magic had done more damage than we’d understood. That the contract, the deal, had all been in vain, and she’d killed everyone the night the House had disappeared.
She wouldn’t survive the night, I thought, and felt the cold certainty that I’d take her life if she’d taken the lives of family.
“Oh!”
I heard someone in the crowd call out, and shifted my gaze from Rosantine back to the House.
And the light that had appeared in the front room. There was a flicker in an upper window, and then in the light above the portico, sending a cone of light across the front steps.
A horrendous squeak of wood against wood emerged from the front door, as if the House had settled poorly and just slightly askew, throwing the frame out of square. But none of that mattered, because vampires began to file out.
My mother came out first, sword in hand and watchful, in case the magic that had sent them away threatened them again. My father emerged behind her, gaze wary and searching for me.
My tears started falling immediately.
“Elisa, stay in the circle!” Lulu called out, but the words turned to a sob as her mother, her bright blue hair in a braid around her head, and her father followed behind. Then Uncle Malik, then Connor’s parents behind him, and I felt the pulse of Connor’s wildly joyful magic.
They walked cautiously down the steps to the sidewalk, gaze darting between the demon inside the sigil and the army who’d come to send her home.
“We have to hold the circle,” I said. “The demon who entrapped you is inside it.”
Every vampire on the lawn turned raging silver eyes on Rose.
