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“I do not know,” Patience said. “The demon was very canny. Perhaps it was watching and waiting for an opportunity to attempt reentry. We must have failed to consider that.” And the dismay was clear in her voice.
“You didn’t fail,” I said. I wouldn’t say I liked Patience, but I knew supernatural guilt when I heard it—and sympathized. “You protected the city for more than a century. Now it’s our turn.”
“Why would the demon come back to Chicago?” Connor asked. “It could go anywhere. Why wait for its chance to return?”
“Chicago was its home,” Ariel said simply. “I don’t want to be crass, but if chaos demons feed on pain and suffering, Chicago has plenty to offer. Maybe it liked the flavor.”
“What’s the worst-case scenario?” Theo asked. “If we don’t get the demon out fast enough?”
Patience stared at us for a full minute. “You do not understand. Thisisthe worst-case scenario. It will create chaos, call to the others of its kind, and they will flock to the city and do more of the same. It will become a haven.”
It hadn’t done anything yet, or at least not that we’d heard. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure if that was because the demon had been successfully repelled at the gate, or because it had gotten into Chicago but hadn’t had time enough to inflict damage.
“Do other cities have wards and gates?” I asked.
“Not all cities are Chicago,” was her cryptic reply.
“Will the wards continue to work once they’ve been triggered?” Petra asked, ignoring her tone.
“It depends on the ward.”
“Can the ward be reset?”
“It would depend on the ward.” Her words were slow, intentional, and I had the sense Patience was trying to work around whatever magic seemed to be inhibiting her from answering the question.
“What about the dogs?” Theo asked, scratching absently at his arm. “Some of the ghosts howled like dogs.”
Patience blinked. She seemed surprised by the inclusion of canines. “I suppose because demons hate dogs.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, as if the animosity were obvious and common knowledge.
“Huh,” Petra said. “I’d have thought they hated cats.”
“Dogs are loyal and protective,” Patience said, and I had to fight not to give Connor a look he wouldn’t have appreciated. “That’s antithetical to demons.”
“And cats are basically tiny demons,” Petra said, nodding.
Eleanor of Aquitaine was proof enough of that.
“How do we stop the demon from causing chaos? From calling to the horde?” I asked.
“You must seal it.”
“Seal it,” Theo repeated. “What does that mean?”
“Putting it in a cage,” Ariel said.
“A metaphysical cage,” Patience corrected. “It requires a careful and powerful spell crafted specifically for her.”
“Like a binding?” I asked, thinking of the creature Mallory had bound into my mother’s sword. And in doing so, bound me to my mother’s womb. Monster twitched again.
“No,” Patience said. “A binding is physical—a physical creature is joined with another or subsumed into another physical object. Demons are not creatures of the human world, and theyare not merely physical. A seal is metaphysical. Sealing returns a demon to its proper plane of existence. Sealing locks the door.”
“Why didn’t you seal this one?” Theo asked.
Patience blushed a little. “Because we didn’t have its name.”
“You said its name was Eglantine,” Theo said.
“That is a false name, a name it has adopted for use in the human world. The demon’s real name is a sigil—an ancient symbol. Each demon has one.”
