“Dh’irath, the Second House,” Robin revealed calmly. “The same house as Nazhivēr.”
Nazhivēr? As in Xever’s terrifying winged demon that Ezra had barely held off using demonic and aero magic?
With a happy little smile, as though she were presenting us with a basket of fresh-baked cookies, Robin slid a metal case out of her bag and flipped the lid open. Inside were five vials of dark liquid nested in a foam insert.
“This is Nazhivēr’s blood.”
I looked from the vials to Robin and back. “Where—and how—did you get his blood?”
“Well, um … technically speaking, I stole it.” She shrugged. “Claude—or, rather, Xever was trading it to vampires in exchange for their saliva.”
“Because vampire saliva affects demons,” I murmured. “Is that why there are illustrations of vampires in the cult grimoire?”
“One of the reasons.” Robin set the case aside and began unrolling one of the large papers. “Amalia and I put together a ritual that we think should work. We can’t be sure … but this is the best we can do without any testing.”
Aaron helped her flatten the three-foot-square paper. Drawn out on it in exhaustive detail was a summoning circle, the outer ring decorated with swirling lines and runes. Inside it were two more circles, their edges overlapping.
Ezra leaned over the drawing, and crimson sparked in his left eye again. He pointed to one of the inner circles. “This … what is this?”
“Zylas added that part,” Robin answered. “He said it’s for—”
Red light blazed off her chest. A streak of power leaped down to the floor, then stretched upward and solidified. Her demon appeared, his eyes glowing like magma and a mixture of fabric, leather, and light armor covering his lean, muscular body.
“It will bind the blood to its nearest brother.” White teeth, pointed and predatory, flashed as the demon smirked. “You do not know this vīsh, Dīnen et Dh’irath?”
Ezra’s—Eterran’s upper lip curled. “I have never seen it before. Is it real vīsh, Dīnen et Vh’alyir?”
“You think that if you do not know a magic, it is not real?” His tail snapped sideways. “Smart. You will live long thinking that.”
“I know more vīsh than most Dīnen ever see,” Eterran snarled softly.
Zylas’s smirk curved, a vicious tilt to it. “Because you are broken, so you needed greater power, na?”
Sticking out his right arm, he drew a line across his inner elbow with one fingertip. I couldn’t guess what he was getting at with the gesture.
“You learned how to heal too late, Dh’irath,” he mocked.
“You learned to fight like a coward, Vh’alyir,” Eterran sneered back.
Call me crazy, but I was getting the impression that Eterran and Zylas didn’t like each other.
Ezra blinked a few times, and the red glow faded from his left eye. I waited for Zylas to streak back into his infernus—but instead, he drifted behind Amalia, peering curiously around the dining room.
Robin began explaining the summoning ritual and the changes she and Amalia had made to it, but I was paying more attention to the demon in the room than anything she was saying. Judging by the way Aaron and Kai were tracking the creature’s movements in their peripheral vision, they were equally distracted. Only Ezra seemed to be paying proper attention.
Zylas finished perusing the dining room, then drifted into the kitchen. He disappeared around the corner.
Pausing her explanation, Robin glanced over her shoulder and called, “Don’t break anything, Zylas!”
“Mailēshta,” came the grumbling reply.
Aaron frowned at her. “Uh, do you mind calling him back where we can see him?”
“He’ll be fine. As I was saying, if the binding portion of the ritual works correctly, then …”
I forced myself to focus as Robin described the ritual in detail. The moment she stopped talking, Aaron zoomed toward the kitchen, muttering something about “checking on things,” which probably meant, “checking on the demon wandering through my house unsupervised.”
Kai followed warily, and Ezra trailed after him, more amused than worried. I dropped heavily into a chair as Amalia rolled up the papers.
Unconcerned about her demon’s absence, Robin perched on the seat beside me, “Any luck with a location?”
“Not yet.” I let my head fall back against the chair, staring at the ceiling. “I’ll find something, though.”
“We’ll need a large circle. Much larger than standard so we can fit two circles inside it.”
I squinted, picturing the temple ruins from Enright. We could always go back there to do it, but that was just asking for trouble.
“I’ll find something,” I repeated with more confidence than I felt. “How long will it take to set up the ritual and stuff once we have a location?”
“A couple of days, then the Arcana will need to charge for three more days.”
So a week then, assuming I got my butt in gear and found a location in the next two days. A week, and we could save Ezra. A week, and this nightmare he’d lived for almost ten years would finally be over. He’d have the future he never thought he’d live to see.
I want you to be part of my future. My heart beat a little faster as I remembered him murmuring those words, his voice in my ear but hundreds of miles between us.
“Robin.” I turned toward her. “Are you sure this will work?”
She looked at the grimoire on the table, open to the demon mage section. “As long as we can link the Second House blood to Eterran specifically, I believe it will work. The big question is … whether Ezra and Eterran will survive the separation.”
That did absolutely nothing to ease my apprehension.
“Not to be insensitive or anything,” Amalia interjected, “but they’re going to die anyway. Better to try, right?”
Straightening in my chair, I shot the blond sorceress a cold look. “I never said I didn’t want to try. Besides, it isn’t my choice. It’s Ezra’s—and Eterran’s—and they want to try.”
“And what about after they’re separated, assuming it works?” Amalia asked. “It’d be just great if we freed Eterran only for him to turn around and
