I rose to my feet and faced Ezra across the circle. His left eye glowed brightly, and I could see both the mage and the demon in him. Ezra’s fear, his determination, and his quiet, steely readiness for whatever would happen. Eterran’s far more savage resolve, his burning drive for freedom, and his violent need to survive.
Zak waited until I’d returned to my spot outside the circle, then resumed. “Te tuo sanguine ligo, tu ut vocatus audias, Eterran of the Dh’irath House.”
The center rune I’d covered in blood glimmered with scarlet light that swept across the array until the entire thing glowed. Ezra stood rigid as Zak continued the incantation.
He pointed at the ring that marked the outer circle. “Terra te hoc circulo semper tenebit.”
The faint radiance swept through the lines, then arched upward. A semi-transparent dome whooshed over the circle, then faded. The barrier was up. Only one part of the ritual remained.
Speaking even more carefully, Zak began the final chant. Once again, I experienced the eerie sensation of staticky energy building in the air, heavy and flavored with unfamiliar power. The shimmer of magic flowed between the two circles until it gathered in the empty one, that central rune rippling with blood-red light.
Zak paused. His shoulders moved as he drew in a deep breath, then he slowly raised his hand toward Ezra, the grimoire braced on his other palm.
“Tenebrarum auctoritatem da mihi, da super hunc imperium sine fine.” He fixed intense green eyes on the demon mage. “Eterran of Dh’irath, bearer of the power of Ahlēa, wielder of the king’s command, by your blood and your oath, I summon you!”
The glowing rune in the empty circle blazed, and answering light erupted over Ezra.
He arched, limbs going rigid—and threw his head back in a roar of agony.
“Ezra!” I screamed.
Glowing veins snaked over his limbs. Red power boiled over his body and surged outward. Phantom horns sprouted from his head and wings took form in the rippling power, rising off his back. The power expanded, dragged out of him.
Ezra was screaming and I was screaming. I lunged toward the circle—and Zak caught me, hauling me back from the silver line before I could cross it. I thrashed against his hold, crazed, anguished, incoherent.
The power erupting from Ezra shuddered into a discernible shape. Into shoulders far broader than Ezra’s, built to support those huge wings. Into a head half a foot above Ezra’s, sporting four long horns.
For a horrifying instant, Eterran’s phantom form overlaid Ezra’s human body.
Then Eterran’s shape dissolved into a bright streak of crimson that arced across the circle and slammed into that glowing rune. The power ballooned upward, reforming the phantom demon—crouched on the floor, his fist braced on the concrete, wings half furled.
His body solidified and the glow on his limbs extinguished. The radiant lines of the spell array flared one last time, then dimmed to burnt black.
Ezra collapsed to the floor.
My scream rang out again. My elbow whipped back, hitting Zak in the ribs so hard he staggered, then I flew toward Ezra, hands reaching for him.
I slammed into an invisible force and ricocheted off, pain bursting through my limbs from the impact. The outer ring marked the floor just in front of me. Gasping, I lunged forward again. My hands slapped against nothing. I pushed into the invisible wall, then felt across it.
The barrier—the invisible dome that was supposed to keep demons inside the circle.
Zak appeared beside me. His hands connected with the unseen obstacle, just like mine. I smashed my fist into it, and the air rippled faintly. We couldn’t pass through the barrier.
Ezra couldn’t get out, and we couldn’t get in.
Chapter Seventeen
“Ezra!” I screamed.
His shoulders shifted, and he slowly drew an arm under himself. He pushed up onto his hands and knees, motions jerky, limbs trembling.
He raised his head. Blood trickled down his left cheek. The white scar down his face, eight years old, had reopened. His shirt, damp with fresh blood, stuck to his right side, where the old gashes from that same attack raked up his torso. His old injuries, healed by demon magic, had torn with Eterran’s exit from his body.
Shoulders heaving, Ezra looked across the circle at the demon.
Eterran was crouched where he had appeared. His left knuckles were propped on the floor, a leather bracer around his wrist, but his right elbow ended in a scarred stump, white lines running up his reddish-brown skin toward his shoulder. The old injury did nothing to reduce the demon’s aura of power. His near-decade-long imprisonment inside Ezra hadn’t withered the thick, heavy muscles that banded his torso.
He raised his head, crimson eyes fixing on his former host. Dark blood leaked down the left side of his face—Ezra’s reopened wound was mirrored on the demon. His countenance wasn’t as human as Zylas’s, but his sharp features were recognizable. Long black hair hung over one shoulder, tied with a leather string, and from the waist down, he wore lightweight demonic body armor.
Those powerful muscles rippled as the demon braced himself, then stood.
With the movement, dim streaks of crimson flashed inside the circle—and Ezra crumpled to the floor with a hoarse cry. Eterran dropped back to his knees.
Faint ribbons of power rippled between them. They ran from mage to demon, twisting and writhing.
“What is that?” I gasped, near soundless with panic.
“Are they still bound?” Zak pressed his hands to the invisible barrier. “I think … the contract is linking them together? Eterran is still tied to Ezra’s soul.”
I remembered what Robin had said. Once the demon spirit and human soul are bound, it can’t be undone.
So she’d created this ritual to circumvent their contract, not break it. We’d all thought separating them would be enough.
With painful effort, Ezra pushed up onto his knees, panting for air.
“Get him out of the circle, Zak!” I shouted, hysteria edging my voice. “Hurry!”
“They’re
