“Safe. They’re in the MPD lockup.”
Faint relief sparked through me. “Robin and Amalia?”
Darius’s mouth thinned and he gave his head a small shake. I wanted to ask what that shake meant, except I knew it would be bad news and I couldn’t handle that right now.
We didn’t speak again as Elisabetta leaned over Ezra. Miles had moved to a clear patch of concrete where he began drawing out a large Arcana array with rapid strokes of an alchemic marker. His low chanting filled the room, occasionally joined by Elisabetta’s quiet orders for Zak.
Miles and Elisabetta finished at the same time. Zak helped the healers shift Ezra onto the array, then retreated as they knelt on either side of the mage. While Elisabetta checked his IV bag and finger gadget, Miles began another chant. Faint light shimmered across the array.
Peeling off his bloodstained surgical gloves, Zak crossed toward us, stopping a few steps away. He and the GM eyed each other—Zak with wariness and Darius with cool appraisal.
After a long moment, the druid jerked his chin toward the demon body. “That should be dealt with immediately.”
Darius nodded. “I noticed the yard out back is dirt. I have shovels in my vehicle.”
“Shovels?” I muttered, most of my attention on Ezra and the healers. “Do you always tote shovels around?”
“Yes. I never know when I might need to bury a body.”
My gaze snapped to the GM. With anyone else, I would’ve assumed they were joking, but with Darius …
Zak gave me a rag and a bottle of “cleaner potion” from his supplies, then he and Darius headed outside together. My heart beat in a sickening rhythm of fear as I moved to the farthest edge of the summoning array from Eterran and began wiping away the evidence of our demonic ritual.
Miles continued to chant, the minutes dragging by. Every time his voice stopped, I’d whip toward the healers, but they would merely add something to their array—a new rune, an earthy ingredient, a talisman—before resuming.
An hour passed, then another. I scrubbed my way across the floor until only the markings around Eterran remained. With my back throbbing after too long bent over, I inched toward the healers, peering down at their work.
White lines and runes marked Ezra’s bronze skin, similar to the ones that spanned the floor beneath him. The punctures in his stomach had closed, the angry lines smudged with dried blood, the stitches removed.
I exhaled shakily.
The door clattered. Darius and Zak walked in, their faces shining with perspiration. Zak carried a large black tarp and a coil of rope.
My chest ached strangely as the two men spread the tarp out and dragged the heavy demon onto it. The ache intensified as they tucked Eterran’s wings in—those huge wings that had unfurled with surprising elegance. What had the demon looked like in flight? Had he been graceful, agile?
I bit down on the inside of my cheek as Zak drew the tarp over the demon’s still face. I’d seen so many of his expressions through Ezra’s features, but so little from the demon himself. He’d waited so long, fought so hard, to return to his own body.
Had it been for nothing? His suffering, his struggles, his determination?
The memory of the demon and mage in their final moments of battle shivered through me—each one’s weapon buried in the other’s body, their wounds not a true reflection but mirrored in an unnerving way.
Darius and Zak tied the tarp around the demon’s body, and when they hauled it across the floor, I followed with numb steps.
In the dirt lot behind the warehouse, its perimeter stacked with abandoned junk and scrap metal, Darius and Zak had dug an oversized grave. They dragged the body into the hole, then picked up their shovels.
“Zak.” I held out my hands. “Let me.”
His gaze flicked across my face, then he handed me the shovel. Darius waited as I dug the blade into the dirt heap beside the grave and threw the first shovelful into the hole. The soil landed on the tarp with a terrible sound.
When I stuck my shovel into the pile a second time, Darius joined me. Zak waited off to the side while Darius and I buried the demon in his unmarked grave.
With every turn of my shovel, I wondered what I was feeling. How could I experience sorrow and relief at the same time? How could I be glad the demon was dead, but also mourn him? He’d been an ally and enemy both. An adversary but also a comrade. He’d been a victim, deceived and abused by the Court, just like Ezra.
Demon and human. Warrior and child. They’d hated each other, tormented each other, relied on each other. They’d survived together for ten years, but only one of them would continue on. Eterran, who’d been so driven to live, had died.
My throat closed. I shoveled the last of the dirt onto the grave, my arms shaking.
Zak’s hand closed around the shovel’s handle. He pulled it away, then held out a black object. Staring in confusion, I cautiously pulled it from his hand and turned it over. A leather bracer with a protective metal plate, upon which was etched a strange symbol.
It was the bracer that had been around Eterran’s wrist.
“When did you …” I whispered, unable to finish the sentence.
“It’s for Ezra.” Zak’s low voice blended with the night. “When someone has that much influence over your life … protector and oppressor … then suddenly they’re gone—” He broke off, mouth thinning. “Ezra may not want it, but I think he will.”
My fingers tightened around the bracer.
He joined Darius in spreading the dirt out to disguise the loose earth that warned of something buried beneath. I swallowed against the scratchy ache in my throat. I needed to go back inside. To check on Ezra. To finish cleaning the floor so that when we left this place, there’d be no evidence of what had happened here.
But I continued to stand there, staring at the disturbed soil. There
