Ramona’s stomach dropped. The woman — and she could see now that it was definitely a woman, or something shaped like one — walked right through the salt circle.
Just stepped over it. Like it was a line drawn in chalk.
“Shit.” Ramona lunged for the nearest thing that could possibly be used as a weapon. Her hand closed around one of Felix’s pillar candles, as though Autumnal Harvest could save her now.
She held it up. Not quite brandishing. Just… holding it. Like that would help.
The woman paused. Looked at the candle. Then at Ramona.
“Are you threatening me with acandle,Mortal?”
“It’s solid wax,” Ramona said. Her voice had taken on a panicked edge. “And I’m not scared to use it.”
“Noted.”
The woman’s eyes — and Ramona could see them now, dark and unsettlingly steady in the dim light — tracked the candle with something that might have been amusement. The streetlight from the window caught her face properly for the first time.
The woman had dark hair that fell just past her ears in waves, slightly mussed like she’d been running her hands through it. Or like she’d just been yanked through a dimensional portal mid-conversation. And she was wearing a suit — black, well-tailored, expensive, though slightly singed at the cuffs. It probably cost more than Ramona’s car. The white shirt underneath was open at the collar, showing the hollow of her throat and the gleam ofsilver chains layered at her neck. Rings glinted on her fingers. A metal watch caught the light at her wrist.
“Who are you?” Ramona asked. “What are you?”
“Yousummoned me.” The woman’s voice was flat. Bored, almost. “You tell me.”
“I was trying to summon success. Fortune. A better job.” Ramona gestured vaguely with the candle. “Not whatever this is.”
The woman crossed her arms. The movement made her jacket pull tight across her shoulders. “Whatever this is?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I really don’t.”
They stared at each other. Ramona was acutely aware that she was wearing an old T-shirt and no pants, holding an autumnal candle, while a strange woman in an expensive suit stood in her bedroom.
This was worse than the incident. Worse than everything.
“Let’s start over.” Ramona lowered the candle slightly. Her arm was getting tired. It really was quite heavy. “Who are you?”
The woman sighed. It was the kind of sigh that suggested she’d had a very long day and this was just making it longer.
“My name is Azareth,” she said. Each syllable was crisp, precise. “Duchess of the Third Circle. Keeper of the Endless Ledger. Vice President of Temptation and Minor Inconveniences, Hell’s Southeastern Division.” She paused, running a hand through her already-disheveled hair in a gesture that looked habitual. Frustrated. “And you just dragged me out of a performance review.”
Ramona blinked. “Hell has a Southeastern Division?”
“We reorganized in the nineties. Corporate structure.” Azareth looked around the room, taking in the duct-taped bed frame, the pile of laundry, the water-stain duck on the ceiling. “Mandatory sensitivity training. Quarterly reports. Team-building exercises.” Another sigh. “This is what I was summoned for?This?”
Ramona scoffed in offense.
“Your bed is held together with tape.” Azareth pointed a dark-tipped nail toward the furniture item in question.
“It’s vintage.”
“It’s a fire hazard.”
“You’re one to talk. You’re literally from Hell.” Ramona was unsure exactly why she needed to defend her bed from judgment, but it felt necessary in the moment.
“That’s different.”
“How?”
