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“We have to cast the spell,” Christopher says, glancing between Martha and the mortician. “Once they cremate her, there’s nothing I can do.”

Sam shakes his head. “There’s no time. Your car is still glamoured, but Sarah is in the parking lot. It’s only a matter of time before she comes inside, and I won’t be able to keep her from here. If I get caught—”

“You won’t get caught.” Christopher says it with a confidence I don’t feel. “Trust me. I need to do this, Sam. She’s my mate.”

The reminder shuts him up, the word holding more power over him than I could possibly imagine. Then again, mates are sacred and we only get one. Sighing, Sam backs up into the archway and frowns. “You can’t leave through the front doors. Out the back only. It’s a fire exit that will trip the alarm, so if you can—”

“We’ll leave through a window,” Christopher promises him. “It’ll be fine. Just give us five minutes.”

“You have three,” he grunts, then exits the room.

Before the sound of Sam’s thudding footsteps has fully receded, Christopher grabs my hand again—the one with the tattooed wrist—and squeezes hard. He instructs me to place the other one over Martha’s cold, unmoving chest, and I do, my own heart racing. Disobeying my mother has never gone well for me, and now that I’m banished, I have no idea what she’ll do if she catches me in a coven space. A member of the Septem could be legally executed for it, but I’m not a member of the Septem; I’m not anything anymore.

“It’s okay, Ann. I won’t let her hurt you,” Christopher says reassuringly, but I don’t feel reassured. He doesn’t know my mom—not like I do. “We can do this.”

I nod anyway because I want to believe him.

“Say the words we rehearsed,” he says. “Picture Salios on his throne and don’t break your concentration. On the count of three. One… Two…”

Three.

We begin chanting in the angels’ ancient tongue, even though the angels have refused us. The words vibrate through my chest, my magic humming like it’s a living, breathing thing. And then I concentrate on my glowing wrist, the pink markings, the infernal tattoo linking me to an archdemon—a fallen angel who still has access to all the magic in Heaven and in Hell, who could break me without so much as a thought. If caught, stealing from him is perhaps worse than disobeying my mom. It’s definitely more ballsy.

But he has more magic in his thumb than I have in my entire body; I doubt he’ll notice.

So, I say the words Christopher taught me. I envision Salios on his throne. And I take.

I draw the archdemon’s magic into my wrist, pulling it through the tattoo, and it spreads—not like wildfire, but like a sensual kiss. Every nerve ending in my body ignites, warmth sinking low in my belly, settling between my thighs. I watch the pink glow expand from the tattoo, to my hand, to Christopher, and then fill the entire room. And I wonder if he can feel the effects of it too. I’m guessing yes. A shudder breaks through his chanting, but he’s quick to recover.

As we finish the spell, the pink glow shoots into the stone, then fades until it’s that same shade of boring gray it started at. Normally, using big magic is exhausting, but I don’t feel exhausted. I feel empty, aching, yearning.

Lust.

The cost of Salios’s magic is a disappointment and desire so great it physically hurts me. That space between my thighs throbs, and I clench my legs together, again wondering if Christopher can feel it, and if he can, if it’s as bad for him as it is for me.

But this time, I’m guessing not.

Black eye goo rips from Martha’s sclera as Christopher yanks the stone loose, breaking through my distracted thoughts. Before he can return the quartz to his neck though, high heels click down the hallway. Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“I haven’t finished preparing her yet,” Sam says, his voice far too close for comfort.

Christopher places a finger over his mouth and drags me to the corner of the room. Still holding my hand, he glances up at the ceiling and offers up a hushed prayer. “Please, Gabriel, let me channel you. Don’t let us get caught.” And then he rushes out a spell, tracing invisible glyphs into the air so quickly it’s difficult to track the movement. I recognize his hushed words immediately; they’re the same ones he used at my mom’s house that turned me invisible.

Gabriel must take pity on us because our bodies disappear—from the room and from each other. The only evidence that Christopher remains at my side is the warm pressure of his hand in mine, sweaty now from nervousness. I hold my breath as Mom and Sam step into the room.

“I told you I wasn’t finished,” Sam says. When he thinks my mom isn’t looking, he peers around the examination table, searching for us, and relaxes when the space comes up empty.

“Are you looking for someone?” Mom asks. She doesn’t wait for an answer before stepping up to Martha’s corpse in her all-white sundress. Matching silk gloves cover her hands, and I expect her to remove them, but she doesn’t. Instead, she taps a finger on Martha’s unseeing eye—the one now missing some of its sclera—and hums. “You haven’t let anyone visit her, have you?”

Moisture beads on Sam’s forehead, but to his credit, he doesn’t draw attention to it by wiping it away. “No, ma’am. Just you.”

But it’s clear Mom doesn’t believe him. Lips pursed, she paces the room, those high heels clack-clacking as she peeks underneath the examination table, then yanks chilled stainless steel boxes from the walls. Metal slides against metal, and the hinges shake, exposing half a dozen body trays—all of them full and in various stages of decomposition. Rotted flesh. Half-missing faces. A man my age has an infernal tattoo on his wrist, and a bruise wrapped around his neck—purple and swollen from strangulation.

Are we… killing members of the Septem and storing them here?

Our covens have a treaty, albeit a rocky one, and only those who actively break it can be killed. They get trials. Juries. It’s a public spectacle, but I’ve never once heard about these witches’ deaths. As I stare at them, the rot seeps into my nose, burning it, and I sniffle. It takes everything in me not to vomit up what I’ve eaten today—which is still just the breakfast Daemon made me—as Mom’s head whips in my direction.