grimoire—what it is and what it means. It’s among the most dangerous books to ever exist. That’s why we’ve kept it hidden. Those who covet power nearly wiped our family out of existence trying to get it, and only by fleeing to America and changing her name did your great-grandmother end the bloodbath.
You see, Robin, our family aren’t merely Arcana mythics. We’re demon summoners—generation upon unbroken generation of summoners. We weren’t just the best. We were the first
I stared at the last word. Her handwriting filled both sides of the paper, loopy and so familiar, but the last sentence cut off, incomplete and unfinished. There must’ve been a second page, maybe several pages. Lost in the destruction, the fire, the collapsed ceiling.
My vision blurred, causing the final line to waver. We were the first … the first to do what?
A sob shuddered through me and I fought for composure. Zylas was watching me and I didn’t want to break down in front of him. He’d already called me stupid for crying from grief, and I didn’t want to hear it again. I rubbed my sleeve across my eyes and sniffed.
His gaze weighed on me, heavy and assessing. “What does it read?”
The quiet question caught me off guard. I glanced at his scarlet-tinged eyes and refocused on the page. Swallowing, I read the letter aloud. My voice trembled but I made it to the end without breaking.
“There’s no more,” I concluded. “The rest of the letter probably burned with everything else.”
“What happened to the other papers?”
“The other demon … Claude’s demon took them.” I slumped miserably. “You knew he was there, didn’t you? That’s why you tried to call me back.”
“I sensed his vīsh. I could have sensed it before he got so close but I was not paying attention.”
“It isn’t your fault. We weren’t in a position to escape anyway.” I glanced at my desk where the grimoire page and half-completed translation sat. “What kind of demon is he?”
“Dh’irath. Second House. He is very powerful.”
“Do you know him?”
“No, but Dh’irath is always powerful. He will be the same to fight as Tahēsh.”
Despair clung to me, filling my mind with doubts. Could we find Uncle Jack before either Claude or the vampires? Would I ever get the grimoire back? Maybe I could send Zylas home without it, but what other dangerous secrets did it contain?
“Well,” I said heavily, “Claude and his demon have all the important documents the vampires collected, and everything else was destroyed. We have nothing.”
“We have no less than we had before, drādah.”
I absorbed that. He was right. We hadn’t gained any ground, but neither had we lost any. It could’ve been worse.
My gaze drifted to the bite mark on Zylas’s neck. It could’ve been much worse.
Chapter Nineteen
I woke up with a demon in my bed.
Three seconds after I realized I must’ve fallen asleep curled up beside Zylas with only a thin blanket separating us, I was out of the bed, across the room, and through the door.
Maybe in the next century, the blush would finally fade from my hot cheeks.
Zylas noted my sprint from the room but didn’t seem to care. Not that I could tell if he was embarrassed. With the reddish undertone of his skin, a blush would be difficult to notice, and besides that, he had yet to show the slightest hint of self-consciousness. Maybe he wasn’t capable of embarrassment.
The thought occurred to me as I leaned against the kitchen counter ten minutes later, a spoonful of yogurt halfway to my mouth. What I would give to never feel embarrassed again. Shaking my head, I resumed eating my simple breakfast.
Amalia woke up half an hour later and we got to work discussing our next move. No matter how we looked at it, we had no significant leads to follow. Claude and his demon had all the information and we had no idea where to find them. Plus, if Zylas was right about the strength of Claude’s demon, a Second House Dh’irath, we didn’t want to chance a confrontation.
As much as I never wanted to see another vampire again, we didn’t have much choice: we were going back to the tower.
While Amalia prepared cantrips on flashcards for self-defense—we weren’t going near the vampire nest unarmed—I took a quick shower. Hair blow-dried, contacts in, and clothes on, I winced back to my room. I’d hoped the shower would ease the pain in my back from last night’s intimate meet-and-greet with a wall, but the bruises flared