This may sound weird, but the first thing I thought as I watched that ten-feet-tall bronze lady plummet toward my face was, “Well, at least it can’t kill me.” Only demonglass could do that, after all, but I wasn’t sure even Cal could heal the amount of broken I was about to be.
Without really thinking, I closed my eyes. I felt my powers surging through me, and then a strange sensation of cold wind rushed over me; something I hadn’t felt since that night in the clearing with Alice.
As if from distance, I heard the deafening crash of the statue on the marble floor. I opened my eyes.
I was standing several feet away, on the staircase behind Daisy. For the first time in over six months, I’d teleported.
Daisy whirled around, confused, but apparently, the sound of a ginormous metal statue hitting the floor got everyone’s attention, because I suddenly heard running footsteps. “No!” someone shouted. It was Dad, standing at the top of the stairs. He was breathing hard, one hand held out toward Daisy.
“This is not you,” he told Daisy, and I could tell it was a struggle to keep his voice calm. “You can fight this. Remember what I taught you.”
But not even the smallest hint of understanding flickered on Daisy’s face. That was the scariest part. Even Alice, as insane as she’d been, had seemed human. Daisy was nothing but a monster, her face twisted with rage.
Moving so quickly we barely had time to react, Daisy reached into her waistband and pulled something out. It was the same piece of demonglass that had hit me at my birthday party. The substance sizzled in her hand, burning her, but Daisy didn’t flinch. She charged us, her eyes the same violet-red Alice’s had been that last night.
The next few moments were a blur. Daisy rushed at me, demonglass hoisted high, and then there was a flash of light from above me—Dad—but once again, it was like Daisy couldn’t feel any pain. Dad was suddenly beside me, throwing his body between mine and the jagged, black shard, and I think I screamed.
Suddenly, a shout rang out, a word I’d never heard before. In fact, I’m not even sure it was a word, but whatever it was, there was power in it that made my head feel like it was splitting open.
Daisy went very still, her eyes wide. The demonglass dropped harmlessly from her fingers, and for just a second, she looked like the Daisy I knew. Then her eyes rolled back and she crumpled on the stairs, rolling down several of them before coming to a rest on the landing. Somewhere in the house, one of the clocks rang out eleven bells, and I realized with shock that it had been less than four minutes since I’d walked out of Dad’s office.
Dad ran down the stairs and over to Daisy’s inert body, pressing his fingers into the hollow beneath her jaw while I stared at Lara. She stood next to the fallen statue, breathing hard.
“What the heck was that?” I asked her, my voice sounding very loud in the silence.
“A simple immobilization spell,” she replied as she crossed the hall, her heels clacking.
“You’re lying.”
Dad spit those words out with way more venom than I’d thought he was capable of. Lara must’ve been shocked too, because her face paled. “Excuse me?”
Rising to his feet, Dad stared her down. “There is no immobilization spell that can stop a demon that has crossed over.”
Dad sounded so scary that I shuddered a little bit, but Lara didn’t even blink. “Clearly there is, because I just used it successfully.” She gestured to Daisy. “That girl was going to kill you, James.”
I moved down to stand next to Dad. “What will happen to her now?”
Dad never took his eyes off of Lara. “She’ll have to be contained somehow. One of the cells in the lower level, I should think.”
“Contained?”
Dad looked at me, his eyes sad. “She’s gone, Sophie. The Daisy part of her, at least. Once the magic takes over…there’s no reversing it.”
Daisy groaned, her eyelids fluttering, as if there were some tiny sliver of her left in there that had heard and understood. “Someone has to tell Nick,” I murmured.
Dad sighed and loosened his tie. “Of course. Jenna.” I glanced up, surprised, to see Jenna standing a few feet behind Lara. She must have heard all the commotion. Her face was pale, her eyes wide as she hurried across the hallway and grabbed my hands. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, but seeing her made tears spring to my eyes. I wasn’t sure if it was from guilt or from seeing the fear on her face.
“If you wouldn’t mind, go find Nick and have him meet me in the conservatory,” Dad said to her. She looked up, surprised, but said she would, then headed off toward the back hallway.
Crouching down again, Dad brushed Daisy’s black hair from her forehead. He murmured something I couldn’t understand, and she stilled, seeming to fall deeper asleep. “I’ll see that she’s taken care of,” he said. “And Lara, after I meet with Nick, I want to talk to you. Is that understood?”
She gave a tiny bow, but her mouth was tight with anger. “Of course.”
Once she was gone, I gave in to my wobbly knees and sat down on the steps. Roderick and Kristopher showed up a few minutes later. They picked up Daisy with surprising gentleness, and carried her off to one of those mysterious cells in the bowels of Thorne Abbey. The thought of Daisy, even a demoned-out murderous Daisy, locked away, sent a fresh wave of sadness rolling over me.
I rested my head on folded arms and tried to process what had just happened. “Dad,” I said at last, “Daisy was going after me.”
I expected him to do his usual thing of “Oh, Sophie, but that is impossible because of this big word, and that big word, and also this abstract concept.” But for once, he didn’t. He just sat down next to me and said, “Go on.”
“She called my name right before she attacked. And all that with the dagger. You were the bigger threat. I was too wiped out from teleporting to fight her off. But she only went for you when you got in front of me.”
Dad took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I told you my trip was unsuccessful. That was true with regards to the Brannicks, but not for the entire trip. The warlock I visited in Lincolnshire, Andrew Crowley, had some very useful information. Do you remember the section on controlling demons in Demonologies? I believe it’s in chapter five.”
“Um…no.”
Irritation flashed over his face. “Honestly, Sophie, I gave you that book for a reason.”
“And I’m really sorry, but it’s long and boring, and can we just skip to the part where you tell me what it says?”
“There are legends of witches and warlocks summoning demons in ancient times and manipulating their powers.”
“Like what Elodie’s coven was trying to do with Alice.”
Dad shook his head. “No, that was trying to summon a demon and hold it. That’s different. Had their ritual worked, they would have been able to use Alice, to some extent, but they wouldn’t have controlled her. She still would have had free will.” He studied me, and then said, very carefully, “But according to Mr. Crowley’s research, in order to truly control a demon, you have to be its maker—the witch or warlock who performed the possession ritual.”
“Lara. That word, or sound, or whatever it was. It stopped Daisy dead in her tracks.”
Dad released a shaky breath. “Yes.”
Everything started clicking into place, but that only made me feel worse. “So it is her. She’s the one who made Nick and Daisy.” My thoughts kept rolling, like a particularly awful snowball. “She knows I was on Graymalkin, Dad. I don’t know how, but she does. And she sicced Daisy on me because of it. She only called her off because Daisy was about to hurt you.” Sweet, friendly Lara. Bizarro World Mrs. Casnoff, Jenna and I had called her. And she had just tried to kill me.
“So what now?” I asked him. “Do you go magically arrest her?”
“I can’t.”
That was just about the last answer I’d been expecting, and I stared at Dad in shock. “Dad, she just tried to kill me. Not to mention she’s raising demons and using them as weapons.”
“You don’t understand,” Dad said, weary. “Lara, Anastasia, and I are bound by blood oaths. If I throw them both in a dungeon with no proof, it could look like a political power play.”
“But you have proof. The place on Graymalkin. Trust me, Dad, anyone would be able to tell there was hard-core stuff going down there.”
“It wouldn’t be enough. And Anastasia does have complete control over everything that happens at Hecate. She could easily come up with a plausible excuse.”
Frustrated, I shook my head. “But Daisy and Nick—”
“Daisy in completely insensible now, and Nick has no memory of anything that happened before he became a demon. They’re of no help in this.”
I shot to my feet, then immediately regretted it. Too much magic and too much stress had made me dizzy. Still, I leaned against the railing and said, “So you’re not going to do anything?”
Dad stood up, too. “Sophie, I told you once that being head of the Council required a great deal of sacrifice. That woman has lied to me, destroyed a young woman for her own purposes, and just attempted to murder my daughter.” Magic was rolling off him so strongly that I felt like I should probably sit down again. “Believe me,” he continued, “I want nothing more than to smite her out of existence. But I can’t. Not until I have concrete evidence.”
Smiting sounded good to me, but, as much as I hated it, I knew he was right. “Man, politics suck,” I muttered.
Dad took my hand. “Sophie, I swear, we will get to the bottom of this. And when we do, Lara and Anastasia and anyone else who had part in this madness will be punished.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
I wanted to wait for Nick to show up, mostly to lend Dad some moral support, but he told me to go on up to my room. “You look like you’re about to fall over,” he said, walking me across the hall to the back staircase. “I could get Cal—”
“No,” I said quickly. “I just need some alone time.”
Dad nodded. “All right. Go get some rest.”
Those were the easiest directions I’d ever been given. But as I turned to go, Dad added, “And I am calling your mother now.”
There was no use in arguing with him. I knew a determined face when I saw one. He would call Mom, and she’d fly out here ASAP and drag me back to…well, I didn’t know where. It wasn’t like I could go back to Hex Hall.
Those thoughts were way too tired-making, so I dragged myself upstairs and then took the longest, most scalding shower known to man. I knew it would take a lot more than hot water to wash away all the dread and sadness that threatened to overcome me, but it still helped. And I was meeting Archer in just a little bit, so I definitely wanted to clean up for that.
I was feeling a little better when I opened the shower door, but that immediately vanished when I saw Elodie standing in my bathroom. She looked a little more solid this time and a lot more freaked out. Her lips were moving fast and furiously, and I couldn’t make out a thing she was trying to say. “I know,” I muttered as I wrapped a robe around myself. “I probably need to hit the gym more often or something, but honestly, if you’re going to haunt me, we need to establish some boundaries.”
She threw up her hands and floated up higher, her face a mix of anger and anxiety. Something told me that whatever she was trying to say was more important than the ten pounds I could stand to lose.
A sharp rap at my bedroom door made me jump, and even Elodie’s head swung toward the noise. “Stay right here,” I said, pointing a finger at her. She responded by flipping me off. Lovely.
It was Lara at the door, her face every bit as worried as Elodie’s. “Have you seen Nick?”
My skin prickled. “No, why?”
She twisted one of her rings. “We still can’t find him. And after everything that’s happened with Daisy, you can see why that’s very troubling.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Elodie hovering outside the bathroom door, waving her ghostly arms for all she was worth.
“I’ll keep an eye out for him,” I said before shutting the door—gently—in Lara’s face.
“What?” I whispered, turning back to Elodie. She floated back into the bathroom, gesturing for me to follow.
But when I got in there, she was gone. “Oh, great,” I said out loud. “Even in death, you’re a pain in my—”
But then writing began to appear on the steamy mirror. It was slow and painstaking, but finally, one word appeared.
ARCHER.
Two more words appeared, and dread curled in my stomach, heavy as a brick.
MILL. NICK.
“Oh, God,” I murmured.
GO.