Ro was awake when I checked on him. “My magic,” he whispered, white-knuckling the sheets. “I can’t get it to work.”

Adrenaline spiked through me. I reached out for him, then froze. “At all?”

He rubbed his hands briskly over his arms. “When I reach for it, I hit a dead zone. I can’t…”

The anguish in his voice lashed me.

“It’s still there.” It had to still be there. “I’ll be back.”

I ran out of the room, sprinting into my bedroom to call Dr. Gelman. The screen on my burner phone had cracked in my outburst earlier, but it worked. I counted the rings, willing her to answer.

“Nava, now’s not a good time.”

“Please. I tried to heal Rohan and now his magic doesn’t work.” I slid down the wall, my hand pressed to my mouth, swallowing the metallic bile in the back of my throat.

“Coming,” she said and hung up.

I stood at the gate, gripping the iron bars, waiting for her to arrive. I hit the scanner the second I saw the car. Dr. Gelman’s sister, Rivka, was in the driver’s seat. She popped the locks on the door and I scrambled in the backseat. “Thank you.”

“No more breaking into my house.” The resemblance between her and Dr. Gelman, her younger sister, was strengthened by the aging that Gelman’s cancer had added to her features.

“Never again, I swear. I’m sorry.”

Rivka nodded and sped through the grounds.

I helped Dr. Gelman out of the car and up the front stairs, forcing myself to accommodate her slow pace.

“Isaac.” Rivka stopped inside the foyer.

My eyes darted between them. They’d dated years ago and he’d broken her heart. Should I have cleared this visit with him?

“Rivka. Esther.” He gave a half-bow, clearly puzzled.

“They need to help Ro,” I pleaded.

He patted my shoulder. “It’s all right, Navela. Take them to him.”

Ro was sitting in bed, his eyes closed. He kept tensing his muscles. No blades popped out.

“Ro?” I said.

“Not now.”

“Ah. The illustrious Rohan. We didn’t get a chance to meet in Prague.”

Rohan opened his eyes at the sound of Dr. Gelman’s voice. “Sorry?” He was giving me a what-the-fuck look.

I helped Dr. Gelman into a chair. “This is Dr. Gelman and her sister, Rivka.”

“Also Dr. Gelman,” Rivka said, moving to the side of Ro’s bed. “A real doctor, unlike this one.”

My Gelman snorted.

“I understand you’re having some trouble with your magic?” Rivka reached for his hand. “May I?” He placed his hand in hers. She clasped it, asking him what had happened. After he’d finished up, she nodded and placed his hand on the blanket. “Your magic is still there.”

“What’s the bad news?” he asked.

“It’s tangled up with the magic of the shedim and the other Rasha to such an extent that I can’t unravel it.”

“Is that all it is?” I backpedalled, seeing the flash of hurt on Ro’s face like somehow that wasn’t bad enough. “I mean, who can? Unravel it?”

“The demon and the Rasha are the sole causes,” Rivka assured me. Her sympathetic smile faded. “But I don’t know of any witch who has the power to break this. I’m sorry.”

Rohan swung his feet out of bed. “Forget it. Thanks for trying.” He strode to the door.

“Ro.”

He didn’t glance back.

The two women murmured platitudes about giving him time before they left. Their concern was wasted on me. I thanked them and walked them to their car, but I couldn’t get rid of them fast enough.

I’d scoured every inch of the house and most of the grounds before I found him.

Rohan had hidden away in a secluded back corner of the garden, sitting on the ground, his back against a tree. His knees were drawn up to his chest, his arms covering his head, the only sound his harsh, broken exhales.

Giving up his music had cost him, but he’d been able to get back to it. Losing his magic? It would destroy him. He had to have his powers. That’s all there was.

And I could get it back for him even if it was the worst thing I ever did.

* * *

“Who says the offer is still on the table?” Lilith had accepted my container of red velvet cupcakes from the finest cupcake store in town as her due. She licked the last of the frosting off her fingers. “Especially with your new condition on the agreement.”

A light breeze provided relief to the evening heat, teasing the strands of her hair and the hem of her coral sundress. White-capped waves danced under a brilliant blue sky, and the beach-goers here at English Bay were in a festive mood.

Where was the rain and gloom when you needed it? If I was going to step into the role of cold-hearted betrayer, I didn’t need the fucking sun mocking me. I wanted my treachery on an appropriate stage, my villainy for all to see, because the thought that I could do this and get away with it, even coming out like some kind of hero, was killing me.

I am David, thinking outside-the-box. Fighting on my own turf and playing to win.

I sipped my iced latte, shifting to take up more room on the bench so the couple who approached us would find somewhere else to sit. “The memory you experienced before was nothing compared to the passion between Rohan and me now.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Lilith took my hand and I focused on the night in the hotel. When her hold slackened, her eyes were half-glazed with lust. Her skin was luminous, her breasts higher and tighter. She’d fed off the memory.

“Told you.” Taking this precious memory and offering it up like so much smut when what had mattered was the trust and the tenderness and the raw intimacy made me wish I could scrub my skin bloody. I dug my nails into my palms, riding the pain. She couldn’t know how every second propelling me forward into this deal was flaying my soul.

“What about your pesky morals?” she said.

“They don’t matter in the scheme of things. You were right.”

She nodded. “I know better than anyone what it takes for a powerful woman to blaze her own path. Decide what’s important; let the rest go. Once you understand that, you can take anything you want if you want it badly enough. You will have near infinite power.”

I didn’t want power over Rohan, I just wanted to save him. “What Ro doesn’t know won’t hurt him. He won’t know, correct?”

“Neither of you will be aware of me. To be clear, you’re offering one night with Rohan in exchange for the name of whoever is behind the purple magic and the return of his Rasha magic. That’s the agreement.”

“The purple magic on all three items and no using black magic to fix him. The deal is off then.” I pulled the gogota finger, the yaksas horn, and the shedim’s ear out of my purse, arranging them on the wooden bench between us.

Lilith picked up the items, curling her fingers lightly over them, staring out at the freighters far out on the water. She handed me back the gogota finger and horn. “The witch who did this is dead. She is of no importance.”

Tessa. This was the definitive connection between Prague and Askuchar, between the Brotherhood and a witch able to bind demons to do her bidding, but there was no surge of sweet triumph. “How about the ear?”

She turned it over and over in her hand, caressing its ridges. Super creepy. “I know this magic. No, something close.” She sniffed the leathery ear. “Millicent,” she sighed.

Millicent? It took me a moment to remember where I’d heard that name. “The witch who practiced black magic? She’s dead.” I looked at my companion. “Isn’t she?”

“She is,” she said sorrowfully. “This isn’t her magic. But similar.”

“Sister? Daughter?” I held out my hand for the ear, dropping it in my purse with the other items.

“Daughter. Yes. The one she gave up.”

Leo might be able to help me search adoption records, except she was hiding. I hoped. “Got a last name for Millicent? Her daughter’s name? Anything useful?”

She shrugged, like she’d lost interest. “She was white; the father was black. Her family didn’t allow her to keep the child.”

My latte hit the ground. “How old would this kid be now?”

“Thirties?”

Sienna was in her thirties. Brotherhood-hating Sienna who had been furious to learn about Ferdinand and was very upset the last time I’d seen her. Around the time of Tessa’s death. It had to be.

“We need to formalize our deal.” Lilith took my hand, scoring her thumb across it. My palm split, drops of blood welling up.

“Wait.” You’re doing this for his magic. He’ll never know and it’s still me that he’ll be with. It’ll merely be like someone watching us. “You swear it’s only one time.”

“Yes. Tonight.”

“He’ll just have gotten his magic back. He may not be in the mood.”

“Then convince him.” She cut her own hand open and pressed our skin together. I repeated the words of my vow to uphold the oath. Our gashes sizzled, scabbing over like a pink, twisted burn. “It’ll fade once the deal is completed.”

There’d be no mark save for the blemish on my psyche. “Can you get through the wards?” I said.

“I don’t need to. I’ll be in you, and you can cross them no problem.”

No problem. What a joke. Ro lived by the code that you didn’t betray your team, and in making the deal with Lilith I’d done just that. It didn’t matter that the ends justified the means, because if I didn’t save him this way, I’d lose him. It didn’t matter that he’d never know what I’d done.

I’d know, and I hated myself already.

* * *

Lilith sashayed to my car, throwing coy smiles at all the turned heads.

I clutched my purse strap so I wouldn’t clock her.

She slid into the front seat and, pulling down my visor, applied some lipstick she had stashed in her bra.

“You said he wasn’t going to see you.” I wrenched the engine on, grinding it. It went well with the still-dented hood.

“I want to look my best for me. Now, let’s see what we’re working with.” She pumped my arm up and down.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Do you have to know every little detail?”

“Uh, yeah.” I tried to swat her hand away but she swatted me right back.

“You have a bit of healing magic, but it’s weak. No one trained you?”

“No one knew I was a witch. How did you?”

“Who’d ever heard of a female Rasha?” She kept pumping my arm.

I squirmed, checking that no one was staring in through the windows at us. “This is ridiculous.”

“I’m priming the magic up for one good shot. You want your boyfriend fixed, don’t you?”

“Yes, but there’s no way you’re really doing anything.”

“Ye of little faith.” She pumped my arm one last time.

“Ye of big bullshit. This doesn’t work, our deal is off.”

“Be careful when you release it. There’s a bit of a kicker on this.”

“Fucking hell.” What a joke.

She brushed off her hands. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Ready?”

I snapped my seatbelt in. “As I’ll ever be.”

One second she was there, the next she wasn’t. A feather-light touch skimmed my shoulder blades, my skin stretching like the not-unpleasant sensation of flexing my fingers with tight, dry skin and that, apparently, was that.

I searched my eyes in the rearview mirror but there was no sign of her. Nothing about me looked different, nothing felt different, yet driving home, my fingers twitched, itching to claw off my own skin, find her, and rip her out.

I called Dr. Gelman over Bluetooth. “Sienna’s taken over from Tessa.”

“You’re doing wonders for my recovery. Would you like to come over and throw some nuclear waste on me?”

“Sienna is your friend. Did you know she was Millicent’s daughter?”

“Bat zona!” A long drawn out pause, followed by a flick, and a deep inhale.

“Are you smoking?! Put that out!”

“One drag. Rivka,” she called. There followed a fast and furious conversation in Hebrew and I was put on hold.

I scrolled through the dial: Paula Abdul’s “Cold-Hearted Snake,” Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love A Bad Name,” and “Burn” from Hamilton. I punched off the radio.

“Sienna’s cell is out of service,” Gelman said. “My ward nurse said that she up and quit suddenly after seven years on the job.”

“Could Sienna take over from Tessa? Binding demons?”

“She would have had to be training in secret for years, but that’s how it works, isn’t it?” Her lighter clicked on and off. “Working for the Brotherhood, however? Tessa may have been charmed into it by Ferdinand, but Sienna? No. Whatever she’s up to, she’s not helping them.”

“Did she kill Tessa for it?”

“No. That was the magic.” She said it with absolute certainty.

I pulled up the chapter house gate, expecting alarms to blare, and my flesh to boil when I passed the ward line onto the property. I crossed my fingers, hoping for the out, and gunned forward. There was no bouncing off the invisible shields, just a smooth slide onto the grounds.

“How’s Rohan?” Dr. Gelman asked.

“He’ll be fine.” Help me. I coughed.

“Are you all right?”

“Fabulous. Gotta go.” There’d be no help for what I’d done, but I could fix what was broken.

Unless Ro and Drio, sparring in the Vault, killed each other first.

They’d left the door open. We had an air conditioning system that did a pretty good job keeping the sweat stink at bay, but they’d propped open the door because it was steamy in there. I stayed in the shadows of the hallway.

Ro, wearing gi bottoms and a T-shirt, swung a thin curved blade mounted at the end of a long iron pole at Drio’s head. His pecs tensed and flexed with the movement.

The pole whistled over Drio, who’d flattened himself backward before springing back to his feet, a similar weapon at the ready. Drio’s gi bottoms encased his rock-hard thighs and his bare chest gleamed with sweat. Dude was so ripped, his six-pack had a six-pack. In a flash, he was behind Ro, his blade arcing toward Rohan with a hard whoosh.

I eeped at the ensuing decapitation, but Rohan had it under control. He sidestepped the weapon, not even flinching as it brushed by the end of his nose. He swept his pole under Drio’s and would have torn a chunk out of Drio’s side had Drio not blocked it with a ringing clang.

Both men strained, their weapons locked. Tendons popped on their arms, their teeth grinding, keeping each other at bay. Rohan stepped back, knocking Drio slightly off-center. Taking split-second advantage, he delivered a roundhouse kick to Drio’s thigh, hefted the pole high, and swung the blade down.

Drio blurred out, reappearing on the other side of the room.

The two circled each other. Rohan lunged suddenly, flipping the stick to knock Drio under the chin with the handle. Drio parried with his own weapon, sending Ro’s arm out of whack, but it wasn’t enough to block the hit entirely. Drio may have saved himself a pole through the underside of his jaw, but the blow still landed on the side of the head.

He staggered back, blood flowing from his ear.

Rohan went in for the kill. Even without his magic, he drove Drio to his knees.

“Basta,” Drio said. He pushed up off his knees, wrestling Ro’s staff to take it away from him. “Enough, Rohan.”

Ro’s hair was plastered to his forehead, his T-shirt soaked through. He grabbed the cloth wraps laying in a pile beside some discarded boxing gloves and began wrapping his knuckles. “What happened with the oshk?”

Drio grabbed his T-shirt off the floor and used it to staunch the bleeding. “Took her outside the wards again today, but if she’s calling the others, they’re not coming for her. I’ll try again tomorrow. Come upstairs. You’ve done enough training for today.” Drio spied me at the door and his jaw hardened, but his concern for his friend override his animosity towards me. “Talk some sense into him.”

“I’ll do better than that. Ro, come here.”

“Kinda busy.” Wraps on, he threw a couple of shadow punches.

“This is important.” I hugged him tight, laying my head against his chest.

He tensed, but his arms finally came around me. “What am I going to do?” he whispered.

“Not a damn thing.” I smiled up at him, reaching deep inside me for that magic Lilith had given me. This was no small sprig, but a massive rich bloom. I unfurled its petals, magic like dust motes flitting through me to fill my every inch.

Red magic shot out of me into Rohan, snapping my head back. Each dancing particle was visible; the world cranked to eleven. The floor wasn’t blue, it was infinite depths of the ocean. Rohan’s heart glowed pink through his brown skin, Drio’s hair shone like spun gold. Could have done without seeing the individual drops of sweat flying off the men, but the rainbow prisms refracted in them were pretty.

My amped-up power was a waterfall, a deafening roar lifting me off the ground, cool and pure and majestic. It lasted a single heartbeat and then turned off like a tap. I crumpled to the floor, mourning its loss. In that moment, I’d have agreed to anything to feel that way again.

“O cazzo!” Drio held the poles like a cross.

Rohan’s laugh bounced off the walls. Every single blade on his body was extended, his face lit up. I let his joy satisfy my craving for more of that magic. It was a salve, but it worked well enough.

I collapsed back against the padding and feebly fist-pumped. “Healing, bitches.”

He dropped to his knees beside me. “They said it couldn’t be unraveled.”

“Scientist witches. They had to find a solution.” Lilith allowed the lie.

“And you’re just that good.” Was it my imagination or did his eyes meet mine a little too pointedly? Was his smile a bit too wide?

I held out my hand and he pulled me up. “You better believe it. With a little help from my friends.” I coughed. “I’m going to take a shower.” I trailed a finger down his chest. “You could make me dinner in thanks.”

My stomach was knotted up and my mouth tasted like ash.

Drio still watched me with hostile suspicion, but he lowered the poles, disappearing into the weapons room.

My beautiful boy kissed my forehead. “You got it.”

As kisses went, it was a passing sweetness. I’d like to say that I’d have cherished it for the rest of my life, but the memory had already faded by the time I joined Ro in the kitchen forty-five minutes later, my hair loose and damp.

He’d laid out a candlelit table, which would have been romantic were the candles not pumping out a constant stream of smudgy smoke. Rohan presented me with crusty bread with olive oil and balsamic to dip it in, wine, salad, and fish.

It looked delicious. The taste, on the other hand? I poked at the halibut. “This salt-crust is really… salty.”

“Good, right?” Rohan ate with gusto. “It’s this Spanish recipe I’ve been wanting to try.”

I muscled another bite past my gag-reflex. Figured the last meal he’d ever want to cook for me was this disgusting disaster. “Yum.” I knocked back my wine, pouring more into my glass. Nerves steady, I pulled the fridge magnets that Yael had given me out of my terry cloth bathrobe. “You game?”

He laughed. “Smutty poetry magnets. Why not?”

I dumped the tiles out. Have. Give. Slow. Explore.

“Did you get burned when you healed me?” Rohan picked through the tiles for his selection.

I stopped rubbing the scar Lilith had given me to seal the deal. “I guess.”

Ro countered with: suck, stroke, quiver, throb.

“Jumping a few levels there, Snowflake.” Naked. Make. Me. Moan.

“I like this game.” We. Caress. Rub. Quiver.

“My turn.” Girl. In. My. Body. The tiles jerked sideways before he could read them, slipping to the floor. I doubled over in a hacking coughing fit, tears leaking out my eyes, my esophagus trying to escape out my mouth. All the words I wanted to say and couldn’t were a tight pinch, choking me.

It had been worth a try.

Rohan got me some water, patting my back until I waved him off. I dropped my head in my hands.

“Clusterfuck of a day, baby,” he said. “Come on. Let me take away all your tensions.”

I could close the fraction of an inch between us, let him lead me to the bedroom, rock his world, and wake up treasured in his arms the next morning.

I lay my hand on his cheek, not trusting my voice yet. Wishing there was any way other than this way outside-the-box plan. “I tried, but I can’t do this. I don’t want to be with you anymore. We’re done.”

Rohan jerked away. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not kidding.” A maelstrom of jagged edges and burning gusts swirled inside me. Lilith voicing her displeasure. My lawyer father would have hung his head in shame that I’d negotiated without reading the fine print about the consequences of breaking this deal. The section pertaining to my death. I grit my teeth. “There’s no separation in our lives and it’s too much. I can’t breathe.” For someone without blade magic, I fired those metaphoric knives like a pro. “We can’t be together.”

I stood up, crashing into the table, bent over double, feeling for my way out, wondering if I’d even make it to the door before the searing pain ripping me apart, consumed me. My vision tunneled down into a single dot.

“Nava! Come back here. Please.”

His pleading was wrecking me. One touch and I’d take it all back. I sped up so that couldn’t happen. “I’m sorry. This is how it has to be.”

“You can’t.” That hadn’t been Rohan. That was Lilith, roaring up inside me. “Nice try. But you can’t get out of our deal that easy. I’ll take it from here.”

My consciousness was shoved to one side, manhandled into a tiny ball, and stuffed into a black box. I fought her with everything I had, but my efforts were laughable. You said I wouldn’t even know you were here.

“You won’t,” she purred and slammed the black box shut.

I woke up the next morning naked in my bed. The scar was gone.

I turned over to find Ro watching me. I cast about for the appropriate salutation after one had dumped one’s boyfriend and then been unconscious through body-possessed sex. “Have fun last night?”

“You tell me,” he replied in a bland tone that clarified exactly nothing.

Oh, how I wished I could. I stretched out my limbs, checked in with Cuntessa, tested for unfamiliar soreness. Nothing. Whatever had gone down last night, Lilith hadn’t been freaky. “About what I said last night?”

“Forget it.” He got out of bed and pulled on his pants. “We’re going to try contacting the other oshk again. Meet us out back.”

There was no good morning kiss before he left.

I pressed my fists into my eyes until I saw stars.

Rohan knew. I don’t know how, but he did. I’d broken up with him thinking it was my one way to save him, and instead Lilith had tricked me and fucked him and I’d lost him anyway. There was no point being mad at the duplicitous witch. My self-loathing, on the other hand, was endless.

My phone trilled merrily with my Word of the Day notification. Specious: adjective. Having deceptive attraction or allure; having a false look of truth or genuineness.

I deleted the app.