One suck-ass sleepless night and a rushed breakfast later, hundreds of magic icy needles pierced my skin and stabbed my organs. I bit down harder on the strap of leather between my teeth, sweat dripping off my temples and running down the back of my neck.

“Anything?” Dr. Gelman’s face hovered above mine.

Moaning, I strained and bucked under the magic enveloping me.

She clicked her tongue and shut it down.

I spit out the strap, my breath coming in harsh pants. “I hate you.”

Gelman loosened one of her shirt cuffs with a delicate flick of her wrist. Thanks to her last round of chemo, her lung cancer seemed to be in a holding pattern. It wasn’t better, but it definitely wasn’t worse, and seeing her not looking like a walking skeleton never failed to make me happy. She’d managed to gain some weight, and her hair, while now totally white and still short, had lost its patchiness.

“Hate me all you want. Do you feel any sign of Lilith?”

I closed my eyes, exploring every twinge and ache from the crown of my head down to my baby toes for a more sinister explanation than what she’d subjected me to. I pressed my hand against my sternum and opened my eyes. “I sense a box. Maybe the size of my fist, lodged here.”

The box didn’t hurt. It was just there, floating. I have no idea whether my clear visual of it as matte black and seamless was thanks to my magic or an overactive imagination.

She tapped my breastbone. “Here?” I nodded. “This is where I detected the wisps of dark magic,” she said. “Lilith’s essence is locked in that box. Now that you feel it, you can monitor it.”

Not use the magic or get Lilith out, just tell whether or not everything was super about to go to Hell. My life had become one long limbo.

“Given that spells are the basic cable of magic,” I said, “and that’s what Ro used to knock Lilith out, you’d think getting her out of me would be simple.”

“Nothing involving Lilith is simple.” Gelman placed her hands on my shoulders, sending a healing warmth inside me to relieve all the pain she’d inflicted.

My magic Domme.

“What’s left to try?” I shakily pushed myself up into a seated position, rubbing my arms to get the blood flowing.

The past few weeks, my Mondays had been a series of standing appointments with Gelman as she tried all kinds of things, magic-based and not, to deal with my unwanted guest. Today’s attempt had involved extreme cold. It didn’t suck as hard as the herbal concoction that had left me with debilitating stomach pain and grossness running out of both ends of me, but still ranked pretty high on the unpleasantness scale.

“There is one form of stimulation you could try. Pleasure yourself and–”

I clapped my hands over my ears. “La. La. La. La. La.”

“Don’t be childish. I assume you have a vibrator and if not, you have working hands.”

“Stop talking.” My cheeks were burning and I couldn’t meet her eyes.

“Have you been avoiding masturbation because you’re concerned about Lilith? I understand your fears, but a powerful orgasm might shake her loose. Then I could transfer her to another vessel. We could do it in a controlled situation, where you’d still have maximum privacy. Do you want help finding stimulating material?”

I twisted the fat gold band with the engraving of a hamsa around my finger. “Ohmigod! I’ve masturbated, okay? It didn’t wake her. End of subject.”

“All right.” She slipped on a sweater. “That’s enough for today. I’ll make some tea.”

I scuffed the floor with my toe. “Did you make scones again? Because I think I deserve them.”

“Your mother deserves a medal for dealing with your petulance.”

I took her arm, the two of us moving slowly. “Yeah, thrilled you’re getting along so swimmingly. You were supposed to bond over witches. King David. A whole host of subjects that didn’t involve yours truly.”

“But you’re the most fun to discuss.” Gelman led me up the basement stairs into the kitchen of her sister Rivka’s house.

Sunshine flooded the long, narrow space which flowed into an open-concept living room, the backyard beyond visible through the glass sliding door. Rivka had a fondness for white–the walls, the furniture–but kept the space from feeling cold with brightly colored cushions, a fat, fluffy throw rug, and an enormous photographic print of a spice market.

I filled the kettle with water while Gelman busied herself laying out all the goodies, including the buttermilk blueberry scones.

My visits with her had three components: Wizard School, Torture Time, and Snacks.

Wizard School was progressing nicely, with my witch magic coming along in leaps and bounds. I could portal reliably and had mastered eliminating memories, which was how I’d been able to make Ilya forget about meeting me. I’d even learned location spells, which weren’t spells at all but a type of infusion magic. And that was in addition to all the training and studying I was still doing as Rasha. In comparison, university looked like a vacation.

It wasn’t all learning about infusion and elimination magic though. Gelman, a scientist and a witch, was using me as her guinea pig to investigate how magic and science intersected based on Maxwell’s Laws of Electromagnetism. Yes, she’d drilled me in the stupid name. Case in point? Today’s new unit, testing whether or not I could cloak myself with electromagnetic fields that would deflect light from behind me to the front of me like an invisibility cloak.

The answer was a resounding example of how to suck hard. I could call up the electromagnetic field, but then I sat there like an electric flashlight doing a snap-crackle-pop impression.

After growling at me about my tenth failure, Gelman had moved on to Torture Time. When she’d finished working out her jollies–I mean, testing her theories on how to resolve the Lilith situation, involving my pain and/or humiliation–it was time for the best part: Snacks.

We generally puttered around making our tea, and only once we were nestled in the cozy booth eating did we fill each other in on any new developments regarding Sienna, the witch community, and the Brotherhood. Though I had yet to be rewarded with rugelach.

“How hungry are you?” I asked, eyeing the multiple platters of scones, cookies that were not rugelach, and bagels that she was laying out. “I mean, I can always eat, but that’s a bit much even for me.”

The doorbell rang.

“Oh, look,” she said. “Company.” She raked a critical glance over me. “You might want to wash up.”

I flicked off the switch on the kettle. “What have you done?”

“You wanted to meet other witches.”

“With some warning.”

“Get over it. We don’t have the time. The sooner we have more brains working on finding Sienna, the better.”

“I hate it when you’re logical.” I ran a hand over my wrinkled clothes. My hair was limp and my make-up had been sweated away. “You couldn’t tell me before your little sadism session?”

“I didn’t want to listen to you whine. Be nice or I’ll stick you in a Faraday Cage.”

The first time she’d uttered that threat, I’d stared blankly at her, so she’d launched into a long-winded explanation that made me go from clueless to glazed over.

“You could have saved me ten minutes of my life and given me the tl;dr version that it was a dealio that nullified electricity,” I’d said.

She’d stared at me in confusion.

“Tl:dr. Too long. Don’t read. Like ‘in summary.’”

“I know what it means. My stupefaction is your childish reduction of the cage to a ‘dealio.’”

Then I’d gotten glared at for a full half hour. Ah, memories.

“You can’t say that every week and expect me to be scared,” I now said.

“I’m wearing you down, making you think it’s an idle threat and then bam! I’ll surprise you.”

“Funny.” I grabbed my purse off the counter, grateful I’d kept the travel make-up kit that my mother had given me before the Pride parade, which, come to think of it, had seemed like an odd return to our old passive-aggressive dynamic. “You told Mom, didn’t you?”

“You’re welcome.”

The doorbell rang again and I bolted for the upstairs bathroom. By the time I’d made myself presentable, four new women were waiting for me.

As one, they turned from the dining room table to inspect me.

The black woman closest to me was maybe five years older. A total fashionista, she could have been a model in her designer mini-dress and bling. She certainly had the attitude for the catwalk.

Next to her was seated an elderly Indian woman with a sleek silver bob and a sharply tailored business suit.

The other two women were seated across the table: a fiery red-head, probably in her early thirties, dressed in the latest post-apocalyptic chic with a partially-shaved head and a very cool Monroe piercing above her lip, and a middle-aged Asian woman with her hair pulled into a ballet bun, wearing an ankle-length sundress with a delicate floral-patterned scarf knotted jauntily around her neck.

Gelman did the introductions. “Raquel, Shivani, Elena, Catalina. This is Nava.”

“Hi.” I shook hands with each one in turn, making sure to maintain eye contact, my grip firm. I may have been a bottom feeder in the witch hierarchy, but I wasn’t going to roll over in their presence.

“Come here, cariña.” The Asian woman, Catalina, kept my hand tight in hers, drawing me around the table.

“Catalina is head of the Mexico City coven and an expert in spellcasting,” Gelman said.

“She’s also not letting go of me,” I muttered.

Catalina stood up and placed one hand on my chest and the other on the small of my back. A wave of warmth pulsed through me, coming up short like her magic had hit some kind of wall. My entire body jerked, the way my leg did when the doctor tapped my knee.

“It’s as you feared, Esther,” she said in her melodic Spanish accent.

“Feared?” I did a double take. “You told them about Lilith?”

Gelman didn’t even look repentant. She flicked the stainless steel lighter engraved with her initials she always seemed to have on hand, even though she no longer smoked. “What, you thought I’d keep quiet? That elimination spell I gave your Rohan was basic, but very efficient. It should have drawn Lilith from your body. It didn’t. I called them here to help us find out why.”

“We knew why! Lilith was just too strong. We’ve been over this.”

“Another reason to finish what Tessa started and get rid of hunters,” Raquel said. “Rasha bumbling around above their pay grade, messing with spells they have no business casting. It’s dangerous.”

“Oh, good.” I glared at Gelman. “You told them everything.”

“They needed to know how, why, and who was involved.” Flick. Flick. Flick.

“Yeah. Her Rasha boyfriend,” Raquel rolled her eyes. “Real magical genius.”

I exhaled to a slow count of ten. Witches and Rasha had always hated each other, always been convinced that the team they played for had the best grasp on magic. Yelling at Raquel wasn’t going to prove my point. An image of David with his slingshot flashed through my mind.

When faced with an impossible task, change the rules of the game.

“How do you kill a sakacha?” I asked, drumming my fingers on the table. “Any idea?”

“A what?”

I took the empty seat next to Gelman, placing me next to Raquel. “A seven-foot tall wooden snowman demon whose kill spot is inside it. It’s not on Google so you better know what you’re facing, otherwise your death is going to be pretty painful. Because of its iron pincers. It totally has those. They can snap bone–” I snapped a gingersnap in half and Raquel flinched. “Like it’s nothing. I’m getting the crash course on demons, but if I hadn’t had some of those men in my corner, I’d have been dead in minutes. I respect that you have me and every Rasha beat on the magic front, but give them their due; they’ve trained their whole lives and studied like mad to kill these things so you don’t have to.”

“I’ve killed demons before,” Raquel said. “Not that type, but all of us here have.” She rolled her eyes at my stupefied expression. “Hello, witches. We’re the original demon killers.”

“I thought witches had no interest in killing demons anymore.” I prodded Gelman’s ankle with my foot.

“Tl;dr, they do,” she snarked.

“Most don’t slay.” Elena, the Mad Max redhead was a lot more soft-spoken than I would have assumed. “Only a handful of us have kept to the old ways.”

Raquel smiled good-naturedly at her. “Trust the Romanians to know all about the old ways.”

“I agree with Nava that we need Rasha. I have no interest in hunting.” Shivani added some lox to her bagel and cream cheese. Her English was clipped in that posh way of the very upper class. “Not at this stage of my life. I’m happy to leave that to Rasha and younger witches who choose to pursue that path.”

Catalina gently cleared her throat. “May we get back to the more pressing issue? Instead of pointlessly fighting Lilith, the spell redirected and went for the easier target to draw out.”

“That’s you,” Raquel said. “The easy one.”

Shivani raised an eyebrow at her. Raquel squirmed and looked away, but she didn’t apologize.

“Lilith had cast your awareness into a magic box, had she not?” Shivani said. “The spell extracted you and put Lilith in there instead.”

I laughed, spreading homemade raspberry jam on a scone. “Hoisted on her own damn petard. She made her prison. Let her rot in it. I’ll live with her the way people live with bullets lodged in them.”

“She’s too strong to contain,” Gelman said. “She’s leaking out.”

Cold washed over my body in a rush. “You said it was wisps.”

Wisps were light, fluffy, almost invisible. They recalled dandelion puffs on a summer day and cotton candy at the fair. Leaks were how people described oil spills, disasters that irrevocably destroyed oceans and beachfront, speckling tides with fish floating belly-up and staring accusingly at the sky.

I slammed the table, rattling the china. “You. Said. Wisps.”

Tea sloshed over the rim of Shivani’s cup onto her saucer.

“Oh my,” Shivani murmured, and grabbed a napkin.

When Gelman didn’t respond, I snatched her stupid lighter, blasted one of its corners, and tossed it on the table.

She bristled, then deflated against her chair. “I didn’t tell you because I wanted to be wrong. You were going through so much already. But yes, it’s a leak. I’ve detected more and more traces of dark magic in you. If it keeps up at this rate, you’ll have maybe a month before Lilith’s box blows open.”

A lot could happen in a month, couldn’t it? Solutions could be found. Magic boxes could be reinforced. I shivered, reliving Lilith’s seething flash of rage when I’d tried to negate our contract by breaking up with Rohan. She’d been terrifying back then, but that would be nothing compared with how she’d be if she got free now, furious from weeks of captivity and determined to exact revenge.

“How do I protect myself?”

A hush fell over the room, all the other witches suddenly very interested in adding sugar to their tea, refolding their napkins, or brushing imaginary crumbs from the tablecloth.

“Oh,” I said, in a very small voice. “I don’t.”

I dropped my head in my hands.

A soft knit blanket was draped over my shoulders, but it didn’t help. The warmth didn’t soothe my ice-cold insides.

Gelman squeezed my shoulder, her shea butter and lavender moisturizer wrapping me in its calming scent. “I didn’t bring everyone here for a public death sentence. We’ve found a way to remove her from you.”

I lifted my head.

“Essentially, you tried to bypass the original deal you made with Lilith,” Elena said. “That’s why Esther can’t get her out of you. That original magic is still rooted in place. You’re like a clogged toilet right now and Lilith’s magic is the sanitary pad jamming you up. Leaking bits into you.”

“Are you–are you for real?” I spluttered.

Elena frowned. “Did I not say that properly in English?

Raquel poured herself some tea. “You said it perfectly, honey. Nava’s a wadded-up pad. Go on.”

Elena spoke enthusiastically, her hands madly gesturing. “We can plunge the box out of you.”

“Like bringing the pad to the surface of the bowl with all the other gross stuff,” Raquel added, squeezing some lemon into her frou frou cup.

“Thanks.” I rubbed my eyes. “I got the metaphor.”

“We can delicately extract the box before everything overflows and the situation is irreparable,” Elena continued. “Then we transfer Lilith, while still unconscious, to a stronger vessel that will contain her indefinitely.”

“Rivka is in London right now, getting that vessel,” Gelman said.

“This sounds spectacularly repulsive, but if gets her out of me?” I dug into my scone with the renewed enthusiasm of one who’d just had her death sentence lifted. “Unclog my toilet self.”

“There’s one problem,” Catalina said.

I threw my hands up. “Of course there is.”

“We need… punct ochit punct lovit. How do you say?” Elena tapped her finger against her lip. “Middle of target?”

“Bullseye,” Catalina said. “It’s an artifact rumored to cut through any magic.”

“Rumored. Right. Which means you have no clue where it is or that it does what it says.” Hysterical laughter bubbled up inside me, and I was scared that if I let it out, I’d lose myself to the madness of my situation. I added clotted cream to my jam-slathered scone and bit into it, willfully ignoring how the buttery, flaky biscuit choked my throat like ash.

Raquel arched an eyebrow, recoiling from my scone like I’d shit on it. “That’s like a thousand calories. What would your boyfriend say?”

I licked some jam off my finger. “He likes me well-fed.” Regroup. Focus on what can be done. “Where’s the Bullseye?”

“There’s this demon. Baskerville,” Gelman said.

I pointed my jam knife at her. “You’re full of surprises today. A hunter, a consorter with demons. A very specific demon who happens to be my least favorite blue dude.”

Gelman pushed the knife aside. “We’re witches. We hunt demons or make deals with them as we need to.”

I made a snarky face. “I know Baskerville. I’ll get the artifact.”

“Be careful with it. It’s a single-shot deal,” Raquel said. “Don’t set it off.”

“One attempt. Got it. And the highly trained person who’s going to use this thing on me is?”

“Any idiot can use it,” Raquel said. “Just press it to your skin.”

“What’s the downside?” It was a magic artifact. There was always a downside.

Catalina adjusted her scarf. “There’s a fifty percent chance that it will extract your magic along with it.”

“Really? My options are death or possible magic loss?” Funny, Rohan had been so mad at me for the deal that had restored his magic, but faced with these two outcomes? I’d drop to my knees and blow him in thanks if he could spring the same arrangement on me–one where some perv would get their voyeuristic kicks for a night, but I’d get to keep my magic.

I was working very hard on Regroup 2.0, but not gonna lie. It was a struggle. My scone fell from my hand to my plate.

“I won’t let you lose your magic,” Gelman said. “It’s a delicate operation but we have the combined abilities to extract her and contain her in the vessel with no harm to you.”

I looked at each woman in turn. “And you’ve all agreed to this?”

“That’s why we came. To meet you and decide if we’d do this,” Elena said.

“Which we will,” Catalina said.

Shivani nodded.

I looked at Raquel, who rolled her eyes. “I’m in, stop staring.”

“Thank you.” I put my hand on my heart, overcome at their generosity.

“I want more than thanks,” Gelman said. “Stay on my good side for a change or fend for yourself.”

“Your good side. Is that the one with your face or your ass?” I said, then took a delicate sip of my water.

“See what I have to put up with?” Gelman said.

Shivani burst out laughing. “Please let me be there when you meet Maya.”

I choked on the sip I’d taken.

Gelman pounded me on my back, muttering encouragements like how if I died drinking water it would definitely solve the Lilith problem, but she’d never forgive me for denying her the thrill of trapping the most powerful witch of all time.

I coughed and shook my head at Shivani. “You’re friends. With Maya Mitra.”

“That grimace is a little much,” Gelman muttered into my ear.

“My architecture firm worked with Dev’s engineers many times over the years.” Shivani pushed a strand of silver hair behind her ear. “Rohan’s lovely.”

Raquel reached for a napkin. The silky material of her cream dress shifted enough for me to see her bra, a periwinkle, watered-silk push-up number studded with tiny blue crystals. Jeez. Even her lingerie was epic.

“If you like that type,” she said.

Whatever, honey. All breathing man-lovers liked that type.

“Yes, he is lovely. What about Sienna?” I said. “I assume you’ve been filled in on that situation as well?”

The women nodded.

“There’s a deep schism in our community right now over what happened with Tessa,” Shivani said. “A lot of very heated discussion about our place in the world. The only good thing is that we’ve managed to keep Sienna’s involvement a secret.”

“For the time being,” Catalina said. “How much longer remains to be seen. It depends on what happens when we find her.”

“Or her next move,” Shivani said.

“You’re really not going to like my news, then.” I filled them in about Mandelbaum wanting a new witch. “Sienna could do a lot of damage.”

Gelman’s hands paused on the teapot, then she smiled, small enough that I almost didn’t catch it. I didn’t have to share my Brotherhood information, sure, but if there were anyone’s friends I was going to trust, of course they would be hers.

Catalina crossed herself. “We can’t let him get her.”

“We can’t let certain witches get her either,” Shivani said. “She’s playing with dark magic.”

I slid the blanket off my shoulders and folded it. “They’ll try to stop her by any means necessary?”

“They’ll try to join her,” Raquel said. “We have our share of Malfoy wannabes.”

“Damn. I don’t want to like you, McGonagall.” I draped the blanket over the chair.

“Back at you, Luna.”

“Excuse me. I always felt a certain kinship with the young Sirius Black.”

Raquel snorted. “If I’m Head of Gryffindor, I should damn well know who’s in my House, you starry-eyed Ravenclaw.”

I doctored a bagel with a generous schmear of cream cheese and much lox. “Can you identify the most likely contenders? Watch them for any sign of contact?”

“Can and will,” Elena said.

“I’ll work on that with you,” Catalina said.

“Raquel,” Shivani said, “you compiled the dossier on Sienna. Where are you at with sussing out potential dark magic teachers or covens devoted to it?”

“A lot of rumors and nasty gossip. No useful leads. I’m working on it.”

The landline rang.

“I’m going to speak with the older women in our community.” Gelman headed for the phone. “See what I can learn about Millicent. She died when Sienna was very little so she wasn’t the one teaching her, but she was her birth mother. It might be worth pursuing.”

Raquel prodded me with the toe of her Laboutin. “Be careful with Baskerville. For all his smooth-talking ways, he’s deadly. We’ve lost a lot of fine witches who underestimated him.”

“Nava.” Gelman held out the receiver. “It’s Ari.”

I wiped cream cheese off my fingers and took the phone. “Hello?”

“Why aren’t you answering your burner?” he said.

“It’s in my purse. Probably on vibrate. Why?”

“Ro was trying to get hold of you. Some radio interview he wants you to hear.”

“Thanks, Ace.” Despite my good intentions, I hadn’t called Rohan last night. I’d been too raw after the call with Pierre. Maybe this interview would give me the opening I needed.

I made my apologies for having to rush out. Everyone was very gracious and Shivani even assured me that I’d do fine when I met Maya.

Gelman walked me to the door. “Your first witch playdate. Happy?”

Other than the shitty outcomes part, sure, but all that I’d learned about witches today made me feel like some of them at least, truly were my sisters.

“Very. It was a little much with the long toilet metaphor, but I feel better. Thank you.” I paused, debating and then going for it. “Esther.”

I braced myself, expecting a swat across the top of my head for presumptuously using her first name, but she trained a pleased smile on me, and blushing, I rolled onto the outsides of my feet.

“My pleasure, child.”