Rane’s domain existed between realms, outside the normal restrictions of time, place, and magic. When a vengeful shadow mage had altered the fabric of reality, the spell rippled through earth and hell—but it could not touch Rane’s sanctuary.

Rane’s house was a chameleon, changing to fit the demon’s mood. Right now, it was snowing here. No, wait, that wasn’t snow, Naomi realized as a sweet white spec melted on her tongue. It was powdered sugar falling from the sky like tiny snowflakes.

And that wasn’t the only weird thing going on. Rane’s residence had chosen a gingerbread house as its form today. Actually, make that a gingerbread castle, complete with twenty towers, each one embellished with a different type of candy. Gummy bears and sugar hearts, licorice sticks and bubblegum. Chocolate chips and chocolate bricks, white chocolate and dark chocolate, milk chocolate and caramel chocolate. Candy canes lined the path that led to the house; rainbow sprinkles covered the rooftops.

There was even a moat around the castle, made of hot flowing chocolate. Ripe strawberries, banana slices, and pineapple chunks hung from the trees on either side of the moat. The trees were made of colored sugar, melted and formed into translucent trunks and branches.

A strawberry and a banana piece fell from two of the trees, hitting the chocolate stream with synchronized plunks. A moment later, the fruit pieces burst out of the stream and landed neatly on a silver platter growing out of a flower. The two pieces of fruit were each now covered in a hard chocolate shell.

“Death by sugar overload?” Naomi said to Makani.

Before he could respond, the gate to the castle opened and the gingerbread drawbridge extended. Rane walked across the sugar-speckled cake plank.

Like her home, Rane’s appearance changed with her mood. Right now, the demon looked like a plump grandmother. Her hair was white, her eyes stormy-blue, and her skin as wrinkled as an old paper grocery bag. There was a slight hunch to her back as she hobbled forward with the help of her cane. She was dressed in a long, dark blue cloth dress with a cream-colored shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Beneath the dress, she wore ankle-high boots, each one tied up with swirled red-and-white laces that resembled candy canes.

“Fee-fi-fo-fum, care for some sweeties, dearies?” Rane’s voice croaked.

“You’re mixing up your fairytales,” Naomi told her.

Rane let out a melodramatic sigh. That single gasped breath washed away decades of age. Instead of eighty, she now looked hardly older than eighteen. Her wrinkles faded away. Her white hair turned bubblegum-pink and shifted into two large buns, one on each side of her head; they resembled cookies—pink cookies with dark chocolate chips.

Her plain cloth dress transformed into a short minidress with a pink-and-orange tutu. She wore fishnet stockings and sneakers with tiny decorative lollipop buttons all over them. Candy earrings dangled down from her ears. A lollipop belt looped around her waist, just above the tutu. Tiny tassels, loaded with candies, hung from her spaghetti straps, reaching halfway to her elbows.

“I never liked the vanilla, out-of-the-box fairytales. They need a good mix, a wicked twist.”

Rane waved her hands around dramatically, gesturing like a teenage girl. Her candy tassels jingled. They seemed to be singing a song, but Naomi didn’t recognize the tune.

The demon picked up the silver platter on the gigantic flower. She held it out to Naomi. “Chocolate-covered fruit?”

“Are they poisonous?”

“Only one out of every two,” Rane replied, a mischievous twinkle in her bright blue eyes.

Awesome.

“No, thank you,” Naomi said with a polite smile.

Rane snorted. Apparently, good manners amused her. “Suit yourself.” She popped the chocolate-covered strawberry into her mouth. “Well, come along now, dearies. I haven’t got all century.”

Then she turned and went back into her gingerbread house.

Naomi, Makani, and Firestorm followed the demon into the house. The inside was so very different from the outside. Instead of gingerbread and candies, it was awash with marble and gold. It looked like the lobby of a bank, the kind where the minimum deposit was a hundred million dollars.

Rane leaned back against a marble table. “You’ve brought the dragon along.”

Her eyes narrowed as they fell upon Makani. As expected, she didn’t look happy to see him. Makani had once told Naomi that they’d fought and he’d given the demon a ‘bloody nose’. She didn’t know if he meant that literally or not.

Rane’s gaze shifted to Firestorm. “And you’ve brought the Betrayer too.”

She said the word like it was written with a capital letter, like it was Firestorm’s title as much as Pestilence or the Fire Monster.

“She brings death and destruction wherever she goes,” Rane said. “You should not have brought her here.”

“We had to,” replied Naomi. “We need your help. You can tell if someone speaks the truth. You can use your magic mirrors to look into their past, to see what they have done. And to look into their soul.”

“I don’t look into souls all that much anymore, dearie. It’s bad for my complexion.”

It was an odd comment from someone who could change her appearance at will. But, then again, Rane was an odd demon.

“Can we trust Firestorm?” Naomi asked her.

The demon shrugged her dainty little shoulders. “You can trust her as much as you can trust me.”

Awesome.

Naomi tried again. “Firestorm says Darksire deceived her, that centuries ago Damarion assigned him to make her fall in love with him. To warp her magic, to use her against the other Dragon Born.”

“Damarion was an asshole. He did all that and more. He used her.” Rane looked pissed off, perhaps because a man had once used her, tricking her for his own gain.

So Firestorm’s story of her past was true, just as Naomi had thought. But was the rest of this terrible story true too?

“Firestorm claims that Paladin and Paragon are…” Naomi cleared her throat. “That the demon princes of hell are inside of my babies.”

“I know.”

“You already know?” Naomi gasped.

“Yes. I don’t need my magic mirrors to see that. I can see them. The Betrayer speaks the truth.”

“So it is true. All of it.” She’d known in her heart that it was, and yet the finality of Rane’s words weighed heavily on her soul, like someone had just dropped the moon on her head.

“I can sense the two demon souls inside of you, merging with your babies’ magic.” She turned a fiery glare on Makani. “Well, that’s a fine mess you made of things again.”

“It’s not his fault. It’s the demons,” Naomi told her.

“The demons didn’t put a pair of buns in your oven, honey. The dragon did. Kids today!” She threw her hands up in the air. “You’d think you had never heard of birth control.”

“I was taking contraceptive magic herbs.”

Rane laughed in her face. “That’s earth magic. And you’ve been spending a lot of time in the spirit realm. Magic there works differently than on earth. Different magic, different rules.”

Naomi hadn’t thought of that. A quick glance at Makani said he hadn’t either.

“The babies were conceived in the spirit realm,” Rane said.

Naomi and Makani had only ever had sex once in the spirit realm, a few hours before they’d rescued Dad from the Monolith.

“Spirit magic, Dragon Born magic, and demon magic.” Rane scowled at them all. “A real mess.”

“But how is this possible?” Naomi asked. “Spirit Warriors cannot be possessed. The demons shouldn’t have been able to possess my babies.”

“They latched on when your babies were only a few days old, before they were anything. It was so early on in their lives that Paladin and Paragon didn’t possess them; they became part of them as they formed.”

“Makani and I slept together only a few hours before the demons latched on to our babies. There should not have even been a baby yet. I remember that from biology. It takes days before a fertilized egg implants.”

“You’re forgetting something very important: time often works differently in the spirt realm,” Rane told her. “The magic of life and death works differently. Those few hours represented days to your body and to your babies.”

Rane set her hand on Naomi’s flat belly. “The demons’ magic has completely merged with your babies’ magic. One hundred percent penetration. Congratulations, folks. You couldn’t have timed this better if you’d tried.”

“So there’s nothing we can do?” Naomi sighed.

“There are loads of things you can do. Get lots of exercise. Eat a balanced diet. Take your vitamins.” Rane counted off the platitudes on her fingers.

Naomi frowned at her. “You are mocking me.”

“Not just you, dearie. I’m mocking you, your dragon lover, and…” Rane glanced at Firestorm. “And how did you contribute to this mess?”

“My husband conspired with the demons inside of her. Paladin and Paragon wanted her to conceive so they could merge with her babies.”

“The hell panthers cast a strange spell on me.” One that had made Naomi frisky enough to have sex with Makani in the middle of hell. “That was all part of the plan.”

“Yes, that is what I saw in Darksire’s mind,” Firestorm confirmed. “The panthers’ magic filled you both with lust. And it made you fertile. The demons knew the offspring of you and Makani would make the most powerful hosts they could ever hope to have.”

“You’re neck deep in this mess, and they trust you?” Rane chuckled at Firestorm.

“No,” Makani stated coolly.

“I would like to fix it.” Firestorm’s gaze flickered to Makani. “I’d like to fix a lot of things.”

His response was a stony glower.

“He does hold a grudge, doesn’t he?” Rane commented brightly.

“I don’t blame him. I am responsible for the near-total annihilation of our people.”

“Oh?” Mischief flashed in Rane’s eyes. “Didn’t he tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Seven centuries ago, most of the Dragon Born escaped death,” the demon said. “As Damarion’s armies were closing in on them for the final big battle, I whisked them away and put them someplace safe. To all of you, it looked like the Dragon Born had died, but they are living quite comfortably.”

“Where?”

“They are nicely tucked away in their own little world inside my honeycomb. They are living quite comfortably there. It’s a Dragon Born paradise, a place where every child is born a Dragon Born mage and everyone is immortal. I figured human nature would kick in eventually, and they’d start killing one another, but they are so…happy.” Rane rolled her eyes, looking quite bored.

Firestorm blinked. “How is this possible?”

“I know. There hasn’t been a single war there in seven hundred years. Everyone gets along so well.” Rane made a disgusted face. “You Dragon Born are so boring.”

“No, how did you save them?” Firestorm asked her. “What kind of magic is this?”

“Much more powerful magic than that hack Damarion taught you, dearie,” Rane shot back with a haughty look. “You could say I have a way with folding reality.”

That was the understatement of the year. Rane was the mistress of reality-bending magic.

“They didn’t die,” Firestorm said quietly.

“I love that you didn’t tell her. Very cheeky of you to make her live with the guilt.” Rane grinned at Makani like she’d never heard anything so fantastic. “I think I’ve changed my mind about you, dragon. I do like you.”

The demon was so weird.

“This isn’t a trick? All the Dragon Born are truly still alive?” Firestorm asked Makani.

“Yes.”

Relief flashed in her eyes, quickly followed by anger. That one was directed at Makani for not telling her they were alive. Magic flared up on her fingertips.

A ball of crackling lightning formed between Makani’s hands. “That doesn’t change anything,” he said coldly. “It doesn’t get you off the hook for your crimes.”

“If you’re going to battle to the death, please take it outside. I’ve just finished redecorating,” the demon said, watching them with eager anticipation.

“They will behave,” Naomi promised her.

“Oh? What a shame.” Rane turned to her talking cat, who was watching them all from atop a crystal tree that grew out of the marble floor. “Cancel the popcorn.”

“It gives me indigestion anyway,” the cat replied.

“Because you always lather it in butter.”

The cat purred.

“You’re a greedy little thing,” Rane told her cat affectionately. “You know that, right?”

The cat licked its paw and used it to groom its ears. Rane’s pet had taken the form of a regular tabby cat today. It sure beat having it prowl around the room as a tiger while it licked its chops at them.

“Bael told us you took Shifting Realms from him. That’s the spell book he used to merge the demons with my babies,” Naomi said to Rane.

“Took from him?” A savage smile hardened her face. “That was my book. Bael stole it from me. I was just stealing it back. Bael had no business with that book. Its spells are too powerful for the likes of him.”

“If you have the book, you can reverse the spell,” Naomi said hopefully.

“It’s too late for that.”

Hope blinked out inside of her, its void filled by dizzying delirium. She swayed to the side.

“Sit down before you faint,” Rane snapped at her. “And have a cookie while you’re at it.” A gigantic chocolate chip cookie appeared in Naomi’s hands. “You are eating for three now, two of them magic-guzzling powerhouses.”

“Careful, Rane. You almost sounded like you cared.” Naomi sniffed the cookie. “Is this poisonous?”

“If I wanted to poison you, Spirit Warrior, I’d come up with something far more original.” The demon actually looked offended.

Naomi nibbled a bite off the cookie. It was delicious. “Do you have anything besides pregnancy tips for me? Something that might help me get the demons out of my babies?”

“The demons’ magic has been growing with your babies magic since conception. It’s not glued on. It’s interwoven, as much a part of them as their own magic.”

Naomi slumped. “So there’s nothing we can do to exorcise the demons.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You said—”

“Calm down and eat your cookie,” Rane snapped at her. “I said the demons’ magic is interwoven with your babies’ magic, inseparable. Their souls, however, are a different matter altogether.”

Hope returned with a vengeance, pounding inside Naomi’s chest.

“As soon as you perform the ritual to separate the two Dragon Born souls and their magic into two bodies, it’s too late,” Rane continued. “That is a soul-and-body binding spell. It will forever merge the demons’ souls with those of your children. That is the point of no return. You won’t be able to remove the demons from your children’s bodies or send them back to hell.”

“If we don’t perform the ritual, my babies will die,” Naomi said, frowning.

Rane countered with a smile. “Yes.”

Naomi resisted the urge to punch the demon in the face. She wasn’t sure Rane wasn’t simply toying with them. “So either everyone dies or everyone lives. That’s not a solution.”

“You’re sure feisty, aren’t you, fairy?”

“My babies’ lives aren’t a joke created for your amusement.” Anger, despair, and two months of nonstop fighting had worn Naomi’s patience down to a tiny nub.

“You too-pretty people are rarely amusing,” Rane sighed. “I wasn’t being facetious when I said there’s a solution. You need to exorcise the demons before your children are born. Before you perform the Dragon Born ritual.”

“When you exorcise a demon, you push all of it out of the host, magic and soul. The demons’ magic is interwoven with my babies’ magic. How do I exorcise just the demons’ souls but not their magic? That’s impossible.”

“You’re not listening. It is not impossible. It’s just tricky,” said Rane. “In fact, such a spell has been performed before. Well, the opposite has been done actually. But the principle is the same.”

Naomi’s magic nipped impatiently at her skin. “You’re not making any sense.”

“Never heard of it, have you?” Rane scoffed. “You don’t know anything about your magic heritage, do you? Where do you think the Spirit Warriors got their powers, the magic of the spirit realm? They got it from hell.”

Naomi gaped at her. “You’re saying the Spirit Warriors’ magic was…” Her mouth couldn’t form the words.

“Stolen from a demon, yes,” Rane said with a smirk. “Left that out of the Spirit Warrior welcome brochures, did they? Long ago, a very cheeky fairy, just like you, trapped a demon and killed it. As the demon died, the fairy stole its magic, making it a part of her. And she became the first Spirit Warrior. She passed down that magic to her children, and to her children’s children… all the way down to you. You’re a demonic fairy, dearie. Congratulations.”

Rane’s gaze flickered from Naomi’s shocked face, to her pet cat. Grinning, she declared, “I think we’re going to need that popcorn after all.”