My dining room table was too small to seat seven people—and an unconscious golem—so we went to the office instead.

“The golems were just the straw that broke this girl’s back,” I told everyone gathered in our waiting room. “This adventure in the Hellean floating cities has drained me dry. I can state with unwavering certainty that if I don’t get something to eat in the next five minutes—preferably something that comes with a side order of fries—I will never move off this sofa again.”

“Yes, don’t move,” Jason said behind me. He was treating the gash on the back of my shoulder.

I giggled. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken all those painkillers. They were making me loopy.

Someone knocked on the door. Father went to answer it, once again proving that he was indeed the galaxy’s best father—just like it said on his coffee mug. He returned with seven steaming-hot paper bags in his hands. The golem was still chained up and asleep in Father’s office, so it didn’t get any dinner. Plus, there was the small matter of it having tried to kill us.

“Don’t move,” Jason chided me as I reached into my dinner bag.

“My food will get cold,” I complained.

He leaned forward, his voice a ragged rasp against my cheek. “And if I don’t finish up here, this cut will get infected.”

My pulse spiked—and it wasn’t from the pain. Or from the painkillers. No, scratch that. I was totally blaming the painkillers. They must have been messing with my mind because right now kissing Jason sounded like a really good idea.

I planted my hands on my legs and sat perfectly still. As soon as Jason was done wrapping my wound, I thanked him, then opened my bag. I found a chicken sandwich—still hot, thankfully—and two cartons of fries.

I blew my father a kiss across the room. “I love you.”

“Of course you do, kid,” Father replied, grinning. “I’ve fed you for nearly twenty years.”

Chuckling, I went to go sit next to Ariella. At first, everyone was too busy eating to talk, but as we began to finish our food, conversations picked up all across the room. All the while, Keys flitted from one seat to the next, not sure what to do with himself. His time with the Helleans had obviously driven him a little mad.

Marin and Leonidas shared a sofa. Jason was speaking to my father; I wasn’t sure what to make of that. And I sat with Ariella.

“He’s not what I expected at all,” she said, her gaze flickering to Jason.

“What do you mean?” I asked,

“For one, he looks very different than his wanted poster.”

I dipped one of my fries in ketchup. “You know better than to trust those poster caricatures.”

“Yes, but still. Those eyes. They are as cold as the Tundra and as black as death.” A smile quirked her lips as she added, “But they’re not nearly as frightening when he looks at you.”

Heat flushed my cheeks.

“What’s going on between you two?” she asked quietly.

If only I knew. “It’s complicated.”

“I’ll bet.”

Dinner was short. It was late, and we all had places to be. I could almost feel my bed beckoning to me from across the street.

Ariella left for home. Marin and Leonidas went to Marin’s place. I’d overheard some of their conversation. She was still mad at him, but she knew he was being hunted and she didn’t want him to get hurt. At no point tonight had he admitted that he was madly in love with her, a love that Lady Cassandra had exploited to manipulate him.

Father went with them back to Marin’s place. He needed her help to get his missing person out of the golem suit, and Marin needed her lab to do it. I was still trying to get my head around the idea that there was a person in there. I’d asked Father who it was a bunch of times, but he wouldn’t tell me. All he’d say about it was if he could get the person out of the golem suit, I’d find out soon enough. And if he couldn’t, he didn’t want to get my hopes up.

Jason and Keys were the last to leave.

“So,” I said as Jason stood at the door. “Dinner at the brink of the apocalypse. It wasn’t so bad.”

“This isn’t the end,” he told me.

“I hope you’re right.”

Things looked pretty bleak. The demons were coming back, aided by Lady Cassandra, the Helleans, and who knew who else. And we had no idea how we were going to fight them. The powerful magical artifacts our ancestors had used last time no longer existed. Pushing back the demons had destroyed them. The other factions in the galaxy wouldn’t be of much help against the demons either. They were too busy fighting amongst themselves to unite against the greatest threat of them all.

“I’m going to bring Keys back with me to Eclipse,” Jason said.

“Ok.”

“I’ll come see you the day after tomorrow.” He took my hand, lifting my fingertips to his lips. “We’ll go to the Night Rose Order to see what Braeden wants. And pay a visit to your brother.”

My skin sizzled under the warmth of his breath, but I forced my mind to go blank. I was too tired to deal with Jason right now.

“Goodnight,” I told him.

“Goodnight.” He released my hand, then he and Keys left.

I locked up the office and walked across the street to my apartment. I kicked off my shoes, shrugged out of my torn clothes, and fell onto my bed.

That night, my sleeping mind brought me back nearly ten years, back to the first time I’d had foresights of demons.

* * *

Nightmares tore me out of sleep on that day so long ago. I woke up in my bedroom at Rosewater, a school for mages.

I drank from the cup of water on my nightstand, trying to cool the feverish heat inside of me. My skin only grew hotter, and my hands began to shake, the cup in them rocking like a boat caught in a tempest. And it was a tempest that hit me—a tempest of the mind. The cup fell onto the floor, and I fell to my knees.

I looked up through watery eyes. They were everywhere, all around me, vicious masked figures that whispered promises of torment. Demons. They spied on my dreams. They waited in the shadows, stalking everyone I had ever cared about. And then they turned their cold eyes my way and stared straight at me.

With a gasp and a shiver, I jumped up, my naked feet slipping on the puddle of water. Panicking, Phantom magic shot out of me. I didn’t even stop to wonder why I could use the magic. My room’s heavy door moaned and crashed down into the hallway, but I didn’t stop for a second. I ran, ducking into the library.

They were waiting for me there, surrounding me with eager hands and sinister faces. I hit a display case hard with my elbow, and the glass shattered, sprinkling to the floor like a million crumbled diamonds. I reached over and took the sword from the case, slashing it to and fro at the demons who were closing in on me.

I started and choked, coughing out droplets of blood. Shock hit me as my eyes panned down to my stomach, where the sword was buried to the hilt. The fiends began to fade and withdraw, and I was left there in the library. But I was not alone. I was surrounded by a crowd of my fellow students wearing wool pajamas and horrified expressions. Beryl, one of our instructors, broke through the line. He saw the sword protruding out of my back, and his mouth hardened.

“What happened? Who attacked her?” I vaguely heard him ask the students. I was so dizzy that it was getting hard to stay on my feet.

The students stared blankly until one finally spoke up, “We heard crashing and screaming and came to look.”

The others nodded.

“But who stabbed her?”

“She broke the case and screamed, ‘die, demons!’ as she slashed around.”

“Her eyes were glowing.”

“She stabbed herself.”

“Isn’t that a poison blade?”

That would explain why I was so dizzy.

“Has Terra lost her mind?” someone asked, his voice shaking.

Panacea, Rosewater’s healer, hurried past the students. She took a long look at my wound, then turned her silver gaze on me. “You’ll be all right.”

The fear in her eyes was hardly reassuring.

“The wound will heal with the proper medicine,” Panacea continued. “However, this is a poison blade, so I’m afraid you’ll be left with a scar. Now, let’s go get this sword out of you.”

“But what of the demons?” I asked woozily. “They got away.”

“The demons are gone,” Panacea told me, pity in her eyes. “They were expelled over five hundred years ago, and they’re not coming back.”

“No.” I grabbed onto her hands in desperation. “You’re wrong. The demons are coming. We’re all in grave danger.”