He slid over my torso and rose up to look down at me. “He’s gone to get your protection amulet.”

“Okay …” I rubbed my eyes. “He said he had someone making it.”

“But he has to pay a price.” Cyril’s head loomed closer. “A nasty one from the sssoundss of it.”

My scalp prickled.

“He’ss seeing a bloodwitch.”

Bloodwitch … Wait, did he mean an independent witch? They used blood and sex to power their enchantments … blood, sex, and pain. The thought of Azazel being bled, of some bitch hurting him, made my blood freeze with horror.

He was willing to do that for me. He was willing to be hurt to protect me … Yes, he was cursed by Eve to keep me alive, but my gut told me this wasn’t about the curse.

Things had changed between us. I touched the mark on my chest. Things had changed even if Azazel didn’t realize it. I couldn’t ignore it any longer. Azazel was important to me, maybe because he was my soulmate, but mostly because I fucking liked him as a person, demon, whatever. Maybe it was time to just accept that my fate was tied to his because right now, the urge to take action was a driving force in my limbs.

I shoved Cyril off and clambered out of bed. “I need to stop him.”

I pulled on whatever clothes came to hand.

“Too late. He left an hour ago,” Cyril said.

“What?” I glared at him, hair tie in hand. “Why didn’t you wake me sooner?”

Cyril’s head dipped. “He’sss gone for your protection, Fee … But then, I thought, what would Fee want …”

I wanted to hug him and strangle him at the same time. “I’m glad you told me, Cyril.” I tied my hair back in a messy ponytail. “Do you know where this witch lives? Did you get an address?”

He shook his head. “Her name is Annabeth, and they mentioned Rue Mort.”

Rue Mort … What the fuck was that? I’d never heard of the place. Fuck.

I called Nox.

“Fee, are you okay?” Nox sounded alert and awake. Hell, he was probably already on duty in Necro. The sun would be setting soon, after all.

“Annabeth is a bloodwitch. Do you know her?”

Nox was ominously silent. “Why do you want to find her?”

I couldn’t tell him the truth because it revolved around my ancestry and the protection charm. But I’d learned a long time ago that the lies that held were the ones sprinkled with truth. “I need to find Azazel, and he went to see her. He isn’t answering my comm messages, and I need to speak to him urgently.”

There. No lie in that. Plus, bonus point, he’d buy it because Azazel was the outlier liaison.

“Ah, okay,” he said. “She lives in Rue Mort, Hartley Street. The big house with the broken swing set in the garden. You need a ride there?”

“Please.”

“I’ll be with you in fifteen.”

Fifteen minutes was too long. Azazel had been gone an hour. Oh, God. I needed to get to him fast. I couldn’t let him pay whatever disgusting price this witch wanted. I had to stop him.

Nox made it to the pinnacle in ten minutes, and we made it to Rue Mort in twenty. We landed on a suburban street that looked like it belonged in the gothic era. The lamp posts were painted black and had actual lantern heads. The ground was cobbled, and the residences were townhouse affairs squished together like thick slices of ham in a club sandwich.

A street sign jutted out of the ground, and the words Rue Mort were painted on it in neat script. The street up ahead looked old-fashioned, like stepping back in time. The whole thing was quaint.

“Don’t let appearances fool you,” Nox said. “Look at the place with your demon eyes, not your human sight.”

“There are two sights?”

He looked surprised that I had to ask. “There are if you’re not pure demon. Your parents were human with a demon in their family tree, so you should have both sights.”

I stared at the street.

“Look deeper. Look beyond,” Nox instructed.

Irritation bloomed in my chest. “I don’t have time for this. I need to get to Annabeth’s.”

“And you won’t be able to if you don’t see. Humans who venture this way get turned around, and if they do slip through the net, they go missing. Rue Mort is a place for outcast outliers, built by outcast outliers. There is no place for humans here.”

“Fine.” I took a deep breath and stared at the street, taking in every detail until my eyes blurred, and then something shifted in my vision. A fog appeared hanging low on the streets, and the air took on a humid, wet feel. “It’s misty and foggy.”

“Yes, Fee, it is. Like I said, Rue Mort exists by its own rules. Come on.” He led me into the fog.

I jogged to keep up with him, trying not to slip on the wet cobbles. What was it with demon males and long strides?

“It’s not far,” he said.

We walked for a couple of minutes, past tall houses that loomed over me with dark windows for eyes and black railings that jutted up on either side of us like jagged teeth. There was a definite air of menace to this place, and I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder periodically because the sense that we were being followed was twin hot spots between my shoulder blades.

The fog swirled around my ankles and licked at my calves in a way that made me wonder if it was alive and trying to touch me up.

A man passed on the opposite side of the street, top hat low on his head to cast his face in shadow, calf-length cloak flapping in an invisible breeze. I caught a flash of red where his eyes should be.

“Don’t make eye contact,” Nox warned. “The people who live here can’t be trusted. They live on the periphery of outlier law, and unless you have a contract with them, there is no guarantee they won’t harm you. I assume we don’t have permission to be here?”

I shook my head.

“No worries. Azazel is the outlier liaison. If we come across any issues, we can use his name as leverage.”

The sun had fully set by the time we stopped outside a set of rusty gates. They were partially open. I peered through the rails at the overgrown lawn and caught sight of the top half of a swing set. The actual swing part was hidden by grass and weeds. The house itself was a detached building with a rickety-looking porch and boarded-up lower-floor windows.

“Would you like me to come with you?” Nox asked.

What, and see Azazel in a compromising position? “No!”

He blinked at me, taken aback by my abrupt tone.

I smiled. “I mean, no, thank you.”

“I’ll wait here then.” He gave me a wary look.

I wanted to send him off, but what if Azazel was incapacitated? What if he was hurt and unable to fly? In that case, I’d need Nox, and he’d have to draw his own conclusions about the whole affair.

I nodded. “Thanks. I’ll message you if I don’t need you to take me back.”

“I’ll be here.”

Okay, so he was looking at me suspiciously now. I needed to stop acting so spooked, but I was about to walk into a witch’s house. A witch who did blood magic. I took a deep breath, pushed open the gate, and strode up the path. She had Azazel for fucksake, and there was no way she was keeping him.

The porch creaked beneath my weight. Rotten, no doubt. Do not fall through, Fee. The front door was slightly open, taunting me to simply walk in.

If this were a horror movie, I’d be yelling at the heroine to get the fuck out of there. But this was no movie. Azazel was in there somewhere.

I pushed the door open and entered a foyer, which in its day might have been grand, but now was wreathed in shadows and cobwebs. Fucking hell, did this witch not clean? A staircase was dead ahead, curving up and out of view, and to my left was a huge arch and a lounge. The furniture was covered in dust sheets and the hearth was a dead husk.

Distant, lilting music drifted to my ears. It was coming from upstairs. The whiff of jasmine and something else, something heavy and cloying, teased my senses. I cleared my throat and strode forward.

“Hello? Annabeth, Azazel?” I was halfway up the stairs when the room below me flared to light.

The hearth was lit with a cheery fire now. What the hell?

I took a couple of steps down. “Hello?”

A shadow detached itself from the wall beside the boarded-up window and drifted into the middle of the room. It slowly took form. A male, pale and wistful with huge dark eyes and dark hair that curled under his ears, wavered in front of me.

“You’ve come for him, haven’t you?” he said in a cultured voice.

“Azazel? You saw him. Where is he?”

The specter looked up at the ceiling.

I made to turn away.

“She won’t let you have him.”

I paused. “She won’t have a fucking choice.”

His smile was pitying. “You must know very little of our world to come here with the will to make demands.”

My thumbs pricked in warning. He was right. I didn’t know nearly enough. “Who are you?”

“No one. No name. Nothing. I gave it all to my mistress, and she claimed it. Illiteracy was my downfall.”

Illiteracy? “You have a contract with her?”

He nodded. “And so does the demon. Signed in blood. Sealed in sex, bound in pain.”

He glanced up again.

My heart pounded hard in my chest. “He would have read it. He wouldn’t just sign it.”

“He read it. He accepted the price. But he only read the first layer. They only ever read the first layer.” He made a sad, pitying face. “They never look beneath. Sometimes the beneath is in her favor. Sometimes it’s in theirs.” He drifted closer, a sly look crossing his features. “But I can help you if you agree to help me.”

The hairs on my nape quivered. “How?”

“I can tell you what lies beneath.”

“I thought you couldn’t read.”

“Centuries have been my teacher.”