Inside me, I felt the satisfaction of a steady progression of fire. I wasn’t driven enough to survive this. Maybe after being imprisoned in limbo for a thousand years, but not right now. Either let Al in or the soul won. I had to trust him. “Okay,” I breathed, and as Al’s eyes widened, I stopped fighting.

The soul screamed in victory, and my body shuddered. And then … I was nowhere. I wasn’t in the echoing blackness of the demon collective, and I wasn’t in the spinning, humming strength of a ley line. I was … nowhere, and everywhere. Centered for the first time in my life, alone and utterly understanding it all. There was no hurry, no reason, and I hung in a blissful state of no questions. Until one stirred in me. Was this where Kisten had gone?

I wondered suddenly, was Kist here? My dad? Was that his aftershave I smelled?

“Rachel?” someone called, and I gathered myself, trying to focus.

“Dad?” I whispered, not believing it.

“Rachel!” The voice became louder, and I felt a sudden pain.

Coughing, I took a huge gasp of air, my hair in my mouth, my face. The world was upside down, but then I realized I was on my hands and knees, taking snatches of air between the dry heaves. The sour taste in my mouth fought with the stink of burnt amber pouring off me. My face hurt with each gut-wrenching clench, and I felt it carefully with shaky fingers. Someone had hit me. But I was here, alone in my body. The perverted soul was gone.

I looked up from Al’s floor to see a pair of elegantly embroidered slippers. Sending my gaze higher, I found an androgynous robe with a martial arts look about it, and above that, Newt’s mocking expression. The demon was bald again. Even her eyebrows were gone.

Her face wrinkled when she saw me looking at her. “Honestly, Al, you’re going to have to do better,” she said, her words long and drawn out. “You almost let her kill herself. Again.”

Al? That must be whose hand is on my back.

“Rachel?” Al said again, close and intent. I recognized it from that in-between place I’d been in. His hand fell away, and I sat back to bring my legs to my chest. Forehead on my knees, I hid from everyone. “What’s she doing here?” I muttered, meaning Newt. Cold, I shivered.

“It’s her,” he said, his relief clear as I heard him stand. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. This wasn’t free.” The soft shush of her slippers was loud, but I didn’t look. I was alive. I was alone in my mind. Al had been in there. No telling what he’d seen.

“I ought to file charges of uncommon stupidity against you for letting her try this alone,” Newt said dryly, and I took a deep breath. Not out of it yet, apparently.

“She wouldn’t have been alone if, to begin with, you’d given me a suitable soul,” Al said, and I jumped when a blanket smelling of burnt amber fell across my shoulders. “Krathion? Are you insane? He was a lunatic!”