He reached to touch my face, and I swung my boot at him. Al only laughed. “Get yourself cleaned up, will you? You’re a mess,” he said, then gave me a shove.

I fell backward onto the screaming face etched into the marble floor, feeling my body dissolve into thought as my boot skidded across the stone floor. Before I could feel the cold of nothing, the black stone shifted to the familiar salt-laced linoleum of my kitchen. I was home.

Looking up, I found Ivy, Jenks, and Lee waiting for me. Silently they took in my blood-smeared hand and the lack of Pierce. Ivy sighed and Jenks’s wings slowed and stopped. My jaw clenched, and I forced it to relax.

I was home. I’d gotten a demon mark removed. I couldn’t be summoned by anyone but Al and my friends. And I didn’t have the slightest idea what I was going to do.

Eighteen

Eighteen

Jenks dropped down on a column of glittering sparkles before I could get up from my hands and knees. My pain amulet was useless, the linoleum hurt my knees, and my tangled hair made a curtain between the and the world. “Rache!” he called, a gleaming sparkle darting erratically as he tried to get past my hair. “Are you okay? Where’s Pierce?”

Much as I hurt, I couldn’t help my smile. Melancholy and elation were a weird mix as I sat back on my heels and got my hair out of my face. I’d lost a demon mark, but Pierce was still with Al. He was being beaten because he’d helped me, and it didn’t sit well.

“I’m fine,” I said on an exhale, taking Ivy’s hand as she extended it so she could pull me to my feet. Muscles sore and knees complaining, I got up, tossed my useless pain amulet into the sink, and looked at Lee sitting at my spot at the table with a chipped coffee cup in his short, laced fingers. Over the sink, the dark window was shining with streaks of moisture. It was raining.

Ivy let go of my hand and dropped back to put the usual space between us. “What happened to your other boot?” she asked, and a slow smile grew despite my worry for Pierce. Leaning against the sink, I painfully twisted my foot up and around to pull the sock off again.

“It’s gone,” I said, meaning the demon mark. “I’ve gotten rid of two, now. Just the one left.” The one I got thanks to Nick.

Ivy leaned over to see, holding her hair back as she peered at my foot. Jenks flew closer, the draft from his wings a breath of chill. From the corner, Lee jerked upright in his chair. “You got a mark off?” he questioned, almost spilling his coffee. “You gave him Pierce?”