“Got ’em,” I said, breathing easier as I picked my way back across the broken room. Al had placed our chairs back where they belonged, an expanse between them to show where the table ought to go. He had already started a fire in the small hearth, and he tossed the table’s legs into the larger, central hearth, adding torn cushions and whatever else he didn’t want before muttering in Latin and exploding it into flame.

The light from the two fires was brightening the room to where his dim globe was inconsequential. Without direction, I set the black candles in the holders and lit them myself. I felt kind of bad about the mess, and I swooped about, finding ley-line equipment and trying to put things back to rights. The clatter of Al doing the same seemed loud. It might sound funny, but I’d spent a lot of time here, and seeing the mess Pierce had created made me feel … violated.

Al noticed what I was doing, and with another sheepish look, he touched his dimly lit globe and the light went out.

“Why didn’t—,” I started.

“I just make a brighter light?” he said, head down as he fingered his five-sided pyramid. Eyes meeting mine, he held my gaze. “It’s glowing brighter than the sun,” he said. “That’s all the light that can get through the smut.”

I couldn’t hold his gaze, and I turned away. “Sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t know.”

“No worries, lovey,” he murmured, his gloves showing the black of ash as he set the pyramid away. “It’s a small thing.”

“I meant about Pierce trashing the kitchen,” I said, not wanting him to think I cared.

His eyebrows were raised. “As did I.” Spinning to make his coattails furl, he crossed the cleared floor to an intact cabinet. “We will find Nicholas Gregory Sparagmos most easily by way of his demon mark,” he said as he opened the cabinet, reaching into the back of the clutter for a folded bit of paper. “And for that, I need this.”

He turned, handing it to me triumphantly. It was a page from a spell book, the charm handwritten and smelling old. There were spots of black on it, and with a start I realized that they weren’t drops of ink, but blood. Nick’s blood. My thoughts zinged back to his demon mark, and I looked at Al. “This is from the basement library,” I said, and he smiled with his flat, blocky teeth. “From the night you tore my throat out, then sold us a trip to the church to save my life.”