“Every last person perished before the sun rose, each more foully than the last,” he breathed. “The demon murdered the three girls by a most horrible means, thinking that they meant something to me. Witches of skill were taken to the ever-after, and warlocks and children of no account … slaughtered like chickens and left askew with their limbs tangled.”

I had to say something. “You tried to stop the demon,” I offered.

“Of course I did. But the demon set no great store by my efforts, and my skills saved only myself. Not even a child could I spare.” His gaze became angry. “A coven member, helpless. I was a dash-it-all coven member, and I was helpless. It was my dang-blamed innocence of the way things are, ignoring the truth of it. I opine you’re wiser than me, having followed your heart from the beginning and being open with your choices, not hiding them behind lies even if it made your path harder.”

God help me, he thought my acceptance of black magic was a good thing? Hadn’t he been watching this past year?

He hung his head, saying, “The coven hid the massacre as a sickness, and knowing they wouldn’t cotton to it, I began studying on it in private. How can you fight a winning battle with something you don’t even know the limits of? When by chance a twist of black magic saved my life and hurt no one, I went to the coven with my thoughts. They said they would consider it and sent me to find a rogue master vampire while they discussed it at length.”

My shivering had stopped, and I stared at the same nothing he was. “Christopher,” I said, remembering the vampire we’d tagged on my nineteenth winter solstice. Was I attracted to Pierce because he believed what I wanted to think was the truth? That demon magic wasn’t bad unless you made another pay the cost? Were we both delusional?

He nodded. “They betrayed me, giving him warning that I was coming and the knowledge to implicate me as a witch and the wisdom to make me helpless, bound with silver my own mentor had charmed. There was no one decision that landed me in your graveyard, but I’ll allow it started with Eleison.”

The coven had buried him alive. In my backyard. In a hole like the one we were in now. And I’m flaking out about dogs? “I’m so sorry.”

He smiled sadly at me, and I noticed his stubble was coming in red,though his hair was black. “I’m not,” he said. “If I hadn’t paused my life in purgatory, I’d not be here to see the wonder of planes, computers, and orange juice. Or you.”