James flipped open the book Christopher had handed him and slid a pair of small gilt reading glasses onto his nose. Something in Cordelia’s chest tightened, as if she had snagged a small piece of her heart, like a piece of cloth on a thorn. She looked away from the sight of James and his adorable spectacles. She had to find someone else to feel this way about. Or someone to feel a different way about. Anything, so she could stop feeling like this.

She tried not to think about what he had said in the training room. I no longer have an understanding with Grace. But why? What could have happened between them, and happened so quickly?

“ ‘The Mandikhor is both here and there, both one and many,’ ” James quoted. “See, one of the nastiest things about the Mandikhor is that it can split itself into many pieces, each of which is both its own separate demon and a part of the original creature. That’s why they’re best captured in Pyxis boxes. The Mandikhor is difficult to kill—partly because it can produce an endless stream of smaller demons; you’d find yourself not even being able to get near it. But with a Pyxis, if you use the box to capture the Mandikhor, the smaller demons will disappear.” He looked up from the book. “I started to guess it was a Pyxis when Christopher told me about the shards. Cordelia’s translation confirmed it. I knew Gast must have summoned up one of the few demons he would need a Pyxis to capture. In this case, a Mandikhor.”

“It doesn’t look anything like those creatures that attacked us at the park,” said Christopher, peering over James’s shoulder. The book was illustrated, but Cordelia didn’t need to see it: she knew what a Mandikhor looked like. Scorpion tail, lion body, triple row of jaws dripping poison.

“I am fairly sure those were the Khora,” offered Cordelia. “The smaller demons that split from the Mandikhor. They do not resemble it. And that must be why Gast referred to the demon in the singular—he did raise one demon. It split into smaller demons later.”

“So someone hired Gast to raise a Mandikhor and trap it in a Pyxis,” said Lucie. “But when he returned to his flat with the demon caged in the box, they ambushed and killed him—and set the creature free.”

“Gast is not the mind behind this,” James agreed. “He was a tool, useful only for building a Pyxis and summoning the demon. Someone else is directing its movements and attacks.”

“Not just summoning the demon,” said Lucie. “Remember what Ragnor said—Gast summoned it in such a way, using dimensional magic, that it is protected from sunlight.”

They all exchanged glances. Cordelia knew what the others were thinking—who could have hired Gast? Was there no motive save to spread bloodshed, contagion, and death?