I turned back to Cil, and he smiled at me. Then he took the canvas bag from Zip and reached inside, pulling out a glittery gold marble. “You can have this.”

I grinned at him and ruffled his hair. “I can’t take one of your treasures.”

“You can borrow it. For good luck, until you find whoever hurt my dad.”

“Thanks.” I slipped it into my utility belt.

“Holy crap, turn that up.”

I didn’t recognize the voice, but I recognized the urgency in it. I spun as one of the witches grabbed the remote, turning the news up.

“Sources say the woman was a bounty hunter for the Mage Council before the incident,” the news anchor said. “When we reached out to the Council, they refused to comment, saying that Ms. Amana was a short-term contractor who is no longer employed by the council.”

I froze. On the TV, the shot cut away from the news anchor, and my face came into view.

I was trapped in a circle of witches, my face ashen. Samael was chained, and the witch recording the show zoomed in on my ankle. White bone poked through the ruin of my skin and the camera zoomed in on the compound fracture. One of the witches in the living room gagged.

My ankle still twinged occasionally. Unless I went back to a fae healer, it probably always would.

On the screen, I pulled out one of my throwing knives and nailed Veronica in the throat. She went down, choking on her own blood.

“Gnarly,” one of the kids said. They shouldn’t be watching this. But I couldn’t seem to look away.

Samael was staring at me, his silver eyes burning.

“Where the hell did they find Naud chains?” Evie asked.

I rubbed at the back of my neck. “There’s only one place they could’ve gotten them. Shockingly, it’s home to the same people who just leaked this.”

Albert hadn’t taken kindly to Samael’s threats. And while he knew Samael would likely consider killing him for leaking this video, he also knew that Samael would then be faced with a power struggle within the Durham Mage Council, which the demon would have to sort out.

On the TV, Mary stepped over Veronica’s body and picked up the grimoire. It was impossible to tell how much power Samael was gathering on the video, but even now I could feel the memory of it, hot and potent in the air.

Witches began to flee. I memorized their faces, wondering if Samael had found them yet. These were the witches who’d escaped, and like cockroaches, they were likely to keep coming back for more. Someone needed to spray them with hairspray and light them on fire.

I winced at the direction my thoughts had taken. Turns out, I was still pissed about the entire experience.