We all looked back toward the sigil. It was still wet paint on damp grass.

“Shit,” I heard Lulu say, but didn’t dare move.

“What’s the problem?” I called out, and could all but hear the minutes ticking down.

“I don’t know. Maybe the charm? Maybe it’s the metal in the paint? I don’t know. Shit.”

“We’re right there,” I said. “And you got this. Plenty of time.”

I crossed the fingers of my free hand.

“One more time,” Lulu said. She and Petra reset, went through the steps again. Words—Lulu’s voice shakier this time. Flame and spark—Petra’s hands a little less steady.

And then . . . nothing.

Lulu sniffed, and I knew she was holding back tears of fear and frustration.

And then everything happened at once.

Another rumble, this one hard enough to trigger a car alarm down the block. The movement tipped over the table, sending paint and candle and bowl into the grass. The flame rushed toward the sigil, and the sigil began to burn, the lines of paint sizzling like fire along a fuse. The yellow-gray smoke that rose from it stank of sulfur. The wind picked up, sending streamers of smoke into the air, rustling fall-crisped leaves.

“Incoming,” Petra said, but held her position. We all did, because we were the last defense against the demon in case the sigil didn’t hold.

A crack of sound, and the air seemed to rupture. A face emerged from that breach above the sigil, screaming in anguished fury. Then the rest of it appeared, shoved bodily through the gap we’d created.

It was shaped like Rosantine but had no clothes or hair. Its skin undulated with alternating ash and flame, and its teeth were yellow and sharp. Its eyes were gleaming yellow, the pupils long and rectangular, more goat than human. They had me wishing for holy water and a crucifix—which wouldn’t hurt me, contrary to folklore.

“You are commanded,” Lulu said.

It raised its arms, screamed into the night with enough force to ripple the air above the sigil. But it didn’t take a step out of it.

“You are commanded!” Lulu said again, this time a scream of anger that had her body bowing with the effort.

The demon closed its mouth.

The demon turned in a circle as if taking us all in, as if committing our faces to memory for later revenge.

“Release me,” it said. The voice was hoarse, but undeniably Rosantine’s.

“No,” Lulu said. “You are commanded.”

“Release me,” she said, another burst of magic filled the air, hot and sour.

She chanted low in some hard and guttural tongue. The air around the sigil wavered, and a face, then two, then dozens emerged from the boundary around her. Bodies followed, their skin as fiery as hers.

“Legions,” I heard Lulu say. “Solomon didn’t mention this. What is happening?”

“Demonettes,” Petra said, tossing a spark at one even as she held her link to the circle. “Strongly dislike.”

Rosantine hadn’t been loosed—she was still stuck within the sigil. But she was far from under our command. Had we done the spell wrong? Missed some crucial part of the sigil? The one we’d drawn had burned as it was supposed to, but the effect wasn’t nearly strong enough, even with Petra’s spark.