I pushed glamour into the chains that bound me and Rosantine, watched her fight back against us. Then gave her another push. She growled in frustration, but I saw the magic move over her eyes, urging her on.

“I will return your House.”

“Great,” I said, my heart beating with terrible, delicate hope. “We have a deal in principle. Here are the entire terms.” I turned to the vampire who stood with Theo and the others; they’d agreed to meet us at the House to see this through. They handed me a screen. I looked it over, held it out to Rose.

“This is the contract which will bind you. You can read its terms, but basically, the House comes back in the same condition in which it left, as do the occupants, the furnishings, et cetera. It’s all detailed in the fine print. In exchange, you will be sealed in the hell from which you came.”

“I will sign no contract.”

“Then you will die,” I said, the ticking of seconds loud as the beat of my heart.

“Four,” Theo said.

“I’ll get out again,” she said. “And when I do, I’m coming for you first.”

I looked at Rosantine and the sigil that glowed against her demon skin. “Doubtful,” I said, but gestured to the army of humans, ghosts, and Sups around us. “We’ll all be here waiting for you, and we know your moves.”

Her lips moved in a silent curse, but she nodded. “I agree to your terms.”

The screen lit up in acknowledgment of the agreement, and the sigil that marked her turned from blood red to pale blue.

I took the screen again, handed it back to the attorney. “Appreciate your service,” I told them. They gave me a wink, moved back into the crowd.

“Your time is ticking down,” I told Rosantine. “Three minutes or you’re toast.”

She looked defeated, and I’d have called it pitiful if I didn’t know how dangerous she was. But she reached out, put her hand on the sigil, and the fire rose again. She made the symbol with her other hand, as if uniting the two magics, and chanted words that had magic lifting in the air.

With a roar of sound and magic, flames erupted where the House had stood. But this time, they worked in reverse. As the flames descended to the ground again, the House appeared. The widow’s walk, the dark turrets, the stone and windows, the portico, down to the foundation.

I stayed on my knees, knew tears tracked down my soot-stained face.

And I wasn’t the only one relieved.

Monster’s relief was palpable . . . and clarifying.

It wasn’t lusting for violence or trying to convince me to use my mother’s sword. It wasn’t hypnotized by the lure of whatever power already was bound there.

It wanted to go home. It wanted to be reunited, rejoined, reconnected to the part of it still bound there.

Tears flowed now as a shard of guilt struck at my heart. I had misunderstood it for so, so long. And I had fought it that entire time.