My heart thudded and my eyes teared up. He thought I was good? I couldn’t speak as Trent took my hands and pulled me a step from Al, and I shivered as the demon’s touch fell away. “I want,” he said softly, “you to keep what you can of the person you want to be. Don’t sacrifice it for this.” Lip curling, he gave Nick a sidelong, dismissive glance. “Don’t let your desire for revenge give him the power to make you what you don’t want to be.”

“It’s hard,” I said, and the demons around me began to shuffle, eager to be gone.

But he smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Of course it is. If it was easy, everyone would do it.”

Newt pushed the dead carcass of Ku’Sox into the hole with her foot, and Nick scrabbled away from the edge. “Well?”

It hurt to say it, but I took a breath and looked straight up. Trent’s fingers were clasped in mine. “It’s Nick,” I said, then danced back when Nick cried out, reaching for me.

As one, the demons groaned. Al’s shoulders slumped, and then his eyes narrowed. “I say we still kill him,” he muttered, reaching, and Newt slammed her staff down between them.

“I claim him!” she shouted, swinging her staff in a wide circle, and they fell back, used to her outbursts. Trent pulled me out of the way, and I watched Newt almost crouch over Nick, her robes covering his feet. “He’s mine! He’s mine by rights! His actions cost me a familiar, and I claim him!”

“No!” Nick cried out, his hand reaching for me. “Rachel! Please!”

Her head tilted, Newt waited, one eye almost slitted shut as she looked at me. I nodded, and the demon laughed, hauling him up and giving him a shake. “Go wait for me,” she intoned, and he stared, panting in fear. She gave him a shove, and he stumbled, vanishing as she flung him to her rooms. I thought of him landing in the mockery of my kitchen, and a tiny part of me felt the first hints of justice.

I jumped when Al’s hand landed on my shoulder again. “He will be dead in a week,” the demon murmured, his ash-scented breath tickling my ear.

But I knew Nick. He was too ugly to die.

The sound of Newt’s staff scraping on the stones was loud as she came forward to us. Demons were vanishing with their gargoyles in pairs and groups, and the bite of windblown rock blew about my feet, rising. I closed my eyes when it reached my face, and my hair began to stream behind me. I didn’t know what was going to happen tomorrow. Maybe I could take a day off.