“I can,” I said, my vision darkening as I almost passed out. From the deepest shadows glittered green eyes. Close. Very close. The power of the line hummed through me. There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, I thought desperately, pulling energy into me, spindling it in my head. I had traveled the lines with Lee. I had seen how he had done it. All it took was him thinking about where he wanted to be. I wanted to be home. Why wasn’t it working?

My knees shook as the first dark shape came out to stand with an unreal thinness, slow and hesitant. Newt looked at it, then turned slowly to me, one eyebrow raised. “One favor, and I’ll send you back.”

Oh God. Not another one. “Leave me alone!” I shouted, the rough edges of a rock scraping my fingers as I flung it at an approaching form and almost fell over. A gasp sounding like a sob came from me as I caught my balance. The lesser demon ducked, then straightened. Three more pairs of eyes glowed behind it.

I jumped as Newt suddenly was before me. The light was gone. Black eyes slammed into me, delving into my soul and clenching until fear squeezed out to bubble up. “You can’t do it. No time to learn,” Newt said, and I shuddered. Here was power, raw and swirling. Newt’s soul was so black it was almost unseen. I could feel its aura press against me, starting to slip into mine with the force of Newt’s will. It could take me over if it wanted. I was nothing. My will was nothing.

“Owe me or die in this squalid pile of broken promises,” Newt said. “But I can’t send you through the lines with a thin tie called home. Home won’t do it. Think on Ivy. You love her more than that damn church,” it said, its honesty more cutting than any physical pain.

Crying out in angry, high voices, the shadows bunched and lunged.

“Ivy!” I shouted, accepting the bargain and willing myself to her: the smell of her sweat when we sparred, the taste of her Brimstone cookies, the sound of her steps, and the rise of her eyebrows when she was trying not to laugh.

I recoiled as Newt’s black presence was suddenly in my head. How many mistakes can one life survive? echoed crystallinelike in my mind, but whose thought it was I didn’t know.

Newt pressed the air from my lungs, and my mind shattered. I was everywhere and nowhere. The perfect disconnection of the line raced through me, making me exist in every line on the continent. Ivy! I thought again, starting to panic until I remembered her, fastening on her indomitable will and the tragedy of her desires. Ivy. I want to go to Ivy.