It was a good banishment—apart from my not having put it in a circle first—and Newt raised one eyebrow at me, its puzzlement set aside with an ease that spoke of much practice. “That’s not my summoning name.”

The demon jerked into motion. I shrank back to invoke a circle—paltry though it would be, undrawn and unscribed—but Newt stepped into the living room, the hem of its robe the last thing I saw slipping around the doorframe. From out of sight came the sound of nails being pulled from wood. There was a sharp crack of splintering paneling, and Newt swore colorfully in Latin.

Jenks’s cat Rex padded past me, curiosity doing its best to fulfill its promise. I lunged after the stupid animal, but she didn’t like me and so skittered away. The caramel-colored kitten paused at the threshold with her ears pricked. Tail twitching, she sat and watched.

Newt wasn’t trying to pull me into the ever-after, and it wasn’t trying to kill me. It was looking for something, and I think the only reason it had possessed me was so it could search the sanctified church. Which boded well as a sign that the grounds were still holy. But the damned thing was crazy. Who knew how long it would ignore me? Until it decided I might be able to tell it where it was? Whatever it was?

A thump from the living room made me jump. Tail crooked, Rex padded in.

The sudden knocking on the front door of the church spun me the other way to the empty sanctuary, but before I could call out a warning, the heavy oak door swung open, unlocked in expectation of Ivy’s return. Great. Now what?

“Rachel?” a worried voice called, and Ceri strode in, fully dressed in faded jeans with dirt-wet knees, clearly having been in the garden despite it being before sunrise. Her eyes were wide with worry, and her long, fair hair billowed about her as she paced quickly across the barren sanctuary, tracking in mud from her garden-inappropriate, elaborately embroidered slippers. She was an elf in hiding, and I knew that her schedule was like a pixy’s: awake all day and night but for four hours around each midnight and noon.

Frantic, I waved my hands, alternating my attention between the empty hallway and her. “Out!” I all but yelped. “Ceri, get out!”

“Your church bell rang,” she said, cheeks pale with concern as she came to take my hands. She smelled wonderful—the elven scent of wine and cinnamon mixing with the honest smell of dirt—and the crucifix Ivy had given her glinted in the dim light. “Are you all right?”