The room flashed, filling with a bolt of light so bright it blinded me. The light flared again. This time the bolt hit me, filling me with a white-hot heat.

I reached up with my good arm, grabbed the Nix’s forearm, and wrenched it from my throat. Her eyes widened. She looked into mine, blinked in surprise, then curled back her lip.

“You think that will help you, angel?” she said.

“I sure as hell hope so,” I said as I pushed myself up. “It cost me more than I could afford to pay.”

She pinned me again. We struggled. I could feel the new strength coursing through me, but it wasn’t enough. My shoulder still pulsed with pain, and I could barely move that arm. The best I could do was hold her off. After a few minutes of tussling for the upper hand, I managed to get on top of her. Before I could reach for her throat, she grabbed both my arms and held them fast. Then she looked into my eyes and smiled.

“You can still do it,” she said. “All you need to do is kill me. You must have a lethal spell locked in that little brain somewhere. Go ahead. Try it.”

Oh, I had a spell, all right. But not the kind she was hoping I’d use. As the last words of the anti-demon spell left my lips, I tensed, ready to rip my hands from her grasp the moment the shock wave hit her.

Nothing happened.

I tried again, tongue tripping over the words. But it was too late. Paige didn’t know the anti-demon spell well enough to cast it reliably, and now I’d wasted her power on a miscast.

I’d sacrificed my afterlife to become an angel, and I still couldn’t save them. I was going to fail…and lose everything.

“Something wrong?” the Nix said, laughing.

She pushed up on my forearms and my body started to lift off hers. I struggled to stay on top, but the cast had sapped more than spell-power. She flipped me off her. When I tried to roll out of the way, she grabbed me and threw me onto my back. Then she pounced, landing on my chest so hard the air flew from my lungs. Her face came down to mine. I started a binding spell, a desperate last-ditch attempt to—

“Wait!”

The voice was distant, almost inaudible. A woman’s voice, coming from somewhere inside me.

“Try this,” it whispered.

Words flew into my head. The start of an incantation. I didn’t have time to think. I opened my mouth and said the words, repeating them as they came. Greek. Something to do with wind. A witch spell.