The pain drowned out nearly all rational thought. She leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths to manage the agony.

She could read Angelic, even if she couldn’t produce a spell out of thin air. What she needed was a spell book. Her eyes snapped open. The library. Those books had to be Henry’s collection of grimoires, and she’d seen Kester unlock the books on his shelf. All she had to do was recite the unlocking spell and skim through their pages.

With a shock of pain, she forced herself onto her hands and knees again and crawled down the hall to the library. The hallway had never seemed so long before—but she’d never felt like she had knives piercing her bones before.

Kester. He had some sort of history with Abrax, she was pretty sure. He’d had an intense reaction when she told him about the incubus. He’d already wanted to kill him. Whatever their history, she wanted to hunt down Abrax and finish the job for him. She shuffled forward, groaning as she reached the library.

Almost there.

She dragged her broken body to the locked books. They stood just as she remembered them, lined up on the bottom shelf with that familiar glow emanating from their bindings. Grimacing, she reached for one, but the force field pushed her hand away.

She grunted, trying to think clearly. How did Kester do it? He’d simply held his hands out and recited a spell.

Not a spell, she thought. That word—like a woman’s name. Gasping, she rolled onto her side and held out her shaking hands. She closed her eyes, picturing Kester’s mouth as he spoke the word, his deep voice caressing her skin, and she repeated after him. “Oriel.”

As soon as she finished, a magical aura whispered over her skin, just like it had when she’d chanted the spells with Kester. The glow around the books flickered for a moment but didn’t disappear. Bollocks.

She slumped back to the floor, the pain in her legs pure agony. Her breath came in short gasps, and the blood continued to pump from her wounds, staining the rug. There wasn’t much time left.

She closed her eyes. If Oriel was a name, then maybe each of these locking spells were personalized, like a password on a computer. And if this apartment had belonged to Henry… How the fuck was she supposed to guess Henry’s password? She knew nothing about the man apart from the festive state of his organs after his death. Her heart thrummed. Had she seen anything in the apartment, any photographs…?

The painting. There was a painting in the living room of a beautiful woman named Louisa. And if Kester had named his spell after a woman…

She reached out her hands again, choking out the name. “Louisa.”