Her heart raced as she reopened DAEMONS. With a trembling hand, she thumbed through to the letter B. The sleeper’s perfect, wrathful face glared at her from the page, his features etched with sublime fury, lip curled back from his teeth. An enormous pair of golden wings jutted from his back. At the bottom of the page, written in Angelic, were the words Sword of Nyxobas.

She dropped the book, and the bang of the cover hitting the table shattered the silence.

She’d been calling herself an angel of death tonight, but the real deal lay on a bed just one floor above her.

* * *

Ursula stood in front of the iron-studded door, the reaping pen in one hand, and a contract in the other. She wasn’t going in there without a plan, and for extra security she’d strapped a kaiken dagger to her belt.

After spending the last three quarters of an hour arguing with herself, she kept returning to the same conclusion: her only option was to wake Bael.

She’d read Henry’s journal entries from the beginning, starting from the time he first contacted Bael to the moment he captured him. He was a little sparse on the details, but she’d learned Bael was some sort of high-value prisoner. Henry had planned to use him as leverage in negotiations with the night god.

Even with this sketchy information, it was clear that all roads to Abrax ran through Bael, and the sleeping demon was her only connection to the incubus.

She just had to wake an ancient demon and convince him to tell her where to find the incubus.

Fear slithered over her skin. It wasn’t just that she had to wake Bael that turned her stomach—it was how she had to wake him.

Her grip tightened on the dagger, and she chanted the word Louisa. After the glow around the door dissipated, she pulled it open and stepped inside.

The interior was just as she remembered. Gold astrological symbols glittered against midnight blue wallpaper. Dusty alchemical glassware stood solemnly on the shelves. Yet this time the air held a strange tension, like the room was holding its breath.

She moved toward the bed, gripping the reaping pen. She had a plan to get a little leverage of her own, but the idea of it sent fear racing through her body.

Tendrils of inky magic curled off Bael’s body like smoke, and the air around him crackled with a dark power. Her gaze flicked to the crimson gore staining the sheets. She recoiled, bile rising in her throat. He’d had wings in the picture—beautiful, golden wings. Had Henry cut them off during his interrogations?

Her eyes roamed his chiseled features, his face perfect in repose. His arms, even after months asleep, still rippled with muscle. Despite his otherworldly beauty, the sight of him terrified her. Even unconscious and bound in iron chains, he exuded raw, dark power.