Ursula shook her head. “No thanks.” She swiped a hand below her eyes. Her eye makeup must be halfway down her face at this point. At best, she probably looked like a drunken KISS fan, but at least she was alive.

“Suit yourself.” He poured the contents of the flask into the furrows he’d scratched in the soil. He knelt for a moment, his hand glowing white hot, then flames snaked along the lines in the dirt.

As he straightened, his gaze lingered on Ursula. “You will need to stand right in front of me.”

Shoulders hunched in the cold, she edged closer to him. She tensed as he reached for her, pulling her into a tight hug. He smelled faintly of cedar wood—and somehow, the warmth of his body was oddly comforting.

“You’ll want to hold your breath,” he whispered into her ear.

He chanted an Angelic spell softly, and she listened to the words, understanding each one. He spoke of a portal of fire, and Emerazel’s eternal grace. Now, she knew something else about F.U.—she’d apparently been some sort of witch.

As he finished the short spell, the flames blazed high above them. For a moment, her skin seared in an exquisite agony, then she crumbled to ash.

Chapter 9

With the crackling of a thousand cinders uniting, she reconstituted in the center of a circular room, atoms and molecules joining together again with the force of an exploding star. She rested her hands on her knees, her body shaking as she retched. Whatever the fuck she’d just done, she was pretty sure human bodies were not meant to do it.

Her skin crackled with electrical power, and an odd buzzing noise sounded in her head. Each one of her nerve endings blazed in rebellion.

Kester glanced at her. “Are you all right?”

As she straightened, she looked around at the circular room in which they stood. A wrought-iron chandelier, blazing with candles, hung from a towering brick ceiling.

She glanced down. At her feet, a few tongues of flame licked at the edges of an encircled triangle carved into the floor.

Bits of hot ash burned her throat like she’d just pulled too strongly on an unfiltered cigarette. “Bloody hell.” She coughed. “What was that?”

“That was sigil travel. You can travel between Emerazel’s symbols by knowing the right spell, and envisioning where you want to go, but it’s not the most comfortable method of transportation. I recommend actually holding your breath next time.”

She rubbed her eyes, still trying to get her bearings. Between three tall windows, the walls were painted with strange frescos of dancing nymphs, satyrs, and occult symbols. On one part of the curving wall stood a mahogany door carved with stars and flames.