Nonna nodded. I stared at her, trying to process the fact that my grandmother—who’d been making us bless our charms to protect ourselves from the demon princes our entire lives—had placed such things around our necks. “La Prima cast a spell that turned them into two smaller amulets, hoping to hide them from all who’d seek them.”

“Because they belong to the devil?”

“Because if brought together, they not only have the ability to lock the gates, they can also summon him. They grant the summoner a certain bit of power over him.”

I stared at the amulet I’d worn for as long as I could remember, wondering why my sister hadn’t come to Nonna when she’d found this out. I still had so many questions about her bargain. If we had a means of controlling the devil, why didn’t she just ask me for my cornicello?

It made sense why Greed was after it; his sin was closely tied to power. But if all princes of Hell craved power why, then, didn’t Wrath try to snatch my cornicello?

Something Envy said resurfaced amidst my confusion. “What’s a shadow witch?”

Nonna made a disgusted sound. “Shadow witches are what demons call us. We are known as Stelle Streghe.”

Star witches. “We are known? Since when are we known as Star Witches?”

Nonna gave me a sardonic look. “Since the dawn of our bloodline. We hail from an ancient line of witches who had ties to the Wicked prior to the curse. We were guardians in a sense, ensuring creatures of the underworld remained there, never interfering with the human world. For a time we worked beside the Malvagi. That was before—”

Nonna’s wine glass flew across the room and shattered against the wall. Chianti dripped like blood. I screamed, but not because of the glass. A floating blade hovered against my grandmother’s throat. My ghost demon was back, and it didn’t seem like just a figment of my imagination now. It had been quiet the last few days, and I’d forgotten it. Now it was hard to ignore Wrath’s serpent dagger as it glinted in the light.

“Little tricksy witch.”

The demon’s blade pressed into Nonna’s skin. I shook my head and stepped forward. “Please. If this is about what I did to Greed, she has nothing to do with it. Leave her alone, she’s innocent.”

“Innocent?” It accentuated the “c” until it sounded like a hiss. “She is no such thing.”

Before I could dash across the room and knock Nonna away, her head jerked back and the invisible hand dragged Wrath’s blade across her throat. Blood gushed from her wound. She gurgled, the sound one of the most horrendous things I’d ever heard. The weapon clattered to the ground. I watched everything happen as if it occurred in slow increments.