I shivered as my lungs formed and the memory of my body rose, giving my soul something to reside in. With a pop of sound, I found myself almost exactly where I’d been not three days ago, in the dead center of the stage where I’d been cursed.

The lights were off, and it was dark but for the hiss of a kerosene lantern making a puddle of light on the stage. The circle imprisoning me took up most of it. Darkness made the huge room a cavern of black echoes from the drone of a generator in the distance. Acrid and sharp, the smell of broken cement tweaked my nose. Something had happened. The power was out.

“You see!” Pierce said, and I spun to see him standing between Oliver and Vivian. There was a fourth witch in coven robes huddled on the floor behind them. “If she was a true demon, she could not be summoned in the day. Let your claims go, Oliver.”

Pierce! I thought, then anger slid through me. They’d circled me. Like the demon that I was. Sucking on my teeth, I looked at the three witches standing in a row staring at me, the fourth completely out of it and shaking behind them. I wished it had been Ivy or Jenks—or even Trent.

“Hi, Pierce,” I said dryly. “This your idea?” I added, pinging the barrier with a finger and drawing back before it could burn me. How they knew my summoning name, my real summoning name, not Al’s borrowed one, was a mystery, until I remembered that Pierce had probably been haunting me when I chose the stupid thing. Great, I’m a demon for less than a week, and already I’m fielding calls.

Expression pained and a little lost, Pierce strode forward, his full-length coat coated with dust. His hair was mussed, and his motions were quick. My flash of anger died. Tired. I was tired. For one brief moment in Trent’s hotel, I had entertained the idea that even with our differences we might make a go of it. He loved me. I could love him, if I let myself be stupid. But I couldn’t even pretend anymore that circumstances might change someday. He was coven, and I was a demon. What was wrong with me? Why was I attracted to the very things that could hurt me?

“Let her out, Oliver,” Pierce said, squinting in anger at the stoic man holding the bubble, and my heart clenched in regret. “She’s not a demon.”

Yes, I am.

Oliver crossed his arms over his chest, the dim light catching the Möbius-strip pin on his lapel. His circle looked well drawn, and with a little effort I might have been able to break it. But the reality was, I just didn’t care.

“Hi, Vivian,” I said in greeting, not surprised that they were treating me like this. I’d saved her life, and here I was, circled like an animal. Hearing my bitter sarcasm, she dropped her gaze, ashamed. The last witch on the floor shivered, showing a masculine arm and blood-matted hair. The coven was down two witches. What had happened?