It had also scared my three cats half to death, not to mention the zebra finches, which was the part I felt the guiltiest about. Maybe it was my imagination, but even Starbuck the hedgehog seemed a little nervy.

Suffice it to say, things between me and Elena had been . . . strained, ever since.

“Just because you’re turning it into a hypothetical doesn’t make it any less treacherous,” I informed my cousin, summoning a witchlight to hover above my palm so we didn’t have to fumble through the dark. We kept the entire haunted house space—a retrofitted warehouse adjoining the Arcane Emporium, our family’s occult megastore—glamoured with a fortification of the Oblivion Charm that cloaked all of Thistle Grove. Any normie visitor or member of the cast that happened to catch my spell would forget it within seconds. “Also, it wasn’t for shits and giggles. I had to get rid of the demon somehow, didn’t I? Even Elena’s not such an agent of chaos that she’d be down with me unleashing an ancient big bad unto the mortal plane.”

“A big bad you summoned in the first place, Issa,” Letha pointed out with irritating logic. “For the aforementioned shits and giggles.”

“Okay, fair. And I do wish Davara would’ve talked to me just a little before trying to bust out of the circle,” I added, pouting. “I had so many pressing questions. Like, do first-tier demons naturally have such popping skin, or does she moisturize with, like, the tears of the damned or something? Do they all smell weirdly amazing, or was that just her? The kind of stuff that isn’t in the books.”

Letha shot me an aggrieved look. “Yeah, about all that . . . how come you didn’t invite me to spot you? Davara Circlebreaker sounds like a snack. And maybe I could have helped, before things got that far out of hand.”

I squeezed Letha’s shoulder apologetically as we stepped into the next scene—then yanked her out of the way as a hysterical prom queen in ruffled fuchsia taffeta nearly barreled into us, fleeing a chainsaw-wielding prom king with artfully disheveled feathered hair. A cluster of real visitors—cowering by a table scattered with severed hands, corsages, and a cut-glass bowl of bubbling “poisoned” punch—shrieked with terror, then dissolved into panicky giggles.

As the prom king sprinted past us, muttering to himself, I appraised his shredded powder-blue tux and bloodstained Converse with a critical eye. Stylishly fiendish, sure; but also just kind of dull, in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

“Trust me, she was on the too-evil side of evilly hot,” I assured Letha. “Even by your standards.”

“Well, she might’ve been an edge case. And now we won’t ever know, will we.” Letha fixed me with a baleful side-eye, which, given how big and hooded her dark eyes were, was extremely baleful. “Seeing as I wasn’t invited.”

“I’m sorry, angel. It’d been a minute since I summoned, and . . . I don’t know. I wanted to do it solo, I guess, blow off some steam. Try to get my groove back.”