She stared at the entry in disbelief, then hit PRINT. Was the man who’d visited her in the field a major daemon—or “Hell’s king,” as he was also known? Lara tried to recall if he’d ever introduced himself to her. It had been Cecile who had first pronounced a name that sounded like a children’s cartoon villain, akin to Gargamel.

Surely Cecile had been mistaken. It had just sounded like this name. She’d been a kid. Maybe she’d misheard the woman. But then there was the spelling on the Ouija board. It matched this. The magic her family used—locks, dresses—that was innocent magic. This Althacazur was a different type of creature altogether.

As she gathered her purse and searched for her lipstick, she kept picking up the printout to read over and over, looking for any similarity between the description and the man she’d known. Vain? Absolutely. Flowing hair? Check. But it was the line… amber eyes that he often covers with sunglasses when walking among mortals due to the permanent state of his horizontal pupils—an underworld trait that cannot be masked that left her cold.

Of everything she’d read, this line felt like a concrete detail describing him. This begged the question: If a major daemon was visiting her, what did he want? At some point, he’d said, he would call on her. She took a seat and found her legs were trembling. Was this the source of her magic? Was he the reason Audrey insisted they hide their abilities?

After opening locks and emptying her grandfather’s candy jars, Lara had graduated to copying her mother’s signature and enchanting the phone to sound like anyone she wanted. As she got older, those skills were helpful when she wanted to get permission to go on a field trip. As she got better at it, she could match her friends’ mothers’ voices easily and so stay out later while Audrey thought she was safely tucked at home with Caren.

It was Caren’s mom who inadvertently busted her. Caren and Lara were both allergy sufferers requiring weekly shots. At the doctor’s office one spring, Mrs. Jackson, in passing, thanked Audrey for allowing Caren to stay over so much. In actuality, the two girls had sneaked out and gone to all-night bowling. Lara had always been careful to never let Caren hear her make the phone calls, not wanting her friend to have culpability. As Mrs. Jackson presented a thorough accounting of Audrey’s generosity in lodging her daughter, Lara closed her eyes with dread.

It was the firm tug on the checkbook from Audrey’s hand that served as the tell as Dr. Mulligan’s check for $3 was ripped free.