For a while I say nothing. I need to take in all that he has said. If the challenge was part of something more, something bigger, then I begin to doubt that I have successfully risen to it after all. I was clumsy, my magic as yet not confidently used. Things could so easily have ended badly. Will my challenger report that I am but a novice, and that the Lazarus Coven is in the hands of an unskilled girl?

I search Mangan’s face for answers. “Have you ever witnessed a demon summoning before?” I ask him.

“Once, many years ago. Not at an inauguration, though. It was a small coven meeting, convened expressly for the purpose. These skills have to be practiced from time to time, otherwise the knowledge of them would fade from memory and die out.”

“And was it … was it successful? Was a demon raised, and was it controlled and returned as it should have been?” The vivid memory of the demon hauling me on Maygor’s Thread toward the pit, of Violet’s shrieks of pain, of the moment her life ended, all assail me as I think of them now.

Mangan gently lets go of my hands.

“These things, as you have seen all too clearly, are very dangerous. The summoning is the least of it.” He pauses and stares at the floor for a long moment, and then goes on, “Eight witches entered the chamber that night. Only seven left it.”

We sit in silence as we contemplate the full meaning of his words.

“So you see,” he says at last, “what you achieved was no small feat. You have justly earned the respect of all those present. And, no doubt, given your detractor pause. Ha! Shouldn’t wonder if the fellow wasn’t scared half out of his wits himself!”

He cannot contain a short burst of laughter. The sound is so loud in the stillness of the room I worry someone will hear. We listen for a few seconds, but can detect no footfalls or creaking stairs. We are both startled, therefore, when Perry appears in the doorway. Even in the dimness I can see that he is still groggy with sleep and his brocade robe has been hastily thrown on over his nightshirt.

Mangan springs to his feet.

“Ah, Perry. Did we disturb you with our chatter?”

“I … forgive me, Mangan, I did not realize you were … entertaining.” He turns as if to leave, but Mangan hurries after him, taking his arm and steering him back into the room. Now that we are discovered, it is important the confused man be with us long enough for a spell of forgetting to be worked upon him.

“Come along in. Look—Lilith has come to see us.”