I backed up a step, pulse fast when Jenks burst from behind the statue trailing a thin ribbon of gold dust. “I looked for your sample,” he said, dropping a pinky-nail-size ampoule of black sludge into my grip. “But you don’t have one. I guess you weren’t Al’s familiar long enough. If Al ever tries to reverse the curse, he’s going to have to get a sample from you.”

“Thank you,” I said, dizzy as I looked at the little drop of nothing in my hand that was Al. I’d risked my life for this. Heart pounding, I looked at Ivy’s watch—ten minutes to sunup. I was going to use it now.

“Get Trent’s sample,” I said, lurching to the circle already scribed out on the wooden floor where the carpet had been burned away. I wasn’t going to tap a line and set it unless we were interrupted. At that point, it wouldn’t matter if I rang the damned bell.

Trent followed, and I almost smacked into him as he tried to get a look at Al’s blood. “That’s it?” he said, and I pulled back from his reaching hand. “It’s over five thousand years old. It can’t be any good.”

Jenks’s wings snapped aggressively. “It’s magic, you big cookie fart. If you can read a DNA sample off a nasty mummified elf corpse, then Rachel can use a five-thousand-year-old drop of blood for a demon curse.”

I dropped to my knees inside the circle and set the precious vial aside to brush the dirt from a swath of burned oak.

“What about my sample?” Trent asked, his voice tense, as if we might betray him in the last hour. His eyes were very green, and I watched the emotion pass behind them.

“I haven’t been able to find one.” Jenks dropped an inch in altitude. “I can’t just type in ancient, pre-curse elf. It would help if I had a name.”

Trent glanced at me, his face tight with sudden nerves. “Try searching for Kallasea,” he said, and I slowed. Kallasea? An older version of Kalamack, perhaps?

“Give me a sec,” Jenks said, and darted away.

Nervous as much from what I was doing as from Trent watching me do it, I sent my gaze over my stuff. White candle to serve as my hearth fire—check. Ugly big-ass knife—check. Two candles representing Al and me—check. Bag of sea salt—check. Ungodly expensive piece of magnetic chalk that I wasn’t going to use—check. Little five-sided pyramid made out of copper—check. Ceri’s written instructions and phonetically spelled Latin curse—rolled up like a scroll and shoved in the bottom of my bag—didn’t need it. I had memorized everything while sitting on the steps of the basilica’s altar.