Jenks was hovering in questioning shock. “Why wouldn’t she be?” he asked, and Ivy slumped. I looked at her and bit my lip, tears of frustration slipping from me. I think Ivy had figured it out.

“I’m a witch,” I said, continuing the lie. But Ceri hadn’t touched me yet.

“I didn’t want you to go,” Ceri said, standing helplessly before me.

Unable to bear it, I put my feet on the floor and took her hand. It was cold, and she didn’t pull away. “Thank you,” I whispered. “Am I going to stay here, or will I be pulled back?”

Ivy moaned softly, turning to grip the sink and look into the black garden. Ceri glanced at her, then at Jenks’s confusion, and finally, back to me. “I don’t know,” she said softly.

Jenks rose up high, his wings clattering aggressively. “Someone better tell me what the hell is going on, or I’m going to pix the lot of you.”

Blinking fast, Ivy turned, one arm wrapped around her middle, the other holding her head. “You said Rachel twisted the curse. She has Al’s summoning name,” she said to the floor. “She didn’t buy a way back and she didn’t learn how to travel the lines. She was pulled back to reality when Tom summoned Al.”

“So?” Jenks said acerbically, then hesitated, dropping to the table. “Oh. Shit.”

A flash of fear took me, and the shame of being summoned into someone else’s circle.

“Rachel is not a demon,” Ceri said, and Glenn finally got it, his broad shoulders turning sideways as he gaped at me.

“No,” I said bitterly, twisting in my chair and not looking at anyone. “I’m a witch whose blood can kindle demon magic, and who has been integrated into their system so well that I’m bound by their rules of summoning.”

“No, you aren’t.”

I wanted to believe Ceri, but I was afraid to. “Then what am I?” I whispered. She had to know. She had lived among them.

Ceri’s face went frightened. “You are what you are.”

My gaze met Ivy’s to find a sliver of fear.

I couldn’t take it anymore. Rising, I ran to the bathroom, slamming the door and slumping onto the closed toilet, miserable. There was a commotion in the hall: worried voices and frustrated accusations. A tear slid down, and I let it. I should cry. I should be crying my freaking eyes out. I think my dad had known, too. Why else would he have asked Cincinnati’s top ley line instructor to flunk me, then collect a library of demon texts for me?

“Rachel?” came Jenks’s voice amid a close clatter of pixy wings, and I pulled my head up.

“Get out!” I shouted, lashing out with a flick I knew would never land. “Damn it, you stupid pixy, get out!”