“Yeah?” I wasn’t going to do it. I’d fight them to get them to behave themselves, but I wasn’t going to force them back in that pit. But there were FIB guys in the parking lot, and I tried to calm down. “I’m not the one busting in here with ultimatums,” I muttered. “And I’m not going to make the demons go anywhere but to driver’s ed, maybe.”

Cormel sat across from me, his chest not moving as his pupils widened and the air seemed to shimmer between us. I couldn’t tell if he was pissed or trying to bespell me. “Remove them,” he demanded, the hunger in his gaze breaking the illusion of a kindly political leader and laying bare his true intent. “Or Kalamack will be your whipping boy.”

Pissed, I reached across the table, fear making me stupid. Cormel was faster. His fingers encircled my wrist, as cold as steel and twice as unbreakable.

“Rache!” Jenks shouted as he darted forward, sword bared. Cormel’s eyes flicked to the pixy, and my breath came in a single, unhurried draw as I felt Trent pull on the line. I felt it flow into him, saw it almost as a bright silver ribbon that sang. A familiar tingle raked over my skin with the rustle of feathers. Purple eyes flashed open in my mind, rejoicing echoed between my thought and reason as somnolent mystics awoke, eager to dole out mischief in a splashing banquet of overindulgent intent.

Stop! I demanded, and they washed up against my will, cheerfully jumbled and riding the wave as I realized I was gripping Cormel’s neck while he pinched my other wrist. Purple eyes spun madly, wanting me to give them direction. Between one heartbeat and the next I saw the FIB arranged outside, heard the tense decisions being made beyond the constructed calm within the chilly parking lot. I felt the indecision within Cormel, the unending agony pushing him to believe what he knew to be untrue. I saw a flicker of pain, real and new in him as his thoughts, spinning in unchanging circles, widened into the possible understanding that he could not have what he most wished for.

And then my heart thudded and I realized I’d somehow crawled up onto the table, kneeling to put myself inches from Cormel’s face. His canines were bared and sheened with a slick saliva, and his breath held still within him. His fingers gripped my wrist, and my free hand remained around his neck, thumb poised and stiff to jab into his larynx. He didn’t have to breathe, but it would still hurt—not to mention impede his ability to talk for a while. Mystics wreathed us so thickly I could almost see them. They played in my hair, making it float. I wasn’t afraid. Cormel was a small thought, one already dead and spinning in circles.