Oh God, the lines were dead. I hadn’t seen Bis since yesterday. He must be in agony. Ivy was missing, probably in one of Cormel’s bedrooms awaiting my arrival so he could kill her and make me save her soul.

“I have to go,” I said, leg throbbing as I gripped the arm of the chair and lurched to a stand reaching for my crutch. “I have to get back to the church. Trent, I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything, and I need to help who I can.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Newt leaned across the space between us to yank my crutch from me and throw it at Dali. Trent reached to catch it before it hit his fish tank, but Dali was faster, and he glared at Newt as she settled back, pleased with herself for keeping me on the couch and getting Dali’s attention all at once. “Dali, you know as well as I that Rachel’s line went down first. The Goddess hates her. Rachel can do magic because the tiniest mote of mystics are looking to her, swarming her and creating a field she can tap into.” Newt’s eyes rose as she looked speculatively at me. “Filling her chi with wild magic ...”

I sat back down, pinned to my chair by Dali’s fierce look.

“That is a lie!” Dali insisted, and Newt looked to the ceiling in false idleness.

“Or any she cared to share it with,” Newt finished. “She’s like a little ley line hot spot.”

“Enough!” Dali shouted. Trent inched in between me and the incensed demon, and Newt bobbed her foot like a twelve-year-old, delighted to rub the demon’s nose in something that would get me into trouble and distract Dali from realizing she’d once practiced elven magic, too.

“It’s the mystics, you decrepit old demon,” she said saucily. “The lines are dead, and the ever-after has until sunrise before the tides shift and it’s sucked out of existence, taking everything with it.”

Jenks ... , I thought, looking at the door but helpless to walk to it. He couldn’t survive long without magic. Bis either. And the vampires. Their souls would have nowhere to go when they died their first death. Something was going to snap.

“You freed the familiars, yes?” Trent asked, and Dali’s expression went sour. “Your slaves? You’re abandoning them?” Trent exclaimed, outraged. “Your contract says you’ll keep them alive. You can’t just forget that because it’s difficult.”

“Difficult?” Dali snapped.

“And the undead souls,” I said aloud, thoughts on Ivy. She’d kill herself twice to keep her soul and consciousness together, even if she believed that would send her soul straight to hell.