Dali leaned forward over Trent’s desk, a thick finger pointing at me. “Failure to uphold any contract here isn’t my fault. I held to the undead curse as well as can be expected.” Lip curled back to show his teeth, he glared at Trent. “You and your species are to blame for the vampires’ soul destruction, not me.”

Soul destruction? I wondered, then pounced on that because it seemed to distress Dali the most. “You promised the first undead that his soul would be waiting, didn’t you? That promise falls to all who followed him. And now you can’t fulfill it.”

“This is not my fault!” Dali shouted, and the fish behind him dashed into hiding.

“You oversaw the curse,” Newt said sourly.

“This is intolerable,” Trent said, beginning to pace. “An entire population of living, breathing people trapped in the ever-after to die?”

Dali laughed, the bitter sound chilling. “Funny. That’s what you had intended for us.”

Trent spun, his anger slipping from his iron-clad control. “It was your idea first.”

Al tugged his suit coat straight. “Because you made slaves of us and warped our children so far from us they were as imbeciles.”

“Hey!” I exclaimed, not wanting to be counted as an idiot from birth. No, I could prove that all on my own.

“Boys and girls,” Newt soothed, her pleasant expression faltering when she noticed a bruise in the shape of a handprint on her arm. “We, ah, have all suffered, and though we clearly cannot forget, can we at least strive to forgive each other such that we can ... survive?”

Trent turned his back on us, frustrated. “There’s nothing to move forward to,” he said as he looked at his hands to estimate their shaking. “No magic to move forward with. They didn’t listen to me, and now we all suffer.”

My stomach hurt, but my ribs hurt more, and all I wanted to do was lie down and not move. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “If there was anything that could be done ...”

“There is, love.”

Dali’s head snapped up at Newt’s soft croon. The demon’s hard, unforgiving expression pulsed through me with a surge of adrenaline.

“Newt,” Al growled as he stood before Trent’s seldom-used wet bar, his shoulders hunched and tense. “Shut the hell up.”

Trent came forward a step. “There aren’t enough mystics looking to her,” he said, but Dali’s vehemence as he thumped a meaty fist on the table brought him up short.

“No!” the older demon shouted. “I’ll not have it! I’d sooner see us dead than be saved with ... elf magic!”

Newt’s foot bobbed and her cheeks flushed. “Dead is exactly what we will be. Are you blind or simply that stubborn? Demons can do magic through the Goddess. They just don’t like to admit it. They think it sullies them.”

“It does!” Dali cried. “They’re animals!”