Claire had been looking at the polished wood floor. She raised her gaze to his. "It will strip me of all my magick, not just the elium. It will, essentially, leave me a non-magickal."

The room went silent.

"It's like surgery." Micah gestured with his hands and avoided catching Adam's gaze. "It's like surgery to remove a tumor. Thing is, in this case, the tumor"—Micah made air quotes—"has inexorably attached itself to another organ, in this case, the seat of Claire's magick. In order to get the tumor, we have to remove everything."

Adam ran a hand over his face. Fuck, he was tired. "Gods."

Thomas shifted and stood. "What happens to the elium in this scenario, Micah? Does the core of her magick stay intertwined with it?"

Micah shook his head of shaggy brown hair. "Got me. I've never tried anything like this before. I mean, there are spells that will let us make small adjustments to the flow of a witch's power, but this is like a complete… complete…"

"Amputation," Claire finished for him, her voice dull and dead-sounding.

Micah looked sick. He swallowed hard and continued. "Something like that. In any case, I'm not sure what elemental magick does once it's removed from a witch. The elium is different. It's demon magick, first of all, and was designed in a sort of self-contained ball that can be moved from demon to demon—"

"We're all demon at the heart of us," Thomas cut in gruffly.

"Yeah, but our magick isn't demon magick. Not completely. Our magick is born more purely from the elements than theirs is. That's why Claire carrying the elium was never a good idea. It reacted to her elemental magick by adhering to it."

"Wait a minute." Adam walked toward Micah and Micah took a step back. "Relax, already. I'm sorry I lost my temper with you during the last spell, I really am. Will you chill now? I'm not going to hurt you."

"As long as I don't hurt Claire."

"You got it. That's my trigger, Micah."

Micah touched his throat. "Yeah, okay. If I can, I won't trip it."

"When Claire pulled magick on the demons here in the Coven, it was different—explosive. It felt, smelled, and tasted like demon magick to me, just on a subtler scale. Claire told me she did it by pulling all the threads of the elements together. What if demon magick and elemental magick aren't so different, after all? What if there's another way?"

Micah rubbed his chin. "It's something to look into."

"We don't have time," Thomas put in. "If we intend to save Claire's life, we have to act now. Tevan and Kai could show up here at any moment and take her back."

"They'll kill me right away next time," Claire added. "They tried every other way to take the elium and nothing worked. Now they'll try to take the elium as I die. They're willing to risk it."

"That's why we need to act now," Thomas answered.