"Ellie, please..."

Kyrie stepped towards us, but Lucian raised his gun (which he'd brought along in a holster strapped beneath his coat) and aimed it at her head. I didn't know if bullets did any good against demons, or if Lucian had special demon-killing bullets of some kind, but regardless, Kyrie took the hint and stopped.

"That's close enough," he said, shifting his grip on me. In my ear, he murmured, "I take it you know this... person?"

I sagged against his side, hardly able to stand as pain and weariness sapped my strength. Nothing made sense anymore: friends were enemies, and enemies, friends. I just wanted to find Ro, and then to lie down and sleep for the rest of everything.

"I... thought I did," I mumbled. "I thought she was... a friend."

"I am a friend, Ellie, I swear it!" Kyrie pushed back the hood of her black robes so I could more clearly see her face, revealing her shaved head and the heavy gold jewelry she wore. "Please," she said. "I have made terrible, unforgivable mistakes, but I swear I meant no harm to you, or to Ro. Please, we are nearly out of time. Let me help you while I can!"

"Janelle..." I breathed. "She's... the one behind this?"

Kyrie's eyes widened, and she shook her head. "No! Oh, no no no! Janelle is not part of anything. Gods!" She pressed a hand to her mouth as her face twisted with a grimace of pain. "Oh, gods. I did not want her to know. But now..."

I slumped a bit more, and Lucian adjusted his hold. The pain in my back made me want to cry, but I forced myself to keep my feet under me and look Kyrie in the eyes.

"Do you know where Ro is?" I rasped, my tongue feeling thick and dry in my mouth.

"No," she said, tears slipping from her eyes and sliding down her cheeks. "I do not. But I will do everything in my power to help you find him. I will—"

Her voice faded out as if someone had stuffed cotton in my ears, and I blinked as sudden darkness pressed in from all sides. My whole head rang, and for a moment of confusion I thought we were under some new attack. Then, blinking up at Lucian, I realized I'd almost passed out. He'd dropped his gun to catch me, careful of his hold on my back, and the metal object now lay between us and Kyrie. I watched as if in a dream as she stepped forward slowly, bent down, and picked it up.

Then she held it towards Lucian — butt end first.

He took it warily and holstered it.

"I cannot undo what I have done," she said, "but let me help if I can; and if I cannot, then Janelle surely will."

I gazed up at her as a cold stillness settled over me, and the pain retreated a little as Lucian helped me back to my feet. I met Kyrie's eyes again and spoke in a ragged whisper.

"If you're lying... I'll destroy you," I said.

I meant it; but if I were in her place I'd have laughed in my face. Kyrie, though, looked as if she believed I were perfectly capable of making good on my word, and shivered as she nodded.

"I know you will."

Lucian, too, seemed impressed for some reason, and as Kyrie led the way up the alley to the cross street and down the block to Janelle's shop, leaned close as he helped me along.

"You know," he said mildly, "for my own sake, I'm rather glad we've ended up on the same team."

I said nothing, for I wasn't certain that we had; then again, at that moment, I wasn't certain of anything.

❧

At the door of Janelle's Spells, Kyrie paused and bowed her head, eyes closed.

"Something wrong?" Lucian asked, sounding a little out of breath. We'd done our best not to attract attention to ourselves as we traversed the length of sidewalk leading to the shop, but he'd basically had to carry me part of the way.

"No; all is well," Kyrie said. "I am simply taking a moment to remember what it feels like to come home, and to be loved: two blessings I no longer deserve, and shall shortly no longer enjoy."

Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes, opened the door, and led the way through. Inside, the familiar, comforting scents of the spellshop surrounded me. It had been mere weeks, and yet the shop and the rooms above already felt more like home to me than almost any place ever had. Only the apartment I'd shared with my mother as a small child held a higher place in my memory, and it was a vague and incomplete memory, indeed.

I'd been nine at the time of my mother's death, and yet I remembered almost nothing about her, except that she had been beautiful and kind. It didn't help that I had no pictures of her. It seemed ridiculous — impossible, even — in this age of ubiquitous digital images, and yet the only picture I had of my mother was the imperfect one I carried in my head.

At the top of the stairs, Kyrie paused once more before the eggplant-purple door, but this time neither Lucian nor I interrupted her. The dread and shame that hung over her shoulders like a cloud was practically visible.

With another bracing breath, she straightened, turned the knob, and stepped through.

"Jani?" she called, as the door fell shut at our backs. "Are you in?"

"Yeah! In the kitchen!" Janelle answered.

"Will you... come out here, please?"

"I'm baking! It important?"

Kyrie hesitated. "Yes, Janelle. It is quite important," she said in such a soft tone I wondered that the other woman would be able to hear her, but a moment later, she emerged from the kitchen, her hair in long purple braids and her voluminous figure clothed in a matching purple dress, carrying a mixing bowl full of semi-liquid chocolate-colored substance and a wooden stirring spoon. Rounding the corner, she stopped, stared, and dropped the bowl, splashing chocolate batter all over her purple sequined slippers.

"What in god's balls...?"

She gaped at us, open-mouthed, as she took in my condition, Ro's absence, and the presence of Lucian Drake, chief vestiger, in her home. Her eyes landed on Kyrie last, and then she blinked, set her hands to her ample hips, and pursed her lips at us.

"Well. All I can say is y'all better have one hell of a good explanation."

❧

I'd already learned quite a lot while sitting on the sofa in Janelle's living room, and it seemed I would learn more there yet.

Janelle invited us to make ourselves comfortable and, after a quick wardrobe change, joined us while Kyrie prepared a pot of tea. She made me sit on a low stool and carefully removed the remnants of my shirt so she could treat the two long burns on my back. She hissed as she got a good look at them, and I bit back a yelp as she gently cleaned the wounds with a cloth and applied some sort of healing balm. I hoped it contained supercharged magical aspirin, or something, because I really wasn't known for my amazing pain tolerance, and I was well past my limit already.

To my relief, the balm did the trick, and the pain receded almost instantly. It didn't disappear entirely, but I could think of something else long enough to listen to what Kyrie had to say, and speak for myself as well.

I started, in fact, seated carefully on the sofa beside Lucian, opposite Kyrie and Janelle,  and explained how Ro and I had found Al murdered before being captured and interrogated by Lucian Drake. Lucian took over then, and related our mutual misunderstandings and subsequent truce, followed by Ro's mysterious disappearance, our close call with vehicular destruction, and the interesting and fortuitous manifestation of my dormant power.

At which point, all attention turned to Kyrie.

She had sat in stillness and silence so far, but her large black eyes shone with tears, and small shivers shook her graceful frame.

"Ky?" Janelle prompted gently. "You got some 'splainin' to do, sweetheart."

Kyrie shut her eyes, sending two large tears tracking down her cheeks, but when she spoke her voice was even and quiet.

"It was supposed to end with Oscar," she said. "Someone else would take his place — someone just and good — and then life would be better for all of us. That is what they promised."

"Who promised?" Lucian asked sharply, earning himself a glare from Janelle.

"The Alliance," Kyrie said. "A group of demons, witches, and other supernaturals. They..." She glanced up at Janelle and down at her folded hands again. "They meet in the rooms below Fangs. Carmella runs it."

"Carmella?" Janelle's voice climbed indignantly, but Kyrie quickly shook her head.

"Let me finish. Carmella started the Alliance as a place to exchange ideas and build shared values — like the French intellectual salons she so missed. She invited me to join about a year ago, one evening when I had gone down to collect the rent. I had no interest at first, but for some reason I kept attending, and soon what they were saying began to make sense." She paused for a breath and twisted her hands in her lap. "I am blessed to have a witch who treats me an equal — with love and respect — but few daemons are so fortunate. Fewer still, among the unfortunate, have any recourse to escape their situation. Once bound to a witch — once a witch knows our name — our freedom is forever lost. This is what the Alliance stood for: rights and protections for daemonkind."

"Ky..." A look of pain pinched Janelle's expression, and Kyrie hunched in on herself miserably.

"I know — I know my love — how hard and long you have fought for the same things. But there is only so much we can do from here: from the shadows and the edges of things. The Alliance had loftier goals: change from the top down. Change everything, for the better, for everyone."

"Then why didn't Carmella ask me to join?" Janelle asked. "And for that matter, why didn't you?"

Kyrie flinched. "You already risk so much, Jani. Carmella said it would be best if you did not know. If ever we were found out, you would be safe in your ignorance."

Janelle glanced at Lucian. "Okay, but see that's the part that scaring me, Ky. Ignorance of what?"

Kyrie sniffed and wiped her nose, took a shuddering breath, and shut her eyes as she went on. "At first, they only talked of reforming the system. Restricting the ways witches could use us, and giving us ways to fight back. But then, gradually, it began to change. After Evangeline joined, it became about achieving sudden, drastic change, and about preventing disaster. For a select few of us, anyway, it became about... killing Oscar Vile."

She looked up and met my eyes, and her own were wide and dark, and full of guilt.

"Evangeline had knowledge the rest of us did not. Inside knowledge, she said, of an angelic cult, of which Oscar was a part. He was seeking a way to summon angels, to trap them and enslave them, and to harness their power. He had even succeeded, once, she said, and had managed to... to breed one." She shook her head, her distaste at the idea evident. "It sounded monstrous and barbaric — a violation of natural law — and it showed the urgency of the situation. Evangeline said that he and his cult was close to succeeding again. If we did not stop him now, he would become unstoppable; for with an angel at his command, Oscar could declare himself a Witch King, whom none could oppose."

I frowned. "But my dad already had the Ivy Throne. Isn't that kind of the same thing?"

Lucian scoffed. "No. The Ivy Throne is more akin to the most senior seat in a parliament, or a prime minister, perhaps. A 'witch king' would be a supreme ruler, whose sole will is law. But believe me, ruling the world was not on Oscar's agenda. The man enjoyed power, certainly, but he could hardly be paid to care about his duties as a Throne. Besides, as we've established, Oscar, Al and I were working to expose the angelic cult, not take it over. Whoever informed you otherwise fed you a pack of lies."

Kyrie nodded. "So I have learned. But at the time, it made perfect sense."

I rubbed the sides of my face, trying to keep everything straight in my head. The pain in my back had faded to a dull, throbbing sting, and the caffeine in the tea helped a little, but I still felt very far from being the sharpest tool in the shed. "Why didn't you just ask Ro? I thought he was your friend."

"I couldn't," Kyrie whispered. "If what Evangeline said was true, and Oscar forced Ro to reveal what he knew..."

Janelle sighed. "That part I guess I understand. We knew how Oscar treated him."

Kyrie nodded. "Ro never mentioned angels; but then it seemed almost as if he had gaps in his memory; as if Oscar might have been suppressing them for some reason. And then, more recently, he began to talk of how paranoid Oscar had become — convinced that someone meant to kill him. Despite how he treated him, Ro was the only person he would trust. Ro even told us how...  how Oscar would only eat the food Ro prepared, or that Ro had tested himself."

"Oh, Ky... No..." Janelle shook her head. "Please say you didn't..."

Kyrie began to cry, but she met my eyes and held my gaze as she spoke.

"I gave Evangeline the idea," she said. "And I helped her cast the spell with Ro's name. I wouldn't tell it to her — I wouldn't betray Ro that way — but I whispered it and gave the spell power. It would be for his own good, I thought; he would have his freedom, and we would all be free of Oscar Vile. It was only once it was done that I began to understand my mistake. No one knew Oscar had a child! It was only when Ro brought you here and told us who you were, that I—"

She covered her mouth with her hands to stifle a sob. Janelle looked torn between a desire to comfort the woman she loved and outraged betrayal. She held her peace and said nothing while Kyrie composed herself again.

"Evangeline..." I said slowly. "Evangeline poisoned my father, and you knew that. You helped her. And you let me go with her the day of the wedding. You let me..." A sickening coldness slithered down to coil at the bottom of my stomach, and I actually felt myself go pale. "You let me eat her cupcakes."

Kyrie shook her head vigorously, dark eyes wide. "She didn't know you were Oscar's son — she had no reason to harm you. I thought you were safe enough, so long as she didn't know!"

"But she must have recognized Ro..."

Again, Kyrie shook her head. "She never met him. She made the cookies and cursed them, and I supplied Ro's true name for the compulsion and memory spell, but someone else delivered the goods. One of the other Thrones, I think."

"Oh, for the love of fuck," Lucian swore. "Who the fuck isn't part of this conspiracy?"

"Dunno," Janelle said. "But just 'bout everyone on my shitlist, now. 'Cept Ellie."

She looked pointedly at Kyrie, who flinched, but continued her tale.

"It wasn't until after the incident at the wedding, after she learned Ellie was highborn, that Evangeline suspected anything. And then Tobin..." She sighed. "All you had to do was mention his ex-witch and he wouldn't shut up, especially after he'd had a few drinks. He must have told Carmella everything he knew — which wasn't everything there was to know, of course, but it was enough to connect Ellie to Oscar and Al — and Carmella told Evangeline. Then, Evangeline tracked down Al, and..."

"And now she has my dad's journals, and she knows everything," I said.

Kyrie bowed her head. "I am so sorry, Ellie," she whispered. "She threatened Janelle. She made me give her Ro's name, and she told me to kill Lucian Drake. She told me he had the monster Oscar had created, and that I should destroy them both." She looked up at me again as more tears escaped the corners of her eyes. "I didn't know that it was you."

I shut my own eyes a moment, more to stay focused than anything. A storm of emotions raged through me, but on a conscious level I felt almost nothing.

Almost.

"Where is Tobin?" I asked.

Kyrie blinked. "If he is alive, he is probably in the same place as Ro."

"But you don't know where that is."

She shook her head.

"Right, then."

I got to me feet and headed (a little unsteadily) for the door.

"Ellie? Hey, Ellie, where you think you're going?" Janelle called.

I paused and considered, and then answered truthfully.

"To kill a witch, and maybe a vampire, and to find my daemon and rescue him," I said.