Joshua and Nuru entered their daughter's room first.

"Ruth," Nuru called. "There's someone here to see you." She swung the door wide open, letting Esther and me pass through. With tears in her eyes and Joshua holding her arm, Nuru told us, "You can talk to her."

Ruth was on the bed, facing the window with her back to us. I walked around the bed and crouched in front of her. "Hey, Ruth," I said in a soft tone. Kids had an active sixth sense, enabling them to sense hostility better than adults. "I'm here to help you."

The girl didn't move, sitting still while staring outside the window. I went to check what she was looking at and found nothing there before returning to her. "Can you hear me?"

She was still silent. Something was wrong. I waved my hands and snapped my fingers in her face, and she didn't even blink. Poking her body also didn't bring out the desired outcome, nor did shaking her by the shoulders.

"How long has she been like this?" I asked the preachers.

"Since morning," Joshua answered. "When she returned to us, it was like she hadn't left all those years ago. She was laughing, jumping, running. We had our daughter back. But today—"

"Something changed?"

He gulped. "Yes."

"Got it." I breathed in and out before punching my left palm with my right hand, activating my sense magic. Magic power crawled under my skin like insects, moving from my chest's core and scurrying up my throat before finding my face and taking refuge in my eyes, allowing me to see past illusions.

Ruth's face and body changed from that of a healthy ten-year-old girl to a skeleton. A low gasp escaped my lips, but that wasn't the most shocking thing. She had a red magical string connecting to her spine. I followed where the other end of the string led to and...

I gasped loudly.

"Come on, Binti. Did you really think I was here to watch you work? Are you really that gullible?" Esther Bennet said with a smile, the other end of the red magical string wrapped around her right hand. But that wasn't all of it. Joshua and Nuru had red magical strings attached to their decomposing bodies—shit, they were also dead—which connected to the necromancer's left hand, displaying Esther's puppetry.

I wanted to feel sorry for them, but after hearing how they sacrificed their daughter for wealth, I was out of sympathy. I stood and glared at Esther. "What's the meaning of this?"

Esther moved to the window and locked it before turning to me and leaning on its sill. "There are two things I want you to know." She raised her index. "One: You're so powerful, and yet you choose to waste your time on meaningless occult shit. The Supreme Leaders have been abusing their power right under your nose by turning magicless people into crows so they could hide the government's involvement in human trafficking."

"How do you know about that?" I clenched my jaw. Had James spoken to her before me? Or had she sent James to tell me?

"I know a lot of things, Binti. Because unlike you, I like to be informed of what's going on in my home."

"Your home?" I curled my lip. "What do you mean?" I knew what she meant. I just wanted her to say it out loud. But the smile on her punchable face told me she wouldn't do it. Prick.

Esther continued. "After I kill you and get moon magic, I'm going after The Fellowship and The Supreme Leaders. Having moon magic means stopping the leaders in the sorcerer community from misusing their positions before stopping demons. There are a lot of occult detectives in the city, but there aren't enough powerful sorcerers who watch those at the top and make sure they act right."

"Who watches the watchmen, huh?" I raised my brow.

Esther smiled. "Now you get it."

"So, what? You're a hero now?"

"Hero, villain; it's all about perspectives. To me, you're the villain. You have what I need to save innocent lives, and you're refusing to give it to me."

I rolled my eyes. "And what's your second point?"

"Two: even though I can't kill you yet, it doesn't mean I can't cripple you, making it easier for me to kill you when the full moon arrives." She smiled. "Undead: Seize her!"

The preachers and their daughter walked toward me. Joshua and Nuru's eyes turned milky-white before black smoke slithered out of their mouths and covered their bodies, giving them a monstrous form: vanas.

Shit.

Could it be? Could a necromancer summon vanas from Hell and make them possess people? Brenda had said the two bus drivers who entered her shop and spoke to Esther had milky-white eyes, so my theory made sense. And if that was the case, then necromancers were more formidable foes than I initially thought.

As the three approached me, I backtracked while glancing around for a way out. There was no escape apart from the door; Esther had locked the window.

She had lured me into a trap like a mouse. How amateurish of me.

Ruth attacked me first with her bony ass, shoving her fists towards my face, which I evaded with ease. Then kicked her on the chest, thrusting her across the room before she struck the wall and exploded into a pile of bones. Dumb ass skeleton.

When I turned to the two vanas, they were already on me. They had used Ruth as a distraction. Before I activated my other magic ability and evaded them, they grabbed my arms and legs and pinned me to the floor. They made sure my palms were open, stopping me from using magic.

There were three types of sorcerers: Physicalists, Mentalists, and Chanters.

As a physicalist, I activated my magic abilities through hand movements like snapping my fingers, clapping, clenching my hand into a fist, and much more.

Esther came and stood over me with the biggest smile on her face. "I'm shocked at how easy this was. I thought you'd put up a harder fight." She reached inside her coat and pulled out a glowing silver machete.

"Let me guess: a gift from Remiel?" I asked, staring at the angelic weapon.

Esther glanced at the machete, then back at me. "Yes."

Vana Joshua spread my right arm, and Esther swung down with full force, cutting it off.

I clenched my jaw as tightly as I could while tears stung my eyes, huffing. The pain lasted for a few seconds before the blood pouring out of the wound reconnected with the arm and pulled it back in place.

Esther and the vanas scrambled to the corner of the room like scared children and stared at me as if they had seen a unicorn for the first time.

"Let me guess: you didn't know I had mastered healing magic?" I smiled. "Now you see how I won't lose to you, right?"

"Impossible. Re–Remiel said you hadn't mastered it yet," Esther said.

"Archangels don't know everything." I snapped my thumb with my index finger, activating time magic, then froze everyone and everything within a six-foot radius. It would last for ten minutes unless I unfroze them before that.

Walking up to the vanas, I turned on my elemental magic by clapping once, then placed my hands on their chests and burned them back to Hell, leaving the preachers' corpses to collapse on the floor. It happened so quickly; the vanas had no chance to scream and alert the guards and house girl outside.

I went to Esther, who stood as still as a statue, and whispered in her ear. "If you had asked about me from anyone other than Brenda, you'd have known there was nothing I loved more than a fight. You did good, but this ends here."

Shoving my hand through her chest, I grabbed her heart and pulled it out. "Fuck!" It wasn't her actual heart. Rather, leaves and roots had contorted to form a fake one.

The Esther I had been talking to the whole time wasn't the real one. I never knew necromancers could create clones of themselves. She looked so real. I had trouble accepting the truth, even though it stared right at me.

Fake Esther burst into a pile of ash, making me cough from the shit-like stench she left behind. A white note sat above the ash. I grabbed it, and it read: It was nice playing with you, Binti Nasra. Until next time. Love, E.

With a clenched jaw, I threw it in the air and burned it into nothingness. "Shit!" Now Esther knew about my healing factor. It was the only trump card I had on her, and she had forced me to reveal it this early. I was confident of beating her before. Now doubt took hold of my mind as I didn't know what bag of tricks she had up her sleeve.