The Twice-Sold Soul

Book 1: The McKenna Ellerbeck Series

by Katie Hallahan

Genres: Contemporary Fantasy; Romantic Fantasy

Synopsis

I locked away my magic and ran from home for a good reason. So why am I ready to undo everything when my demon ex finally tracks me down? 

You can’t outrun your demons—McKenna Ellerbeck knows this all too well. She’s been running from literal demons for a decade, one that will stop at nothing to take McKenna’s magic for their own and one that shattered her heart by grasping for dark power. After a horrible run-in with hellhounds on the streets of Paris, McKenna is ready to hide again when she’s confronted by her ex, the Archdemon of Desire Remiel Blake. Remi, the sexiest of gender-shifting demons, calls in an old debt McKenna owes them, though unlike other deals the terms of fulfillment are simple: all she needs to do is return to her hometown of Arcadia Commons, Massachusetts, for seven days.

Disgruntled and disguised at her own insistence, McKenna returns home to the magical community, intent on simply staying in her hotel room watching pay-per-view. But with her high school reunion conveniently happening in the same hotel she’s staying at—the one owned by her ex-boyfriend Bastien Lemaire—and her brother mysteriously picking fights with the town’s most prominent witch family, she finds she can’t stay away for long and decides it’s finally time to face her past and the witches, werewolves, demons, and friends she left behind.

If you miss Supernatural, True Blood, or Buffy, you'll love this sexy and magical contemporary fantasy from a marvelous new voice in fiction, Katie Hallahan!

Release date: November 12, 2024

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 352

Sample

It was well after sundown in Paris and taking everything I had to keep myself upright and stumbling down the cobblestone street. Empty—good. I was shaky and desperate, and the last thing I needed right now was a Good Samaritan. Harder to get rid of than a mugger. Three vials of my drug of choice, an anti-magic elixir, clattered in my pocket, no good without my injection kit. I could drink one—they were burning a hole in my resolve not to—but it was a waste of elixir, not as effective, and I had to make this batch last a week.

Grabbing the building as I turned the corner, I halted, gasping for breath. My heart was racing, fever-sweat making the late-October chill even worse. My nails raked over the inside of my wrist, digging at the itch that lived under my skin and coursed through my veins.

Come on, it’s a few more blocks. The McKenna Ellerbeck story does not end with “American Woman, Missing 10 Years, Found Dead in Paris.”

I could make this all go away anytime I liked. The matching tattooed runes on my wrists taunted me as I scratched, somehow more tempting with those red lines running across them. Cross my wrists, whisper the spell, it’d all be over in a second. No pain, no itch, no sepsis in my blood, all gone. Blissful relief was right there, was one word away…

Laughter at the far end of the alley, from the cross street. I shrank back against the wall, sliding to the ground, and strained my neck to peek at the scene. Luckily, it was just a group of normal twenty-somethings, drinking and fucking around. Seven hells, to be like them… but if I let my magic out this built-up, it would take out a building in the process. Those kids would die, the police would be everywhere, and the cherry on top, I’d have to book it back to my apartment, pack up everything I could, and flee before the demons showed up. I’d gotten pretty fast at that by now, though, and on the bright side, I wouldn’t have to pay my bastard landlord next month’s rent.

No. Not again. I’ve made it a year without unleashing. I can make it another hundred yards. Gritting my teeth, I pushed upright, but the street tilted and sent me back into the wall. One glass vial of glowing blue liquid slipped out of my pocket and tumbled in the air toward the cobblestones. I lunged for it, my knees jolting painfully on the ground, catching it just before it could shatter on the stones.

“Seven hells,” I panted. But before relief could replace panic, a new terror hit: the corruption in the air seeping along my skin, the vile smell of rot and sulfur, the growl of an approaching hellhound.

It emerged from the shadows at the end of the block. Hairless, mottled, bruised skin, damp with unknown fluids. Shadows writhed around it as it stared at me with fiery pits for eyes. From its back sprouted the ragged bones of useless wings, hung with shreds of skin. It smelled overwhelmingly wrong, of the Pit and cobbled-together flesh, stolen to give itself a body in the mortal world. Another growl behind me reminded me that they always hunted in pairs.

Every time in the last ten years that I’d unleashed my magic, these vicious and unrelenting minions of the Archdemon of Madness had shown up to hunt me down.

But this time, I hadn’t used my magic. I was half dead from not using it, so how the hell did they find me?

No time to think. If I was going to live and stay sane and free, I had to act.

Step one: Play dead.

I collapsed onto the pavement, slumping forward, seemingly passed out. My heart pounded as their paws thumped wetly on the pavement toward me. The one in front reached me first, thrusting its head down as the writhing shadows coalesced into teeth. As it made to bite me, I smashed my hand against its head, shattering the vial. The glass shards sliced into both its flesh and mine, the anti-magic elixir seeping into the cuts. While I instantly began to feel better, the hellhound did not. Its flesh withered, suddenly denied the demonic magic that held it together, falling apart into ash and wet clumps on the cobblestones. I dragged my hand against its jaw, pushing up onto my feet and smearing as much of the drug on it as I could. One down, one to go.

I knew the other hound was almost on me, but I had emergency measures for this. And thanks to that last vial, enough of a clear head to use them. I thrust my uninjured hand in my pocket for the stored banishing spell I always kept there—only to learn I’d left it at the apartment.

“Shit!” I backpedaled, reaching for another precious vial, but the hound was already springing into the air—

—and met its end on a blade of shadows that snapped into existence along with its bearer right in front me. The gorgeous dark-haired woman flashed me a familiar smirk over her shoulder.

“Hello, darling. Be with you in a moment.”

She pulled the shadowblade free and the hellhound slumped to the ground, gravely injured but not dead yet. It tried to come at her again, but she expertly lopped off its head with another slash. A thin shadow rose from it, the wispy form that was all most demons could manage in the mortal world without a fleshy form to host them. It was joined by another as the first hellhound’s body finally collapsed entirely.

“Run along, little doggies. This one’s spoken for,” she snarled. She snapped her fingers, and the remaining body burst into flames. The two shadows blinked out of existence in this reality, back to the Pit and their master.

The woman turned to me, her shadowblade vanishing with a thought. “How do you keep finding yourself in these situations, McKenna?” The wicked smirk on her red lips hadn’t changed; nor had much of the rest of her, though she could shapeshift into any form she wished. But that smirk was Remiel Blake’s trademark. The Archdemon of Desire. My ex-girlfriend.

Before I could answer, a wave of weakness and vertigo overtook me. I stumbled, but Remi caught me before I fell into the wall. “Get… get me back to my place,” I panted. “A few blocks… that way…”

“If it’s all the same to you, I know a shortcut.” She secured her arm around me, fire flaring in her eyes. One moment we were there; the next, darkness. Then we were in my apartment. She helped me onto the couch, flipping the lights on with a gesture. I was unused to demonic teleportation these days, but I wasn’t about to complain.

“Bathroom. Black bag,” I gasped. She set off to get it while I took the last two vials from my pocket. Setting them on the coffee table with a shaking hand, I pushed my shirtsleeve up past my elbow.

Remi returned, kneeling and unzipping the bag. “What do you—” She halted when she saw its contents. “McKenna. This is a drug kit.”

“Prep the needle. Explain later.” She reached for a vial, but I grabbed her hand, staring her in the eyes. “Don’t spill it. Not a drop.”

Between us, we got my arm prepped for the injection. I tried to take the needle for the act itself, but I couldn’t hold it straight. Remi rolled her eyes and did it for me, though not gently. Even so, the needle prick was familiar, a sign of oncoming relief rather than of pain, and the glowing blue liquid brought a rush of blessed cool as it entered my blood. I pulled the tourniquet from my upper arm and slumped back onto the couch, finally letting myself slip into darkness.

When I woke up, the smell of sautéed garlic, onions, and pasta filled the air. I blinked and slowly sat up. My fever and chills were gone, my head had cleared, and I was shaky only from hunger instead of an overabundance of magic in my blood. My left hand, the one cut by the vial shards in the alley, still stung but had been cleaned and bandaged. A glass of water was on the coffee table. I picked it up with my good hand and gulped the whole thing down. It was still dark outside, a little after midnight according to my clock. Over in the small kitchen, my Archdemon ex was cooking dinner for me.

I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had cooked for me.

She looked over when she heard me approach and smiled. “Welcome back, darling. Feeling better? I must say, hellhounds and intravenous drugs are not exactly the reunion I pictured.”

“What are you doing here, Remi?” I asked.

“Gee, it’s nice to see you, too. Is that any way to greet an old friend who saved your ass and made you dinner?” Remi retorted. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“We had a deal.”

She shook her head as if this was a silly misunderstanding and began dishing out the food. “We did, and surely you realize that as someone with an outstanding debt to me, I’m always able to find you, darling. Not to mention having a certain sense of your well-being, especially when it takes a sudden nosedive. Want to tell me what that’s all about?”

“So you’ve always known where I was.” I shook my head. It figured. “Right down to my address and apartment number?”

“I plead the Fifth.” She set the plates down on the table, which was set for a lovely little romantic dinner for two, complete with candles and two glasses of wine. The only thing off was that the centerpiece consisted of my needle kit and the remaining two vials of glowing blue elixir, one of them now half empty. “What is this stuff, anyway? Doesn’t look like any drug I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something,” she asked, picking one up.

“Anti-magic elixir. Why? You want to try a little in your Bordeaux?”

She dropped it so fast it thunked on the table and began to roll. I grabbed it before it got too far. “Hard pass. Do you have any idea what touching that stuff could do to me? Even a drop of that—”

“Would cancel out the magic keeping your host body alive and habitable and crumble it into dust. Why do you think I told you not to spill any?” I set the two vials into padded slots in the kit bag and zipped it. “This is hardly the first time I’ve been in danger. So, again, why are you here?”

“It’s the first time you’ve been in that much danger,” Remi said. She took a seat, gesturing to the other for me to sit in. “And you’d be a whole lot worse without me, so, again, you’re welcome. Can we get back to why you, a witch, are injecting anti-magic elixir into your arm?”

I could’ve tried to dodge the question, but I knew she wouldn’t let up. “Because it turns out too much magic in your system, like anything else, is a bad thing. If I don’t inject that, the magic in my blood starts to poison me. That’s why I was in bad shape tonight.” I eyed the chair like it was a trap.

“The chair won’t bite, McKenna,” Remi said.

“And what am I gonna owe you for all this?” I asked.

“Seriously? It’s not a favor, it’s food. Entirely from your depressingly sparse cabinets, at that. All I did was add heat. Like I do.” She smirked.

I rolled my eyes. “I know how it works, Remi. Nothing’s free.”

“Consider it me protecting my assets, then. You owe me a debt, and you’re no good to me dead or half starved. Sit. Eat. There’s no price tag on this one, I promise.”

Instead, I looked at the door. “I don’t have time to eat. Those hounds won’t be the last. I need to get out of here.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about being hunted, Remi, like I have been for the last ten years!” I snapped at her. “I don’t know how they found me this time. I didn’t even use my magic. But I’ve got a few hours tops before they tear down this building trying to find me, and I don’t plan to be here when they do!”

“McKenna!” Remi was on her feet, hands up in a calming gesture. “I’m sorry—please, take a breath, okay? I know it’s been a long time, but if anyone or anything tries to hurt you, I’d still end them merely for thinking it. I can protect you. You’re safe with me.”

She’d said that to me before, when I’d made my deal with her. My answer was the same. “No one’s safe with me.”

“Not what I said. And if it comes to it, I’ll manage,” Remi said. Her dark eyes held mine for a long moment. “Now, I intend to eat something before we get into whatever our next argument is going to be. Join me if you like. Or stay hangry, whatever.” She sat back down, made a show of placing her napkin on her lap, and started eating.

I considered saying she was missing my point, but it wouldn’t make a difference. And, honestly, she had a point, too. She was far from defenseless, and the minions of another Archdemon ranked well below her in terms of power. That, and the delicious smells were setting my stomach rumbling, so I finally sat down and dug in. For the first time in years, I became aware that my table manners had gotten a bit lax and found myself sitting up straighter in an attempt to maintain whatever dignity I still had here. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught her smiling, but for once she held her tongue.

In the silence while we ate, I couldn’t stop myself from looking over my ex, taking her in. Remi could appear however she liked: male or female, any ethnicity, blond or brunette or redhead. In days long past, as a teenager discovering and exploring my sexuality, I’d enjoyed that flexibility more than a little. Right now, Remi was wearing the same face and figure she’d worn day-to-day when we were in high school. When we were together. A lean young woman of average height with nearly black hair, her curves were enough to be enticing, not enough to be ostentatious. She had dark-brown eyes that became pools of shadow and promise when the light was low, as well as clear, naturally tan skin. She liked to joke that she had the “face of the Mediterranean.” She was hot, of course, and she knew it, of course.

She did look older, however. Remi was the only demon who had a human host body to call her own. At some point, while the original owner was still alive, the body had been designated for Remi’s future use—through circumstances that were, I’m sure, less than pleasant. Then they perished, their soul moving on to whatever came next, and Remi moved in. I wasn’t familiar with whatever dark magic ritual and runes had made it possible—no witch alive was—but long story short, magic had preserved the body as a vessel for her use and hers alone. Now she could pass as human while having access to all of her demonic powers. She could change her form and heal virtually any wound, though I knew she was not totally invulnerable. She never suffered from human ailments. She could not, however, alter the body’s natural age. When she was in the demon dimension known as the Pit, she didn’t age at all, but when she was in the human world, she did. Sustained by magic but limited by mortality: The passage of time and the inevitability of death were beyond even an Archdemon’s ability to change.

Judging by her appearance, she was still of an age with me. Surprising, given I knew that her body had lasted her more than a century before we met.

Still, even next to a demon in illicitly gotten flesh, I felt underwhelming by comparison in my unspectacular outfit of jeans, a black blouse, and comfortably worn boots. My brown hair was pulled into a messy bun, and my makeup was currently nonexistent. I’d probably gained some color back since the alley, but I wasn’t exactly runway-ready. Working as a library assistant might require being clean and put-together, but it did not require dressing to stand out. Very few things I’d done in the last decade had, and that was the way I liked it.

“So. Why exactly is there too much magic in your blood, then?” Remi finally asked, losing the quiet game.

“Aren’t you supposed to be good at small talk?”

“I also remember how much you hate it, but if you insist. Hey! Our ten-year reunion is soon. Did you RSVP in the affirmative?” she asked with an overabundance of cheer.

“Shockingly, I didn’t get an invitation.”

“That’ll happen when you go off the grid and assume a new identity. You must admit, I did a very good job of covering your tracks,” Remi said. “I mean, when even Reunion Committee chairwoman Brooke Luppino can’t find you…”

I rolled the stem of my glass between my fingers. “So… she did take Lucca’s last name.”

Remi nodded. “A debate she was no longer interested in having by the time she and the furball got married. Six years ago, by the way, right out of college.”

“Did you go to the wedding?” I asked.

“I did. Not that they knew, of course. I lurked in the back of the church and wore a different face,” Remi replied.

I cracked a smile. “And you didn’t burst into flames just walking in?”

“I know, right? I lost some serious street cred for that.” Remi chuckled. Her eyes glinted as she looked at me—gazed, really. I looked away again, clearing my throat and trading my wineglass for another forkful of pasta.

“What other news is there? …Leo?” I asked.

“She’s been busy. Living in the Commons again now, though.”

“She was somewhere else? Where?” I asked, questions tumbling out of me. “Do you ever talk to her?”

“Patience, darling, one at a time. She lived in Boston for a few years after college, moved back a few years ago. We stayed in touch for a while after you first left, less so lately.”

“What about…” I had to physically bite my lip to keep from asking about my brother Cameron and my mom. “What about everyone else?”

“All busy with their own lives. You know—college, jobs, engagements, weddings, affairs, babies, et cetera.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Affairs?”

“Not nearly enough of those,” Remi pouted. “Your friends are exceedingly human and boring sometimes.”

“Don’t you mean our friends?”

This time Remi raised a knowing eyebrow at me. “Let’s not pretend they didn’t tolerate me purely for your sake, McKenna.”

“Leo liked you! …Eventually,” I was forced to add. “Whatever. At this point, you’ve seen them more recently than I have anyway. I can’t call myself a friend to people I haven’t seen or spoken to in ten years.”

“They would beg to differ. If they knew you were alive, that is.” Remi sipped from her glass as I stayed silent. “It’s been a lonely decade. I’m rather looking forward to the reunion,” she continued.

“I’m sorry. It’s easy to forget that you…”

“Used to be a normal high school student?” Remi forced a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

I wore one that matched. “We both know you were never that.”

“Indeed.” She swirled another bite of pasta onto her fork. “And what are you doing for work these days, darling?”

“Don’t call me that,” I replied. “I’ve had all sorts of jobs since leaving, but lately, I’ve been working as a library assistant. Guess that’s over now.”

“You ever get your degree?” I shook my head. “Even after ten years? That’s got to be killing you.”

“I don’t love it, but it’s been kinda hard when I’ve had to keep moving.”

“Keep moving?”

“Don’t act surprised,” I said. “You didn’t drop me off here, and you already admitted to having McKenna GPS installed.”

“True, but it’s not like I was checking it every day,” Remi said. “And I know you wanted to come here. Junior year abroad, wasn’t that the plan?”

“Took me a while to save up for the cost of living here. But hellhounds mean it’s time to go,” I said with a sigh, looking out the window. It’s not as though I had an Eiffel Tower view or something, but she wasn’t wrong. I’d been here nearly a year, the longest I’d been anywhere, and I wasn’t thrilled to be ousted yet again.

“Right, or else they come along and ruin the neighborhood, something like that?” Remi said, seizing upon the opening with a wide grin. “Please, do tell me more.”

I sighed again, put down my fork, and held up my wrists to show her what looked like simple charm-bracelet tattoos around each. “After you got me out of Arcadia Commons, it didn’t take too long to figure out that using my magic was like pointing a neon sign at my location. The Archdemon of Madness sends hellhounds every time I unleash it. So I got these wards tattooed on me. They protect my mind, prevent anyone from scrying on me, make passing unnoticed easier overall.” I indicated a few of the charms as I mentioned their purpose. I’d hidden the runes within designs that looked perfectly mundane—a modern dancer with her body dramatically posed, a cat raising a playful paw, an angled chessboard, a maple leaf. I turned my hands to display the ones inside my wrists, the largest and most obviously witchy “charms”: a matching pair of seven-pointed stars. “And these ones keep my magic locked up. I can unlock it if I have to, but then the hellhounds come running, so I don’t. However, since my power lives in my blood, after a while it’s too much, and I get sick. Blood poisoning, basically. That’s what was going on when you showed up tonight.”

Remi frowned. “And the elixir takes care of it? That would explain the fast recovery.”

“The elixir helps. For a while. But it’s… it’s not working like it used to.” My gaze drifted to the lit candles, wax pooling beneath the flickering flames and running down the sides. “I’ve been building up a tolerance to it. It’s not dangerous at normal doses, but… with how much I need to take and how often…”

“… now that’s what’s poisoning you, isn’t it?” she finished for me.

“Not yet, but it will be soon.”

Remi was silent, taking this in. “What are your options?”

I smiled without humor. “I don’t have any. No good ones, anyway. Unlocking the wards and letting off a blast of magic will help for a while, but that also means it’s time to run again. Doesn’t solve the real problem.”

“Clearly. Sounds like you’re in need of a more permanent solution.”

“Like what? I can’t get rid of the tattoos,” I said.

“Then get rid of your magic.” Remi peered at her glass, spinning it between her fingers.

I blinked in surprise. “What?”

She looked at me sidelong. “It’s not like you’re using it.”

“It… it’s not that easy.”

“Why not?”

“For starters, it takes seven witches to sever one from their magic,” I pointed out.

Remi shrugged. “Seven witches or one Archdemon.” I glared at her so sharply, she put down the glass and held up her hands. “I’m just saying! It wouldn’t be a sell-your-soul-level Bargain, and you know I’d never try to trick you into one, either.”

“Not gonna happen. Not with you, not with any Archdemon. Not again.” Remiel’s predecessor, Forneus, had made that kind of Bargain with me once. When I was a young and stupid sixteen-year-old who thought she knew everything.

Still… yet again, Remi wasn’t wrong. It would solve my problems. No magic, no outbursts, no septic shock, and no more demons dogging my every step. I could have a life, friends, a permanent address. Everything I’d left behind.

Maybe I could even go home.

No. That was the one thing I could not do, with or without magic.

Besides, it also meant no more magic. Permanently. I hadn’t used my magic in almost ten years, not really, but I knew it was there. I could still feel it in my blood, wards or no. I couldn’t imagine not feeling it, the same way I couldn’t imagine losing one of my other senses. Living without magic was survivable, sure. Most of the world got along fine not even knowing it existed. But for me, for any witch, it was the sixth sense, as much a part of me as my eyes or ears. And I admit, I liked knowing that if I ever truly needed it, if things got desperate, I had it. Magic was my security blanket. It just happened to be one that might choke me to death.

“Or,” Remi went on, “you could unlock those pretty little chains of yours and let your freak flag fly.”

That brought me out of my reverie. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Do I?”

I scowled. “Better than anyone else alive.”

“Mm.” Remi finished her glass and picked up the bottle to refill it, standing as she did and looking around the small apartment. “Well, that’s a shame. It’s a decent place. And you’ve got a lot to pack in a short time,” she said a little too casually. “I’ll be happy to help you finish off the wine so you don’t have to pack that, too.”

“How considerate.” I put my glass down and stood up as well. “Remiel. You didn’t come here to catch up and drink wine. And I get the feeling none of this is actually a surprise to you. You could’ve swooped in to play savior against the hounds dozens of times since I left. Tell me why you’re really here.”

Remi grimaced in a way that still somehow looked like a smirk. She set her glass down on the table. “I guess the foreplay’s over then. I’m here for two reasons. The first is that I truly did sense you were in danger, and I couldn’t not help.” She stepped closer, pretense falling away from her face, and took one of my hands in hers. Her hand was smooth and comfortingly warm, and I found my fingers interlacing with hers on instinct. “I could feel you dying, McKenna. I felt how close you were to it, and—and I had to come.” She smelled like burning candles and dark wine. Her eyes held mine with a magnetism that had nothing to do with demonic powers, and I was keenly aware of the color of her lipstick and the suddenly vivid memory of how her lips felt on mine.

No, now wasn’t the time to get swept up just because my ex showed up when I was on death’s door. But it had been so long since anyone looked at me like that… if this wasn’t the time to get swept up, when was?

I delayed the notion with a question. “What’s the second reason?”

Remi sighed softly, a sound of resignation. “To take you back to Arcadia Commons.”

I jerked back from Remi. “Very funny. Try again.”

“I’m not joking, McKenna. That’s why I’m here.”

“Why would you even—I can’t—I’m not going anywhere near that town again and you know it!”

“No need for dramatics. It’s been ten years. I know you miss your friends and your family—whom I noticed you didn’t ask about, by the way. One little visit, a week, seven short days. Why not?”

“You know why not!” I snapped. “Sorry you wasted your time, Remiel, but the answer is no.”

She sighed again. “I knew you’d say that.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not my fault you decided to waste your time.” A beat passed and realization hit, my eyes snapping back to her. “No. No, you wouldn’t.”

“As you’ve no doubt realized, my asking is purely a formality, McKenna. You still owe me for your escape plan ten years ago. And that debt has come due.”

“I am not going.” My hands clenched. “And you can’t make me. You won’t.”

“Won’t I?”

“You promised, Remi,” I rasped. I knew I sounded desperate, and I hated it. “When you got this power—when I helped you get it, intentionally or not—you promised you would never use it against me.”

Remi didn’t blink as she met my glare, her face no longer open but occluded. “You knew one day I would come to collect. And you had to know that odds were you wouldn’t like it when I did.”

My jaw tightened as my heart began to race and my stomach to twist. I started to speak, but she held up a finger.

“You’re about to threaten to banish me, but as we’ve discussed, you can’t. You’re trying to run the logistics, weigh the consequences. But it’s been a long time since you played the role of the demon’s witch.” She leaned in close, her voice an edged whisper that I could hear perfectly, as if she were speaking aloud my own thoughts. “I doubt you’d get off the spell against someone like me before I whisked us both out of here. It doesn’t come to you quite like that anymore, does it?” She snapped her fingers. “You can’t act that fast, not with those chains you’ve put around yourself. Even if you could, you couldn’t control it like you used to. You might remember all the words, all the runes, but your reactions are dulled from disuse. Tsk-tsk.” I could swear I saw flames flickering in her eyes as they broke away from mine to wander over my face, my body, a gaze that was intimate and alien at once. They landed on my wrists, and she clasped her fingers around one and lifted it. Her warm fingers slid along the inside of my wrist and the delicate lines of the tattoos.

“An impressive artistic endeavor, but I can’t say I approve of their purpose, darling,” Remi said as she admired them, her fingertip lazily circling one of the charms.

I yanked my hand out of her grasp.

“Don’t. Call. Me. That.”

Spinning on my heel, wanting Remiel’s eyes off me, I stalked to the table, picked up my glass, and drained it as anger filled me. Anger at Remiel, at her request, her assessment. But most of it, older and more familiar, was for myself.

“Why would you make me go back there?” I asked, my back to her. “It completely negates the deal I made. It puts everyone in danger. It puts me in danger.”

“Not precisely. You bargained for a new identity, untraceable, somewhere far away from Arcadia. I gave you all of those things. Your cover is still secure, none are the wiser, and none of them need to be. What sort of profile you keep once you’re there is up to you. Hole up in Motel Six for a week if you like, enjoy the basic cable and the snack machine. All I require of you is that you return to your hometown for one week, starting in one hour.”

“One hour!” I sputtered, spinning to face her again. “Even if I left right this second, I wouldn’t be there by then!” Muc