“Charlie?” I whispered, pushing myself to my hands and knees.

“Gods be praised, Pamela! Rylee’s sent yous to us, to save us!” He grabbed my face and kissed me on both cheeks.

“Save you, from Milly?”

“She’s turned us into servants. We’s has to wait on her hand and foot or she blasts us.”

I frowned at him. “That doesn’t sound like Milly.”

“What doesn’t sound like me?” She was there, stepping out a doorway to speak to me.

“Um. Charlie here.”

“Oh, the brownies. They’re upset because I took them out of their home. If I’d left them on the other side of the veil when it closed they would have been left to the demons roaming the levels there. But they don’t see it that way, do you?” She smiled sweetly and I knew she was being kind.

Charlie snorted. “Yes, mistress.”

To me, he gave a short nod. “Pamela. Not everything’s as it bees seeming.”

“I agree.” I lifted an eyebrow at him, dark thoughts roaming my mind like tendrils of smoke. “Some people don’t know how good they have it. They always want more than is due to them.”

His mouth dropped open and I strode toward Milly who had turned her smile on me. “Well said.”

“It’s the truth.” But a part of me quivered with sadness. Charlie had always been kind to me. I should have tried harder to be nice. No, he was lucky to have Milly save him. Like Frank, it was obvious that Charlie needed time to see how lucky he was.

She closed the door behind me as I stepped through. “Here is where I will train you. You will be the greatest, most powerful witch this world has ever seen.”

The pentagram etched into the floor made me take a step back, my body against the door, all my confidence fleeing. “A pentagram? Why?”

“The demons are coming, Pamela. Rylee will not be able to stop them. Which means those left behind have to be able to use their power against them. To know thy enemy is to be prepared to face them.”

I swallowed hard, bile rising fast in my throat. “You want me to call on a demon?”

“Yes.”

The world swam and I sank to my knees. “I don’t feel so well.” All I could see was the demons I’d faced on the other side of the veil. When Milly had protected me, and Rylee had risked her life to pull me from Orion’s clutches. I put a hand to my head. How could I have forgotten that? The hordes of demons washing toward us, the flashes of light. The five of us, Rylee, Erik, Alex, Milly, and myself holding them back.

“Ah, Frank. Excellent timing. Take Pamela, third room on the right will be fine. We’ll begin as soon as you’ve rested.” Milly put a hand to my forehead and the memories faded. I let out a sigh and closed my eyes as Frank scooped me up.

The bob and weave of him walking, the sound of another door being shut and then I was laid onto a soft mattress.

“Pamela, we have to get out of here. This isn’t Milly, I’m sure it’s Orion using her. Hard. Worse than ever before. I didn’t know her well, but this isn’t her. Pamela!” His words were a wash over my ears and I kept my eyes closed.

I wasn’t wrong. Milly would help me. She would teach me like Rylee never could.

“You’ll see, Frank,” I murmured. “She’s going to show you.”

Frank shivered beside me, the motion going through the bed. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

CHAPTER 13

Rylee

Two days left before Orion made a break from his prison inside the veil. We were flying down the eastern coast of Canada, sometime after midnight and I was acutely aware we were running out of time.

“I have never been so happy to see the night sky,” Berget said, her chin against my back.

I laughed, though my heart wasn’t truly in it. “Yeah, the whole curtain thing worked, but I sure as shit wouldn’t have been able to handle it.”

She tightened her arms around me a little more, then started on the newest game we played to pass the time. “Do you remember when Dad tried to make spaghetti sauce and Mom was out at one of her lady parties? He was trying to make sure it was really good and put all sorts of things into it?”

I slapped my thigh with one hand. “Fuck, do you remember the raisins?”

She burst out laughing. “They soaked up all the moisture in the sauce and turned back into grapes.”

“That was the worst spaghetti sauce I’ve ever eaten.” I gave a mock shudder, laughing with her.

My turn. “Do you remember—”

Marco swung in close. “I hate to interrupt you two. But is it possible that the blood exchange you and Faris had could be wearing off?”

I looked across at Faris, he nodded. “It’s possible, especially if you’re still Tracking. Your blood would be working overtime to clear mine out of you.”

I was still Tracking, damn it all. I let go of the threads that tied me to the Great Wolf. He was close, maybe a hundred miles away by the feel of him. “Not anymore.”

Marco let out a sharp cry. “We are being tailed.”

Since the incident with Pamela and the dragon, we’d been exceptionally vigilant while in the air. Berget and I twisted around to look behind us, and Alex who rode with Marco and Faris leapt up and growled at the empty space in the clouds. The growl trickled to nothing.

“I don’t see anything.” He put one hand above his eyes, as if to shade a bright light. What a goof. But he did have a point. I didn’t see anything either.