“You were twelve years old,” she said softly.

“Old enough to know right from wrong.” Finally, he looked at her, his eyes bleak. “My father was a good man. All his life, he was good, except for the very end.” His expression said, So how can there be any hope for me?

“You’re good, Nathaniel,” she said quietly. She placed a hand on his cheek. “You are.”

Beneath her touch, a tremor ran through him. He looked at her as though he were drowning, as though she had been the one to push him, and he did not know what to do. “Elisabeth,” he said, her name wrung from him as a plea.

Her heart stopped. His eyes were as dark and turbulent as a river in midwinter, and very close. She felt as though she stood on a precipice, and that if she leaned forward, she would fall. She would fall, and drown with him; she would never resurface for air.

She tilted toward him, and felt him do the same. Her head spun. Nothing could have prepared her for this: that she would experience her first kiss in moonlight, surrounded by roses, with a boy who summoned storms and commanded angels to spread their wings. It was like a dream. She readied herself for the shock and the plunge, for the quenching of this agony inside her, which strained her soul to breaking.

Their lips brushed, divinely soft; the barest touch, more intoxicating than the perfume of the roses. “You don’t taste of champagne,” she breathed out dizzily, wonderingly. “I thought you would taste of champagne.”

This time, he did laugh. She felt it as a shiver of air across her cheek. “I didn’t drink any. I thought I had better not.”

“But—” She drew back, and looked at him. Had she imagined that moment in the parlor? The moment he had suddenly lost his balance, seemed disoriented, right after he’d looked outside and said . . .

The hair stood up on her arms.

“Is something the matter?” Nathaniel asked.

“I don’t know.” She glanced around. “If you didn’t want to talk about your family, why did you bring me here?”

“I . . .” His brow furrowed. “Oddly enough, I can’t precisely . . .”

He didn’t know. He couldn’t remember. Because he hadn’t made the decision to bring her here—someone else had. She yanked up her skirt and drew Demonslayer, whirling to face the rest of the pavilion.

In the shadows, someone began to clap.

“You caught on more quickly than I anticipated, Miss Scrivener,” Ashcroft said, stepping into the moonlight, poised in midclap.

Elisabeth could barely breathe. “You cast a spell on him,” she whispered. Demonslayer trembled in her grasp.

“Now, there’s no need to fight me,” Ashcroft said. “I’ve only brought you two here to make a simple transaction.”

He reached behind himself, and yanked. Iron chains rang out against the marble as a slim figure went sprawling at his feet. At first Elisabeth couldn’t make sense of what she saw: long white hair, fanned unbound across the stone. A beautiful face contorted with suffering, sulfurous eyes downcast.

“Give me the girl,” Ashcroft said to Nathaniel, “and I’ll give you back your demon.”

TWENTY-SIX

THE BLOOD DRAINED from Nathaniel’s face. For an instant he looked years younger, a frightened boy on the verge of losing everything once more. “Silas?” he asked.

The chains shifted. Silas looked up at Nathaniel, his eyes clouded with pain. The effort of even that small motion seemed to overwhelm him. He subsided against the marble, his eyes sinking shut.

Nathaniel stared. Inch by inch, his expression hardened, like the portcullis of a vault winching down. When he was finished, he had no expression left at all. He took a step toward Ashcroft. “What do you want with Elisabeth?” he demanded, each syllable as sharp as glass.

“Haven’t you figured it out? To reach Prendergast, naturally. I know Miss Scrivener can access him.” Ashcroft smiled blandly at the horror on their faces. “You aren’t the only ones with a scrying mirror, you know. You really should look into your household wards, Nathaniel. Some of those old spells haven’t been updated in centuries. And you might want to tidy up your study as well.”

Elisabeth’s stomach roiled. As clearly as day, she saw the devices on the desk of Nathaniel’s study, with their many lenses and mirrors. All those evenings she had thought herself safe by the fire—Ashcroft’s presence now darkened those memories like a stain. She struggled to wrap her mind around the violation.

“You were just pretending in there,” she realized aloud. “You wanted us to think that we had won.”

“Not the most agreeable experience, granted, but it hardly matters. In a few days, no one’s going to care about ballroom gossip.”

Blood sang in Elisabeth’s ears. Her grip on Demonslayer tightened. Without thinking, she moved.

“I wouldn’t,” Ashcroft warned, halting her in her tracks. He twisted the gryphon’s head on his walking stick, and a sword slid free, brilliant in the moonlight. He placed the edge against Silas’s white throat, where it sent up a curl of steam. Silas didn’t move or make a sound, but his eyelashes fluttered, as if he were struggling to remain conscious.

“This one wasn’t easy to subdue,” Ashcroft went on, “even with a trap in place. I have half a mind to kill him, simply to rid myself of the trouble.”

“Wait,” Nathaniel said, his voice raw. Ashcroft looked up, expectant. The sword shifted minutely from Silas’s neck. From a distance, Elisabeth heard Nathaniel finish, “I challenge you to a duel.”

“A sorcerer’s duel?” Ashcroft laughed. “Good gracious. You do know those were outlawed by the Reforms. Are you certain?”

Tightly, Nathaniel nodded.

“Oh, very well,” Ashcroft said. “This should be novel.”

“Nathaniel,” Elisabeth whispered.

He met her eyes. Deliberately, he flicked his gaze toward Silas. Then he pivoted on his heel. He strode all the way to the opposite end of the pavilion, where he turned to face them again, gazing at Ashcroft across the long expanse. His voice rang out as he rolled up his sleeves. “The rules of a duel are thus: we may not involve our demons. No weapons, aside from sorcery. Once we begin, we fight to the death. Do you accept?”

“On my honor,” Ashcroft said. His ruby eye twinkled. He slipped his sword through his belt and strolled forward, placing himself opposite Nathaniel.

Ashcroft wasn’t planning on playing fair. But neither was Nathaniel. The moment Elisabeth freed Silas, it would be three against one. She tensed, preparing herself. As Ashcroft and Nathaniel bowed to each other, the time between each heartbeat stretched to an eternity. Neither of them rose from the bow. She glanced between them, uncertain. Their eyes were shut in concentration; under their breath, they were both murmuring incantations.

Nathaniel was the first to finish. He straightened with a whip of emerald fire in his hand, its flames spitting green embers onto the marble. But when the whip lashed across the pavilion, Ashcroft sliced his hand through the air and harmlessly swatted it aside. A torn sleeve revealed that he had transformed his arm: the skin was armored in golden scales, his fingers tipped with claws. When he smiled, his canine teeth lengthened into fangs.