Page 82 of The Spell Caster

“What did you do, Calamus? Bring him back!” I cried, my breath coming too fast.

He placed his hands on my shoulders and shook me. “Layla, calm down. We have to think. I didn’t do anything. The spell is working.”

I wrenched myself away from him. “You have to bring him back.”

Calamus paced, examining the circle and the floor.

Oh fate, what if Costi is gone? What if he’s dead?

He paused. “Invoke,” he said.

“What? We have to—”

“The spell is working, Layla,” he repeated, turning toward me. “Invoke your familiar.”

“How is that going to—”

“Layla, invoke!”

With nothing else to hold on to, I did as he suggested. It took me a few times to concentrate, but I finally made it through the mental sequence I had tried a hundred times without effect—

And I felt it catch. The enormity of it scoured my soul before my conscious mind could process it.

“What the fuck was that?” Costi’s voice was venomous.

I cried out and rushed toward him, but Calamus clamped a hand around my wrist with a bruising grip that forced me to jerk to a halt.

“Let go!”

“Layla, don’t,” he said urgently.

Costi stepped toward me, and it was then I realized he was inside the circle. A barrier flashed as it shocked him with energy, and he swore viciously, jumping backward. He was trapped in the spell.

I looked at him and jolted as if I had been shocked.

“You better take your hand off her,” Costi said in a low voice that promised immediate violence. He whirled and delivered a volley of lethal kicks to the barrier. Light crashed over it and cracked in sparkling waves, showing the cylindrical shape of the spell, but it held. The magic resettled, leaving him inside, clenching his fists and breathing heavily. “Drop the spell, Grey. Now.”

I felt Calamus shaking. He’d been holding on to me to keep me in place, but now I thought he was holding on for dear life. He drew in a shuddering breath. “Are you a demon?”

“Do I look like a fucking demon?” Costi snarled.

Calamus and I were silent. Because… he did look like a fucking demon. More precisely, he kind of looked like the demon we had contacted in Hell.

I stared at my best friend and almost-lover. His eyes were too silver, his ears tipped with wicked points that framed a sharp face.

Costi, but not.

Oh fate, he was not human.

Costi stared at us in confusion, then glanced down at his hands, as if checking that he was himself. As if that jarred something back into place, his face returned to normal.

Unsettled, I took a step back, colliding with Calamus.

Costi’s human-gray eyes tracked the movement. “What exactly is going on here?”

“I’m calling my father. The Arcaenum. Daire,” Calamus announced. He pulled his phone out of a pocket in his robes and nearly fumbled it. He backed to the door, obviously unnerved.

“Grey,” Costi hissed. “Drop the spell. I’m not gonna do anything to you, just chill.”

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