Page 112 of The Devil and His Sparrow

And I wasn’t going to lose him.

Getting to my feet, I stormed out of the ballroom. “Coldin! Coldin, are you here? Please, Coldin. If you’re here, come out.”

“He’s not.”

I gasped. I’d just started up the stairs, but I turned now at the sound of Dante’s voice.

Dante stood in front of me with his muscular arms crossed and a scowl firmly in place. The red ball cap he wore nearly hid the expression, but there was no missing that amount of disdain. “I already took him back to my place since Zagan decided to be a fucking idiot and turn into a servant to that woman. All for you.” He spat the last word like he’d never said something so foul.

I ignored the hate he so clearly directed my way. He wasn’t the demon I necessarily wanted help from, but he’d have to do. “We need to bring Zagan back.”

He scoffed. “No. The dumbass knew what bargaining with Babette would mean. He made his bed. Now he has to lie in it.”

“Please!” I begged, grabbing onto his arm. I squeezed it tightly and refused to back down, even when he bared his teeth at me. “Please, Dante. I-I have to save him. Help me.”

His dark gaze searched mine, and for awhile, we had this intense staredown where neither of us budged. I refused to be moved or swayed. I refused to give up on Zagan.

Finally, Dante’s eyes narrowed. “You want him back so badly? Fine. You go get him.”

Hope soared to life inside me like a kite catching wind. “Okay! Yes. I’ll go. Just tell me how I get to him and how I break his contract with Babette.”

He shook my hand off, and since I wanted to stay on his good side right now, I let go. He straightened his black hoodie and shifted nonchalantly on his feet. “Babette loves to play games, so it’s simple. Challenge her to a game, one you know you can win. Winner gets Zagan.”

He was right. That did sound simple—too simple. But it didn’t matter that alarm bells were ringing in my head. Risks be damned. I couldn’t let Zagan do this. I couldn’t let him become her little toy or servant or whatever the hell she had in mind for him. I couldn’t lose him.

“How do I get to her?” I asked.

“Easy. You summon her.”

I DUSTED THE CHALK FROM my hands and stood back up to survey the summoning circle I’d just drawn in the center of Zagan’s foyer. The large circle surrounded a smaller one, which contained a pentagram. Between the two circles were “words,” though it couldn’t look further from words to me. Each point on the star also had an ancient symbol, one I could never hope to understand.

I looked at Dante where he leaned against the wall to oversee the drawing of my summoning circle. “Is this good?”

He pushed off the wall and walked around the circle. His eyes studied the white drawing on the floor, and he gave an approving nod as he stopped next to me. “Good enough.”

“What do I do now?”

“Now,” he grabbed my hand and held it in front of my eyes, “you cut your palm and let the blood drop in the center of the pentagram. You’ll say, ‘I summon thee. Bargainer. Babette.’”

I raised a brow. “No fancy words or demonic language?”

He gave a humorless chuckle. “If we made that a rule, idiot humans couldn’t summon us, now could they? The summoning circle is hard enough as is. How else are we going to find prey to trick and steal souls from?”

I inched backward just a hair. At the mention of stealing souls, images of the humans strung up around Hell’s Gate or the ones battered and contorted to make furniture flashed in my mind’s eye. Could that be my fate if I failed?

I quickly shoved the thought and gruesome visuals away. If I dwelled on that, I worried it would make me lose focus on what mattered—getting Zagan back. I squared my shoulders and grabbed a knife from the kitchen. My heart pounded when I returned to my place by the circle, and I held my hand out over the pentagram and gripped the knife handle harder.

“Remember,” Dante said just as I brought the tip of the blade to my palm. I paused and looked at him as he finished, “Summon her, challenge her to a game, and win. If you don’t, Zagan’s sacrifice will have been for fucking nothing.”

I nodded and swallowed hard. “I will.”

With that, the demon vanished into the shadows around us, leaving me alone with a blade pressed into my quivering outstretched hand. I took a deep breath and pictured what mattered.

Zagan’s eyes pinched in a hearty laugh that he shared with Gemma.

Zagan with his brow furrowed and body hunched forward as he focused on writing a song.

Zagan as he looked up through his dark lashes to meet my gaze and shoot me a charming, tender smile.

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