Ryder nodded.
“With anyone?” Gerard asked.
Ryder swallowed hard. “Yeah, with a circle-mate.”
“Bloodletting only?” Ellen’s voice hardened.
He glanced at Jordan and she tilted her head, egging him on with a lift of her brows. Ryder whispered, “No.”
“You syphoned someone?” Gerard scooted to the edge of the couch and set his elbows on his knees, pulling Ryder’s attention. “I thought I felt Water magic, but I couldn’t be sure. How badly?”
“It’s fine, Liam’s fine, it was quick and I ended it before it could get worse.” Ryder felt Jordan scoot closer to him. Moon slithered onto his shoulder. “What will happen to my elemental magic after I die?”
Gerard and Ellen went quiet. Jordan’s hand rested on his knee.
“Right. No one knows,” Ryder mumbled. “That’s great.”
“You’re a powerful Fire witch,” Jordan said matter-of-factly. “I doubt it’ll go anywhere.”
“And what about Percy?” Ryder stroked Percy’s back and she arched into his hand with a contented purr.
“Moon will handle that,” Gerard said. “He’ll be the first life you bring back. You know that. Your sister had to do the same with River.”
Moon flicked her tongue at Percy and he meowed at her. The thought of Moon wrapped around him, squeezing the life out of him, made Ryder’s throat clench and his chest tighten.
“When can we do this?” Ryder asked.
“As soon as tomorrow,” Gerard said. “This is usually where I’d tell you to wait, take your time.” He paused and exhaled a deep breath. “Think it through. But with how quickly things are happening, I think it’s best if we do this now.”
“Now as in tomorrow,” Ryder whispered.
“Now as in before you kill someone.”
The room went quiet again. Ellen held her breath. Ryder felt her eyes on him, tender and patient. Her Fire burned as hot as his, but when it warmed his skin he closed his eyes. Her magic had always been a lullaby.
He knew what he was capable of, but that didn’t make anything easier. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he ignored it. It buzzed again, and he whispered a curse before digging it out.
Liam: Tyler just needs time.
Ryder: I don’t have any time. It’s happening tomorrow.
“Can you give me a ride to Archy’s?” Ryder glanced at Jordan. “I took an Uber here.”
“I would’ve picked you up,” Jordan said. “But yeah, of course.”
“We’ll take care of you, Ryder.” Gerard reached over to curl his thumb under Ryder’s chin. “Jordan’s a great teacher. You’ve got me and the rest of the clan behind you too.”
Ryder nodded. He wanted to believe it—that everything would be all right, that his magic wouldn’t rip him apart, that after the ceremony he’d be as confident in his abilities as Jordan was. But his nervousness made it impossible to be anything other than terrified.
He kissed Ellen on the cheek and hugged Gerard. Jordan did the same.
As they were walking out the door, Ryder heard his mother’s voice, shaken and small. “Gerard, what if something goes wrong…? What if you can’t bring him back?”
“We’ll bring him back,” Gerard assured her, a whisper he thought Ryder and Jordan couldn’t hear. “I’ll make a deal if I have to.”
“We don’t make deals,” Ellen snapped.
Gerard hushed her.
Jordan tugged on Ryder’s arm, pulling him out the door and into the driveway.
We don’t make deals.
He replayed those words again and again as he slid into Jordan’s old truck.
“Put your seatbelt on,” Jordan said.
He put his seatbelt on.
Ellen’s voice kept echoing in his mind. We don’t make deals. We don’t make deals. We don’t make—
“It’s not common,” Jordan said, as if she’d read his thoughts. “But the rumors are true.”
“You…” Ryder’s heart raced fast in his chest. His head spun. Everything tilted. Nothing made sense. “Demonology? You make deals with demons?”
“I prefer to call them deities,” Jordan said and stepped on the gas.
CHRISTY, DONOVAN, AND Liam sat in one of the red-upholstered booths that lined the window at Archy’s Pizza.
Ryder watched them talk through the rain-streaked glass. Christy spoke with her hands, smashing her index finger against the table again and again. Donovan kept shaking his head. Liam chimed in once in a while, the force of his words bitten and harsh.
Jordan stood beside Ryder, leaning against the truck bed. “I’ll make sure it goes okay,” she said.
“By making a deal with a demon?”
“By asking for a favor. What do you think these are, Ry? Scribbles?” She held out her arm, covered in scarred sigils. “Some of them are spells, some are runes, but these…” She pointed to an intricate design on her wrist. “These are demonic. That doesn’t make them more or less; it just makes them different. Like us.”
“If I don’t come back—”
“Don’t,” Jordan snapped. Her voice clashed with other voices.
Ryder exhaled sharply through his nose. “If something goes wrong—”
“I said don’t,” she seethed.
Downtown was crowded by umbrellas and scented with coffee, pumpkin spice, and vanilla. Uncomfortable silence swelled between them. A few people walked by on the sidewalk, chatting pleasantly about a movie they’d just seen, others hurried to their cars or dipped into cafés. Rain misted down on them, dampening his beanie. Ryder could barely think straight. When he wasn’t focused on the ceremony, his mind drifted back to Liam.
“What do I tell them?” Ryder glanced at Jordan, and she looked back at him, her jaw slackened and brows knitted.
“The truth,” Jordan said. She drew him into a tight embrace, arms around his shoulders, cheek against his temple. “Tell them you’ll still be you.”
If I come back.
He nodded. She pressed her lips against his forehead.
They didn’t say goodbye to each other. Ryder didn’t think Jordan would stand for it.
The truck roared to life. He glanced at her as she drove away. She tried to smile, but it was forced. He watched her go, saw the outline of her through the back window. Her hand slammed against the steering wheel. She wiped her eye with the side of her hand, grabbed her cellphone, and lifted it to her ear.
“Hey,” Liam said.
Ryder turned around. Christy and Donovan watched them through the window. Liam stood in front of him, hands shoved in his pockets.
“We got fries. The wedge ones you like.” Liam regarded him, hair pushed back like it always was, face sculpted into an expression that sat between concentration and assurance. His tongue ring clicked against his teeth. His hands squirmed in his pockets. He was still wearing Ryder’s shirt.
Now or never, maybe.
“I don’t know when it happened, but sometime in the last two years I fell in love with you.” Ryder exhaled a quivering breath. “It happened fast, like this.” He gestured to himself, to the darkness, hoping Liam understood. “One day, I was looking at you, wondering if you’d ever look back, and I realized how bad it was, how absolutely fucked I was.”
“Tell me this tomorrow.”
“I’m telling you now.”