✦Dolly✦
The words burned into the floor until the wood smoked around them.
Now I know the way closer.
No one moved. The lower demon’s ash lay in thin streaks across Grayson’s office. It should have looked dead. Instead, it felt like it was listening. My injured hand throbbed under the ruined bandage. The execution blade’s cut was no longer just a cut. It felt like a door that had been cracked open through me.
“I did that,” I whispered. My mother turned to me.
“No,”
“Yes,” I said. “It came from my hand,”
“It came through your hand,” Riven corrected. His voice was rough, but it cut through the panic. Blood ran down his clawed forearm, and dark hunter marks crawled beneath the wound.
“Sit down,” Elias ordered, but Riven gave him a tired look.
“I am not the one with a gate wound,
