“Choose.” Avari clucked his tongue at Addison. “Your friends cannot hold your soul forever. Not with this one near death.” The demon’s gaze met mine, and suddenly his cruel truth sank in. I was dying. The poison had spread to my right hand, and now flowed over my left side on its way to my heart. I couldn’t hold Addy’s soul for long.

My gaze pleaded with her as I struggled to keep the sound steady in my throat.

Addison’s eyes watered and she glanced from me to Regan, who stood frozen in terror, clenching her sister’s hand so hard it had turned purple. Then her gaze swung my way, and she focused on something over my shoulder. And I thought I saw some glimmer of hope in her grotesquely blank eyes.

Was that possible? Had she thought of something?

Addy turned to Tod and mouthed something I couldn’t interpret.

I was next, and what she said silently to me was “One more minute. Please.” I closed my eyes briefly, then opened them and nodded. I would hold on, for just a little longer.

Addison smiled her thanks, then she nodded decisively, again looking over my shoulder.

An instant later, Addy collapsed. Her legs simply folded under her and her head smacked the frosted marble floor. Not that it mattered. She was dead before she hit the ground.

“No!” Regan shouted, tears pouring down her cheeks. She lurched toward her sister, but Tod held her back, wrapping his arms around her shoulders to keep her still.

Surprise dried up the trickle of sound flowing from my throat, and Addy’s soul bobbed, until I keened again a second later. Then things got even weirder.

A figure stepped forward from behind me and to my right, her mouth open, already sucking in a long, thick stream of Demon’s Breath from Addy’s still form.

Libby. My heart ached as I realized Addison had seen her over my shoulder. She’d nodded to Libby, not to me.

Then Tod spoke, Regan now sobbing on his shoulder, and I began to put the pieces together. “The deal has changed, Avari. If you want Bana’s soul, you take Addison’s with it and return her sister’s. Or else, we’ll leave with both of the souls in our possession, and you’ll keep only the one you have now.”

Damn. Shock wound through me, blending with the pain now arcing across every nerve ending in my body. Somehow, Addison had known who Libby was and why she’d come. Had Tod told her, or did understanding simply come in the last moments of her life?

Either way, with a single nod of her head, Addison had asked Libby to end her life, to force the hellion into trading her soul for Regan’s. Because Addison’s was ready to reap now, and Regan’s wouldn’t truly be his until she died, likely decades later.

Avari’s face paled with rage, and the void in his eyes seemed to churn, though I could detect no motion when I looked directly intothose dark spheres.

“Five seconds, or you’re out of luck,” Tod said as Nash continued to sweat, and my voice warbled. “We’re in a bit of a rush.” He gestured to me, and I realized he planned to get me home before I died. He was trying to save me, since he couldn’t save Addison.

All I could do was sing. And watch Libby claim the Demon’s Breath. And wait.

“Five…Four…” Tod taunted as Regan heaved with silent sobs and Avari bellowed in rage. The floor grew slick with ice beneath my feet, and my breath puffed visibly into the frigid air.

Then, just when I thought it was over—thought Addison’s death had been for nothing—the hellion spat one short, powerful exhalation into the room, and Regan’s soul bobbed near the ceiling.

At Nash’s signal, I let go of Addison’s soul and sang for her sister’s. Libby swallowed the last of the Demon’s Breath and popped out of existence without so much as a glance at the rest of us. Avari slurped up Addy’s soul in a fraction of the time it took Nash to guide Regan’s home. And only then did Tod release Bana’s soul into the room.

While Avari devoured it, Nash rushed toward me across the slick floor, tugging a shocked Regan by one hand. I had a moment to notice that her eyes were again beautiful, and blue, and normal. Then they converged on me, sliding so quickly they almost bowled me over.

“Now!” Nash whispered desperately, tugging me into an agonizing squat so that I touched both him, Regan, and Addison’s limp arm. “Take us back now!”

That time, intent to cross was no problem, and I was already keening. Avari’s roar of fury faded swiftly from my ears. An instant later I collapsed to the floor of a generic office full of cubicles and cheap industrial carpet. Addy lay at my side, and Nash and Regan stared down at me, a mixture of grief and relief coursing over their features.

A moment later, Tod popped into existence next to his brother.

“Are you okay?” Nash knelt at my side, but by then I could only shake my head. I’d lost my voice completely, and was in so much pain it hurt to draw a breath. “Call Mom,” Nash ordered, sliding one hand behind my back, the other beneath my knees. He carried me out of the office and into the hall while Regan followed, crying and scrolling through the entries in Nash’s phone for a name she wouldn’t even recognize, because Tod carried her sister’s body.

Each second we waited for the elevator was pure agony. I hurt all over, and worse wherever he touched me. But I was grateful for that touch.

“You’ll be fine,” Nash whispered. “Your expiration date is in full effect here, so you won’t die. But you’re going to hurt like hell until we get this fixed.”