“Go on without me,” Jack said. “I’m going back to the cell to take a nap.”

“Get up, you idiot,” I said. “If you stay here, you’re going to be executed by Lucifer in front of his whole court.”

“Says you,” Jack said. “Maybe he’ll keep me as a performing monkey.”

“I can’t believe you would consider that a viable alternative,” I said. “Now, get your ass up and moving before I have this baby right here on the stairs.”

After much grumbling he rose to his feet and started moving again, albeit much slower than before. On the upside, he was much less likely to alert the guards of our presence when he was in his current (and much mellower) state.

I continued flying behind him. It took a lot less energy for me to fly than to try to climb. My whole stomach now felt like a sponge that was being wrung, and my breath came in pants. Sweat trickled around my face, and I imagined that I now closely resembled those movie moms in labor.

Jack glanced back at me. “You don’t look so good. How are you holding up?”

“I just need to get to Nathaniel,” I said.

“That tall black-haired guy who always stands near you and glowers?” he asked.

“Yes, him,” I said.

“Is he the baby’s dad?” Jack asked.

“No,” I said.

I didn’t want to explain that I had been married only a few short months before, and that my husband had been killed by my father. It seemed like the sort of thing that might end up on Jack’s blog—if he ever lived to blog again, that was.

We rounded a curve of the staircase and suddenly there was a small landing and a door directly in front of us. It looked like a plain, ordinary metal safety door, like the kind that are in emergency exits in tall buildings. But there was something different about it. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I put my hand on Jack’s shoulder.

“Wait a second,” I said.

I landed on the stair behind him and then nudged my way past. I reached out with my power, looking for a trace of a magical signature.

And boy, did I find one.

“That’s no ordinary door,” I said. “It’s booby-trapped with magic.”

The doors downstairs had been so easy to open because of this. I knew that Lucifer wouldn’t have allowed anyone he considered a threat to be locked up with so little security.

I just hadn’t thought there would be quite this much security elsewhere. Right away I could tell that the spell on the door would trigger at the slightest touch. There had to be a way to disable the trap from the other side so that the prison guards could come and go.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to wait for Lucifer to decide to give us bread and water. We needed to get out of this stairway immediately. My contractions were getting closer together and more painful. However, I wasn’t certain I could break down the spell without making everything go kablooey. It was a complex work of magic, and a highly dangerous one.

“I need Nathaniel,” I said again. “Life would be a lot easier if I wasn’t wearing pajama pants.”

Jack stared at me, his eyes blank and tired. He was coming down hard from the effects of the magic. “What do pajama pants have to do with anything?”

“If I wasn’t wearing pajama pants, I would have my cell phone,” I said. “And if I had my cell phone, I could just call Nathaniel and have him come and get us out of here instead of trying to rely on a very tenuous emotional link through magic.”

“I still don’t understand what that has to do with your pajamas,” Jack said.

“Never mind,” I said. I concentrated hard on Nathaniel, on the connection between us. Now that I was out of the depths of the mansion, I was hoping it would be easier to sense him, and for him to find me.

Nathaniel, I thought. I didn’t know if it would work or help, but I tried to send a mental picture of where I was and what I needed. It felt slightly silly. Even with all of the things I had seen and done that involved magic, telepathy seemed like it was still an “out-there” concept.

After a few minutes I had to stop. It was hard to concentrate on sending Nathaniel an S.O.S. when it felt like my stomach was being ripped in two.

And as soon as I stopped, I heard him.

I’m coming.

“Wow, I can’t believe that actually worked,” I said.

“Can’t believe what actually worked?” Jack asked.

He had sat down on the stairs with his back against the wall while I did my human-telephone act with Nathaniel. His face was white and covered with sweat, and he was shivering. I probably did not look much better. It was a struggle to stay upright, and a couple of times I saw black dots in front of my eyes, like I was on the verge of fainting.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “The cavalry is on its way. Unless I’m hallucinating Nathaniel’s voice in my head. Which is entirely possible.”

“You know, I’m starting to wonder how you have such a powerful reputation,” Jack said, his eyes closed. “You seem like kind of a flake.”

“You’d seem like kind of a flake if you were trapped in a stairwell with an unhelpful blogger while you were in labor,” I said.

I wondered whether I had really managed to reach Nathaniel, and whether he would understand where I was and how to get rid of the booby trap on the door. I wasn’t really sure what our options were otherwise. There was not nearly enough time for me to try to take apart the spell from this side. If I tried blasting through the wall that surrounded the stairwell, I would most definitely alert Lucifer and his goons. I was still hoping that we could find some way to sneak out of the house.