To my left was a human-size woman with round features and long, wavy hair. She wore a loose shift, the hem of which was tattered and dripping with water.

In the circle on my right was a winged, male, sylphlike demon. His wings opened and closed anxiously as he paced the inside of his circle, searching for a way out.

And just behind me, elongated flame-shaped shadows flickered on the ground.

Earth, Water, Air, Fire.

I was inside an enormous circle, the cardinal points of which were stationed by four metaphysical projections of Æthyric demons who represented four elements. The projections were also unstable; they occasionally disappeared altogether, only to remanifest a second later.

“She’s awake.”

My vision left a blurry trail as I moved my head toward the voice.

It came from my father, now dressed in an elaborately decorated ritual robe; my mother stood next to him wearing much the same. Handwritten symbols streaked across their necks. They were smiling, and their faces looked red and blurry. I shook my head, attempting to get rid of the obstruction in front of my eyes. It clung to my face like a spiderweb.

“What are you doing?” I asked. My voice echoed weakly, going nowhere and traveling for miles at the same time. “Why did you dose me? Who were those people chasing us?”

“Probably the caliph. He’s been tracking us through our guardians for the last week.” My father smiled, then added, “As if we wouldn’t notice. Don’t worry, though. We warded you on our way over here and temporarily banished our guardians—no bread crumbs for him to follow now.”

And no deflector charm to protect me, either, thanks to the events at the Hellfire caves. I did my best to sober myself up, but whatever they’d used to drug me was laced with magick. “Why am I here?”

My mother floated in front of me like a dream. “Seléne … you’re here to fulfill your destiny. You have returned to us like Malkuth returns to Kether.”

“We didn’t realize the role you would eventually play all those years ago when we conceived you,” my dad explained, “but Frater Blue enlightened us.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Who’s Frater Blue?”

My father’s hand gestured to the praying man outside the circle. “Does he not look familiar to you? He was present when you were conceived.”

The mage who presided over the Moonchild ritual? That name didn’t sound right. “I thought that was Frater Oben? Who is Frater Blue? Is that another magical name, or another member of the E∴E∴?”

“A rogue magician,” my mother said. “We met him in Dallas a couple of years before you were born.”

“You lied to the caliph? Why did you tell him it was another mage?”

My dad laughed. “Work with someone outside the order? We’d have been expelled.”

I didn’t think that was true; the caliph had been okay with the fact that I’d worked with other magicians over the last few years. Or was that a lie? Confusion clouded my thoughts. I strained to see the robed man, this Frater Blue. He had light-colored hair. Maybe white. I couldn’t tell. Wait … the Tamlins, the crazy couple in San Francisco who told me about the glass talon and the mystery man they saw running from the crime scene in Portland … was Frater Blue the man who committed the murders? The man who conjured the white demon? I laughed out loud. Surely it was the drug talking. I was making connections that weren’t there.

“Why is he here, Frater Blue? Why are we all here? What are you doing?”

A soft night breeze fluttered my mother’s graying hair. “Magick requires patience and time. Rituals take too long. All the summonings and spells require manual work.” She spoke dramatically, with an intensity behind her eyes. Like she was giving a speech to an audience at some occult gathering. I’d sat through more of those speeches than I could remember when I was a teenager. “Technology improves and science continually advances,” she continued. “But we use the same crude techniques that were used a thousand years ago. We’ve made no progress. Humans no longer use typewriters, they use computers—magicians use the same crushed minerals. We labor to draw the same old symbols to conjure and control the Æthryic spirits one at a time.”

My father chimed in, cheeks flush with excitement and the warmth of the fire spirit behind us. “We tried to get people to think outside the box, but no one wanted to change. Everyone was happy with the status quo.”

“They won’t be now,” my mother said. “Because we can finally prove to them that progress is possible. With your powers inside of us, we will have an army of demons at our disposal, instantly. There is no need for any of this.” She gestured toward the hand-carved ritual circle surrounding us. “The old ways can stay in the past. We will tear down the tower and build a new aeon. We will change the world.”

They sounded like crazy people. I fell into their semantic trap, though, unable to see past the words.

“You always said ritual was important. You made me learn all the old ways … I’m the one who thought outside the box. I experimented with spells and mixed traditions—not you.” The red spiderweb was tickling my nose. I tried to blow an upward breath to push it away.

My father leaned in close. “We wanted you to have all the knowledge within you, but it’s your birthright that makes you think differently.”

“That stupid Moonchild bullshit?” I said, as fury rose up in me.