“Why should I have been? Chora is the Æthyric James Bond,” Merrin said with a smile. “He can move in and out of wards, set traps, elude capture. He flies by night and steals secrets. He’s no terrifying general or gifted warrior—he’s a demonic spymaster.”

Merrin unzipped his jacket. “I asked around the Æthyr. Discovered that he was in possession of the Buné spell. He’d stolen it, apparently, on one military mission or another. I trapped him, and we made a deal—I wouldn’t sell his secrets to his enemies, and he would help me with the ritual. We would be partners. A simple pact. Everything was going smoothly, up until the last child chosen for the ritual. She was tricky.”

“Cindy Brolin.”

He shrugged. “I don’t remember her name. I went on with the ritual anyway, hoping it would work with a substitute, but it failed.”

“What were you testing for, biting the children?”

“Ratio of demon to human. Chora can taste it in the blood. Demon is sweeter.”

“Oh,” I said weakly, my vision blurring around the edges again.

“We made a couple of errors,” Merrin continued, “but I’m not one to just give up on something this big. And my deal with the demon was contractually binding until the doors between the planes were open. Once we got past our disagreements—”

Chora swore indecipherably from the rooftop, giving Jupe an earful of Æthyric curses intended for Merrin.

“—we made better plans. I kept Chora bound in the gap between the planes until we were ready. And now we are. Because this time, I’ve gone to great lengths to ensure our success. And wouldn’t you know, the biggest mistake thirty years ago wasn’t merely the substitute vessel. The stronger the vessels, the longer the doors stay open, you see, but they never opened at all—not even a crack. The vessels just turned to dust. Over the years, I realized the real problem. Timing.”

“Timing? You mean the overlapping alignments?”

“Conjunctions, alignments . . . here and in the Æthyr. It only granted a short window of time, and I was a few hours too late. I’ve never been very good at calculations.” He nodded to the roof. “Luckily, Ms. Forsythe is mad about astronomy. She’s far too knowledgeable for a junior high teacher, she just never had the drive to do anything more. But when I gave her the problem to solve, she was more than happy to help, even without magical coercion or understanding why I needed it—imagine that!”

What did he want? Applause?

“It was a long wait,” he said, “but once the doors are open, I will be able to cross into the Æthyr.”

“And what will you do there?” I asked. “What’s worth waiting thirty years for?”

“I’ve learned the secrets of possession, my dear. I will ride Chora like he’s ridden me. Do you know how old he is? Nearly a thousand years. And he’s barely hitting the middle of his life span. I can either die here in this miserable excuse for a body—bald, short, and half crippled—or I can live for decades inside the body of a demonic knight.”

“I thought you said he nearly killed you when the ritual went wrong the first time? What makes you think that you won’t do the same when you’re inside him? Bodies weren’t designed for two separate occupants, Frater.”

“I’m willing to take that chance. And if he can’t hold me, I will find someone else in the Æthyr who can. You can sit around demurely and wait for your reward in heaven, if there is one, but I’m seizing mine while I’m able.”

Merrin ripped open his shirt, baring his withering chest and paunchy gut that ballooned below the blue ink of the tattoo I’d spied when we cornered him in the restroom. It wasn’t the only one. A smaller tattoo was etched on the sagging skin over his heart; God only knew what other tricks he’d learned, and this smaller seal was already dimly glowing with charged Heka. Not a good idea to have two tattoos charged at once. I knew this from experience. Merrin didn’t seem to be worried, though. He retrieved the metal disk from his pocket and sliced it across a palm. Blood welled. He pressed the Heka-rich fluid over the tattooed sigil on his chest. It lit up with a bright blue charge, then sank back into an ink tattoo.

“No need to be frightened of me,” he said to Lon. “How I pity you, being forced to hear all this emotional garbage, day in and day out. A useless knack, much like your father’s.”

Lon was a patient man, but lately I’d seen him reach his snapping point more times than I could count. He barreled toward Merrin before I could stop him, charging the elderly magician like a bull. But it was pointless. Merrin wasn’t lying—he had no interest in Lon’s knack. He wanted Chora’s ability, and with his tattooed sigil now freshly charged, he absorbed it.

The magician leapt out of the path of Lon’s charge and floated into the darkness just above us. Lon jumped and swatted at the magician’s feet, but they were already out of reach. His shirttails fluttered behind him as he rose to the roof and landed near Jupe and Ms. Forsythe. He stumbled, not quite competent with the whole flying thing, then righted himself.

“Now, this is a knack!” Merrin shouted breathlessly. “And your son’s new ability isn’t half bad, either. Thank you for telling Gracie about it, or I never would have guessed,” Merrin yelled down to Lon, yanking Jupe away from the demon.

Jupe, God bless him, wasn’t going gently. He kicked the living daylights out of Merrin and the volume of his muffled shouts increased, but then the magician hissed something to him that I couldn’t hear. After that Jupe went quiet. Merrin kept one hand clamped over Jupe’s mouth, just as Chora had done.