CHAPTER 1
Wren Mallory had her shit together. Mostly. Somewhat. In theory.
Her grimoire hovered three inches above her kitchen counter, pages flipping as she guided it with one finger. Cinnamon-scented steam curled from her mug as the morning’s first caffeine hit waited beside her scattered notes.
“Page forty-seven,” she mumbled through a mouthful of nearly-burnt toast. Crumbs tumbled onto her scribbled diagrams as the book obeyed, settling on interlocking protection sigils identical to the ones carved into every available surface of her apartment, including the toilet. Especially the toilet. Interdimensional entities were sneaky bastards.
Dust motes danced through razor-thin beams of sunlight filtering between anti-scrying blinds. The apartment’s floorboards creaked beneath her fuzzy slipper covered feet as she paced the cramped space. The new apartment was a shoebox compared to her old place, but it was gloriously free of any memory of golden eyes, hellfire, or hands that could kill with ease yet had touched her like she might shatter.
The black cat sprawled across her table—possibly a stray, possibly a cursed tax attorney, definitely not contributing to rent—stretched luxuriously before resuming its dedicated lounging.
“Tea’s getting cold,” Wren informed no one in particular.
The cat opened one yellow eye and closed it with magnificent disdain.
She shrugged as she pressed another Post-it note onto her already crowded wall. Her handwriting curved in tight, measured loops—not the frantic scrawl from three months ago when her hand would shake every time—
Nope. Not going there.
“Today’s agenda,” she announced to the cat, who flicked its tail in dismissal. “First, counter-scrying measures for ward layer six. Second, that Old Aramaic banishment translation. Third, absolutely do not think about—”
Crack. Her pencil snapped between suddenly white-knuckled fingers. The jagged line across her notebook resembled the sigil that once pulsed in time with her heartbeat, but was now dormant and gray against her skin like a faded tattoo.
“—about anything or anyone irrelevant to my professional development,” she finished, throat suddenly tight.
Ninety-two days, fourteen hours, and approximately twenty-seven minutes since she’d said three words that undid everything between them. Not that she’d counted.
Wren tapped her pencil against the notebook, leaving slight marks beside diagrams that had finally started making sense. Real magic—not accidental summonings or erratic energy transfers but deliberate, structured spellcraft. Magic with predictable outcomes. Magic that didn’t involve demon princes with insane pain thresholds and biceps that belonged on forbidden grimoire covers.
“Page sixty-three.”
The grimoire flipped with a papery whisper. She reached for her mug, grimacing at the lukewarm liquid inside. Her fingers twitched, and steam once again curled from the surface.
Three months ago, that simple heating spell would’ve either failed completely or set the mug on fire. Now it required barely a thought.
Progress that belonged entirely to her.
The air pressure shifted with a pop that made her ears ache.
Wren’s mug froze halfway to her lips. The hairs on her arms prickled as something slid against her wards. Not in the clumsy battering of Court parasites or the violent intrusion of Assessors, but something smoother, more refined. Like a key sliding into a lock it had no right to fit.
Her teeth vibrated with the sensation of magic folding wrongly.
“Not today, Satan,” she muttered, setting down her mug so carefully the liquid barely rippled. Her fingers flicked through protective gestures, reinforcing boundary spells layered throughout her apartment. The wards flared blue, then purple, then an alarming shade of red that made her skin crawl.
Pop-hiss-thud.
Reality folded inward at the center of her living room, the air rippling from the disturbance. The temperature plummeted as space rearranged itself around a newcomer who looked like a stock photo of “Business Professional” had been fed into an AI with the prompt “but make it hellish.”
Sharp suit cut from material that swallowed light rather than reflected it. Skin like stretched vellum clinging too tightly to features that rearranged themselves whenever Wren blinked. Horns filed down and polished to resemble an avant-garde hairstyle. A mouth containing too many teeth arranged in a customer service smile that belonged in horror movies.
“Wren Mallory?” it asked, voice like gravel tumbling through silk.
The banishment charm hung cold and heavy between her breasts as her fingers closed around it. “Whoever’s asking can fuck right off through the same hole in my wards you crawled through.”
“The wards were noted, filed appropriately, and administratively bypassed per subsection 317.B of the Interdimensional Visitation Act.” The creature’s hand disappeared into its suit jacket with a sound like wet leather sliding against stone. It withdrew a thin scroll that pulsed with bloody light, casting crimson shadows across her carefully warded walls. “I am Bureaucrat Thix, Agent of the Seventh Division of Infernal Contractual Enforcement.”
Wren’s tongue tasted like copper pennies. “That’s not a real department.”
“Your opinion on organizational structure has been noted.” Thix unrolled the parchment with a flourish that somehow managed to be both dramatic and deeply mundane. The scroll released a scent like burnt sugar and hot pennies. “I am here to deliver official notice of your appointment as custodial handler of one demon prince: Kairon, of the Ninth Veil. Binding effective immediately upon receipt of documentation.”
The mug slipped from Wren’s suddenly numb fingers. Tea splashed across her grimoire, her notes, her shirt, and the cat, who yowled with the indignity of the wrongfully damp before vanishing beneath the couch in a black streak.
“I’m sorry,” Wren said, voice climbing to a pitch that made her own ears hurt. “You want to run that by me again?”
Thix’s customer service smile widened to accommodate more teeth than should fit in any mouth. “Custodial handler. Kairon. Ninth Veil. Effective immediately.”
“That’s—” Heat flooded Wren’s face as her lungs forgot how to function. The room tilted alarmingly. “That’s not possible. I broke the bond. Magically. With ash and blood and everything.”
“Yes,” Thix agreed with the pleased tone of someone about to explain a clever gotcha clause. One talon-tipped finger tapped against a paragraph of text that seemed to writhe away from direct scrutiny. “That’s noted in section three, paragraph two. The voluntary severance of the soul-bond has been acknowledged and filed with appropriate departments.”
“Then what the actual fuck is this?” The parchment’s crimson glow reflected in the growing puddle of tea as Wren gestured wildly, nearly upending what remained in her cup.
“This is a legally binding custodial arrangement.” Thix’s explanation came with the practiced patience of someone who’d explained fifty shades of bureaucratic hell before lunch. “Following the magical events on the night of—”
“I know what night,” Wren snapped, bile rising in her throat at the memory—Kairon kneeling before her in candlelight, not fighting as she destroyed everything between them. “What I don’t understand is why I’m being magically assigned as… as…”
“Custodial handler.”
“Right. That.” Her scalp tingled as she dragged fingers through unwashed hair still smelling faintly of sage and a not so subtle hint of desperation. “You can’t just assign me to him like some kind of supernatural parole officer.”
“I am not assigning you.” Thix’s teeth clicked together with finality. “The Court is assigning you. I am merely the messenger.”
Wren’s knees buckled. She collapsed into the nearest chair, spine rigid with panic as her chest tightened around lungs that couldn’t draw enough air. The room spun in nauseating spirals of crimson light reflected from the parchment.
Three months of pretending she was fine.
Three months of ignoring the phantom ache where the bond had been.
Three months of lying to herself that she didn’t wake reaching for someone who wasn’t there.
“This is harassment,” she managed, grabbing a nearby grimoire and clutching it against her chest. The leather binding creaked in protest. “I broke up with him. Magically. With a ritual and everything.”
“The Court acknowledges your personal relationship is terminated.” Thix’s mouth twitched in what might have been sympathy on a human face but resembled a facial spasm on its ever-shifting features. “This arrangement is purely professional.”
A sound escaped Wren’s throat—half laugh, half sob. “Professional? There is nothing professional about me and—” His name burned on her tongue, refusing to be spoken aloud after ninety-two days of careful avoidance. “About any of this.”
“Nevertheless.” The parchment crackled with malevolent energy as Thix extended it toward her. “Your signature is required.”
“I’m not signing anything.” The wall pressed cold and hard against Wren’s spine as she scrambled out of the chair and backed away. “Tell your boss I said he can shove his parchment up the Ninth Veil.”
Something flashed in Thix’s constantly shifting eyes—not anger but something sharper. More calculating. “Your refusal is noted. So is your blood signature.”
“My what?”
One impossibly elongated finger pointed to the bottom of the parchment, where a crimson stain pulsed in time with Wren’s racing heart. The rusty smear arranged itself into loops and curves that matched her handwriting with sickening accuracy.
“That’s impossible.” The words scraped her suddenly dry throat. “I didn’t sign anything.”
“Blood freely given during a ritual leaves a signature trace.” Thix rolled the parchment closed with a sound like beetles scuttling across paper. “When you severed the bond, you registered your magical essence with the Court. They merely… repurposed it.”
Heat flooded Wren’s veins, her fingertips tingling with gathering power. The first shape of a hex formed in her hands, magic coalescing into crackling blue-white sparks that reflected in Thix’s too-many eyes.
“I. Don’t. Want. Him.” Each word emerged with a flare of energy bright enough to cast shadows across the walls.
“Your preferences have been noted.” Thix regarded her building hex with the mild annoyance of someone watching rain clouds gather when they’d forgotten an umbrella. “However, the terms are magically irreversible.”
The spell fizzled against her fingers like wet matches, extinguished by whatever power throbbed through the parchment. The gray outline of the mark on her wrist tingled with phantom sensation—an echo of connection severed three months ago.
“Why me?” The question emerged small and hollow, bouncing off walls covered in protective sigils that hadn’t protected her from this. “He’s been gone for three months. Why not just… let it go?”
“The prince has been engaged in activities deemed ‘destabilizing’ to the Court’s interests.” Thix’s mouth barely moved as it spoke. “He has refused all direct communication. He has… what’s the human phrase? Burned bridges?”
Of course he had. The knowledge settled in Wren’s chest with cold certainty. Kairon was brutally consistent in his rage. If she’d rejected him, he’d reject the entire Court with massive, theatrical violence.
“Let me guess,” she said, slumping against the wall. “He’s been causing trouble.”
“He has incinerated three diplomatic outposts, assassinated two lesser Court officials, and sent the severed head of an Arbiter to the High Court with a note that your human greeting cards would describe as ‘unfriendly.'”
A treacherous quiver tugged at Wren’s lips. The urge to laugh bubbled up her throat despite the horror, despite the exhaustion, despite everything. Because of course he had. Kairon didn’t know how to lose gracefully. When he burned, he took worlds with him.
“I still don’t see how this is my problem,” she said, ignoring the traitorous warmth unfurling beneath her ribs.
Thix unrolled the parchment again with a flourish. One talon tapped against a paragraph near the bottom that pulsed with malevolent energy. “Clause 47.B: Failure to comply with the terms of the custodial arrangement will result in immediate execution of both parties.”
The air vanished from Wren’s lungs as if someone had punched her in the solar plexus. “That’s… extortion.”
“That’s contract law.” Thix rerolled the parchment with a snap-click of finality. “Interdimensional division.”
“I can’t—” The words caught in her throat, tangling with emotions she’d spent three months burying. Her tongue fumbled over the words. “I won’t.”
“The Court requires you to establish contact within seventy-two hours.” Thix placed the scroll on her kitchen counter with a sound like meat slapping marble. Crimson light pulsed from the parchment in sickly waves. “After which you will provide weekly reports on the prince’s activities and act as liaison for all Court communications.”
“And if I refuse?” The answer was already carved into the tightness of her chest, but Wren needed to hear it spoken aloud. Needed reality to cut through the fog of panic and the traitorous whisper of anticipation she refused to acknowledge.
“Then you both die.” Thix’s form began to shimmer at the edges, reality folding back around its presence like origami reversing itself. “Horribly. Creatively. With documentation filed in triplicate.”
“I hate everything,” Wren whispered, nails digging half-moons into her palms.
“Your dissatisfaction has been noted.” Thix’s voice faded as its body unraveled at the edges. “Please rate your customer experience on the attached sigil.”
Then it was gone, leaving behind nothing but the glowing contract and a lingering scent like expensive cologne mixed with burnt matches.
The parchment pulsed on her counter with a crimson heartbeat that painted her kitchen in bloody light. Nausea twisted Wren’s stomach as the magnitude of what had just happened crashed over her in waves. The blood signature—her blood signature—gleamed wetly at the bottom of the document, a mockery of the freedom she’d thought she’d bought with that same blood three months ago.
The irony tasted like bile and broken promises.
Her go-bag waited by the door—already packed because ninety-two days wasn’t nearly enough time to break the paranoia that came from being hunted by interdimensional entities. Her fingers trembled as she shoved grimoires and emergency supplies inside, mind racing through contingencies, implications, and the terrifying, inescapable reality that she was going to see him again.
Those golden eyes that saw too much.
That mouth that could deliver devastation in equal measure through words or kisses.
Those hands that had killed for her without hesitation.
Crimson light washed over her shaking hands as she zipped the bag closed. Her blood signature pulsed on the parchment, trapped in magical bureaucracy that had found the one loophole in her carefully constructed freedom.
“Oh, hell,” she whispered, and the words hung in the air like prophecy.