“Looks like we’ll have a lot of questions for the man when he returns.”

“And not until tomorrow,” I said with a sigh. “Thanks for the info. I’m going to head over to Tessa’s. We’ve been so busy that I haven’t seen her since I got back. Keep me posted.”

“Absolutely,” he said and closed the laptop. “Zack and I will be out and about. Work, ya know.”

“Don’t forget, you can check in with your special consultant any time,” I reminded him with a smile. “I need those billable hours.”

“You’re on salary.”

“Hot damn. In that case, don’t call me unless the world’s about to end.”

Chapter 16

After going through my usual get-clean-and-dressed routine, Eilahn and I headed to my aunt’s house. On the way there, I listened to the recording of my phone conversation with Idris, played it over and over while I fought to catch any new reference or hint, any meaningful cough or hesitation. By the time we reached my aunt’s neighborhood of old, quality, lakefront houses, I’d been through it at least a dozen times, with no new revelations.

I saw Carl’s white minivan parked at the curb in front of my aunt’s house. Carl was her boyfriend, though I also knew him as the morgue tech at the coroner’s office.

It wasn’t until I pulled into Aunt Tessa’s driveway that I realized the last time I’d visited her was the day I was abducted to the demon realm. Everything about her century-old two-story house was the same—white with blue gingerbread trim, carefully maintained landscaping, rocking chairs on the porch—yet it was impossible to quantify how much I’d changed since then. Then again, my aunt probably knew a little something about major life changes. After a decade of living in Japan as Katashi’s student, she’d given up her life there and returned to Louisiana to raise me after my dad died. Not that leaving Katashi was a bad thing, in light of recent events.

I slipped through my aunt’s aversion wards with ease and smiled at the Welcome! sign on her door. It stood in sharp contrast to the arcane protections around her house that would keep any unwelcome visitors from actually making it to the porch, much less gain entry, unless they were exceedingly determined and arcanely skilled.

As I climbed the steps, Carl stepped out of the front door, keys in hand. Tall and thin with close-cropped pale hair, he offered me a ghost of a smile which I took as a huge welcome home greeting from him. “Morning, Kara,” he said. “Doc and I miss seeing you at the morgue.”

“I bet you do. Who else can you torment with the whole needles-in-dead-eyes thing?” From the very first time I’d gone to an autopsy, Carl had attempted to get me to collect the vitreous—a process that involved sticking a needle into the eyeball to draw out the fluid. Hugely squicky.

He gave a dry chuckle. “At least you finally called my bluff.”

“Damn straight. Are you on your way to the morgue now?”

“I am. Running late.”

“I won’t keep you. Good to see you, and tell Doc I said Hi.”

“Will do.”

I watched him for a moment as he continued to his minivan, then I turned to the door, still baffled at the odd-couple match between my diminutive, whacky aunt and the lanky, taciturn—though seemingly devoted—Carl. After knocking once, I entered. “Hi, honey! I’m home!”

A laugh came from the direction of the kitchen. “About damn time!”

I headed that way, where my aunt immediately enveloped me in as crushing a hug as she could give. Her unbound mane of frizzy blond hair completely obscured my face, but I didn’t mind one little bit. I breathed in the faint scent of lavender touched with jasmine—calm and sweet, totally unlike her personality, yet still completely her.

“I’ve missed you!” she said after finally releasing me.

“I’ve missed you too,” I replied with a smile. “Sorry I wasn’t over sooner. Everything went crazy as soon as I got back.”

She turned and began to run water into the kettle. She wore a flowing gauzy skirt paired with a clinging top of blue and purple gradients, and big dangly earrings that I knew would look absurd on me but suited her perfectly. “Dealing with crazy stuff get you crazy times,” she said. “No doubt about that.”

I pulled myself onto a stool at the counter and made a sour face. “Yeah, and I’m in super mega-craziness right now.” The kitchen itself felt as welcoming and familiar as my aunt—dark granite countertops, wallpaper with subtle patterns of climbing ivy, a deep dusty-rose tiled floor, and stainless steel appliances without a smudge or fingerprint in sight.

She set the kettle on the stove, turned the burner on, then took a seat on a stool opposite mine. “Tell me. What’s going on now?”

“Well . . .” I had to think for a moment about where to begin. “When’s the last time you talked to Katashi?”

Tessa’s brow creased in thought. “It’s been a while.”

“Good,” I said, relieved. At least I didn’t need to tackle a problem in that arena. “Please let me know if you hear anything at all from his people. Anything.”

“You told me Katashi caused some trouble for you.” Her gaze sharpened. “Has something else happened with him?”

I spread my hands flat on the cool marble of the countertop. “You could say that.” I proceeded to fill her in on the Idris situation and the craziness at the warehouse. Tessa listened carefully while I spoke, and when the teakettle began to whistle she got up to pour water into two mugs.

“Crazy stuff indeed,” she said as she dunked teabags into each mug. “Idris. He must be pretty important.”

“He’s amazingly gifted, especially considering he’s barely twenty.” I smiled. “You’d like him. Super nice guy.”

Tessa placed my tea before me, curled her hands around her own mug. “What was he doing in the demon realm in the first place?”

I shamelessly reached for the bowl of sugar cubes and dumped several into my tea. “Training with Mzatal. He was under agreement—it’s sort of like a contract.”

She took a sip, brow furrowed. “Is that what you have with Mzatal?”

“We did,” I said. “We don’t now. I mean, nothing official. He trains me, and we work together. We’re partners.”

Her eyes dropped to the ugly scar on my left forearm. “Is he the one who removed Rhyzkahl’s mark?” she asked, tone abruptly sharp and biting.

I looked down at the ripple of scar tissue. “No. Rhyzkahl did that,” I said, voice expressionless. Yet I hesitated before continuing with the rest, the details of how he’d sliced the mark from my flesh, and what else he’d done to me. I hadn’t told her any of that yet, had simply left it at “Rhyzkahl betrayed me.” I knew Tessa had seen my sigil scars when she summoned me back to Earth, but she had yet to ask about them, and I didn’t want to push it. Last year, she’d been captured and used in a ritual that left her comatose, her essence lost in the void. After she returned to her body, she’d been fragile. Docile. Completely unlike the Aunt Tessa I knew. She even stopped summoning for months, and only resumed in order to rescue me from the demon realm. Carl had played a significant role in keeping her on track despite the oddity of their match, and I could only speculate that his near-emotionless manner helped to ground her and keep her focused.

Yet even though she’d come a long way in her recovery, a measure of fragility still clung to her. The hideous details of my torture would only upset her, and I saw no need to risk destabilizing her now.

I rubbed the scar, changed the subject. “Back when you studied with Katashi, did you learn the sigil technique called the pygah?” Mzatal had told me the pygah was part of the foundation for all other summoning work, yet Tessa had never even mentioned it.

She set her tea down, brow furrowed as though trying to remember. “Pygah,” she murmured, then her face lit up. “Pygah. Yes, I did. I haven’t thought about it in years. Not since . . .” She trailed off, staring past me with unfocused eyes.