The whole thing hummed with potency, palpable to me even with the collar on. Odd glyphs sketched in colored chalk marked the tapered tip of each fissure like physical mirrors of the flickering sigils above them. I focused on one of the glyphs and tried to make sense of it. Immediately my heart started pounding inexplicably as if I was waking from a nightmare I couldn’t remember. Going back down the stairs seemed like a much better plan than going forward. Except for the big hulking reyza that blocked the way.

On the far side of the chamber, the lord stood on a balcony, facing away, hands clasped behind his back. From where I stood, all I could see of the landscape beyond him were the tops of barren hills, jagged mountains beyond, and an expanse of cloudless sky. Oddly, it was that sky—a rich and deep blue beyond anything seen on Earth—that finally drove it home that I wasn’t in Louisiana anymore, Toto. Demons and lords? Pshaw. Those were a dime a dozen back home. Yeah, I was a slow learner sometimes.

I took a couple of steps toward the lord, hugging the wall and putting as much space as I could between me and the Cracks of Doom. Scintillating and raw potency flared from them like angry azure flames, and I froze. The power crackled over me in twisted, disorienting pulses for a few seconds then subsided, leaving my ears ringing and the world tilting. I staggered and set my back against the wall, barely managing to stay upright. In another couple of seconds, it was as if it had never happened, except for me standing drunkenly with my mouth near impossibly dry, as though all of the moisture had been sucked from me. It was small comfort to see that the blond summoner took a step back as well, haughty demeanor gone in a flash, though he recovered within a few heartbeats and regained his stance. He lifted a hand and traced sigils in the air, though, due to the collar, I couldn’t see clearly what he was shaping.

I worked spit back into my mouth and shot a look at the lord’s back. “What the hell is this place?” I managed, pissed that my voice had a slight quaver.

His only response was to extend his right arm to his side and gesture me to him with a slight movement of index and middle finger, not turning even a millimeter toward me. Clenching my jaw, I moved forward.

When I reached his side he spoke, voice low and disturbingly melodious. “The summoning chamber believes it is yours, whether you do or not.”

I flicked my eyes to the fissures. “And how is that even possible?” I asked. “I’m pretty damn sure I’ve never performed a summoning here.”

The lord lifted his chin a fraction. “Idris,” he said. I saw the blond summoner straighten. “Go prepare a purification diagram.” His voice resonated with intensity. “We will require it shortly.”

Yeah, that wasn’t ominous or anything. I gulped, working damn hard to maintain a demeanor other than freaked out.

He turned to me, face cold and hard, yet with molten, living heat behind his eyes. “Many believe that this grossly apocalyptic landscape—” He gestured toward a jagged range of fractured mountains and a line of hills disturbingly devoid of any hint of vegetation. “—and this—” He gestured to the cracked floor. “—are your doing.”

I threw my hands up, utterly frustrated and exasperated. “How?” I demanded. “For fuck’s sake, I’ve never performed a goddamn summoning here! This is only my second time in the demon realm, and the last time I was busy dying!” That was after the aforementioned evisceration. Rhyzkahl brought me back to the demon realm to die, allowing me to pass through the void and reform whole and untouched in my own world. But the demonic lord before me now had told me that it might not work a second time. And I wasn’t desperate enough to risk suicide. Yet.

He had no reaction to my outburst, unless, perhaps, an even more scary depth to his calm, like a serpent coiled motionless, able to strike in an instant with deadly speed and accuracy.

The lord locked his eyes on mine and spoke a single word.

“Elinor.”

I jerked as the name hit me like a spear through my essence. My knees buckled for an instant, and I grabbed for the wall, bizarre and unexpected terror rising through me.

And then it was gone, leaving me gasping raggedly and clutching at the wall. “I don’t understand,” I said in a hoarse voice, staring at the dark-haired lord.

Did he reach to steady me or anything like that? Hell, no. His eyes remained hard upon mine. “No. I can clearly see that you do not. Rhyzkahl has not told you why he values you.”

My balance slowly returned, though I kept my hand on the wall. “I suppose you intend to enlighten me?” I asked, voice still unsteady, to my annoyance.

“No. You bear his mark.” His eyes dropped to my left forearm where Rhyzkahl had marked me as his sworn summoner. A slight smile touched his mouth. “I simply hold you from him.”

I went cold, wondering how far he’d go to keep me from Rhyzkahl. “Then why all this?” I said, gesturing to the room and the landscape. “If your whole intent is to keep me from Rhyzkahl, then why the theatrics and the grand reveal of—” I didn’t want to say the name. “—whatever that was?”

He inclined his head toward me, smile increasing a touch, though it only served to make his expression colder. “Because I gleaned precisely what I wanted from it.” He turned and moved toward the stairs in long smooth strides. “And now, we purify you.”

The reyza shepherded me down the stairs and along the corridor away from the summoning chamber, then down yet more stairs and corridors, and finally into a small bedchamber. From what little I saw in that hurried trek, the place was gorgeous. Neglected for sure, but nothing a little cleanup couldn’t fix. Glass crunched underfoot near broken windows which had either been patched with a ward or left open to the elements. Dust reigned supreme and minor debris littered most areas. But beyond all that, the absolute beauty of the architecture left me in awe. Spacious and sweeping, stone and wood wound together to form something that felt more like a rugged yet graceful entity than a building. Paintings and statuary lined walls and rested in niches everywhere, and I fretted that I wasn’t given the time to stop and look at them.

The reyza continued through the bedchamber and into a room that held a broad stone tub. I would’ve said it was white marble, but there was a dragonfly-wing iridescence to it that I’d never seen in Earth marble. Demon-marble? Water half-filled the tub and was likely the source of a faint rotten egg smell.

“Time is of the essence,” the demon growled. “You must be cleaned and prepared.” He reached for me, and I backpedaled to the wall, eyes widening.

“I can do it!” I gasped. “I can wash myself.”

His lip curled in a snarl. “You have three hundred heartbeats,” he said, flexing clawed hands. He settled into a crouch by the door, eyes never leaving me. “I am counting.”

I shucked my nasty clothes off, kicked them aside and slid into the tepid water. Yep. Sulphur. Much of the well water where I lived had the same odor. I kept a running count while I ducked under and scrubbed at my hair with my fingers. I didn’t see anything resembling soap, so I figured that the standard for how clean I needed to be was mostly Without Bits of Body Parts Clinging to Me.

I clambered out of the tub when my own count reached two-sixty and stood, naked, dripping and shivering, before the reyza. My own clothes and possessions were nowhere to be seen, and even though I had no desire to put any of them back on, it still bugged me.

The demon tossed me a towel. “Dry yourself.” I quickly complied. “And don this.” He passed me a garment—a black knee-length shift that turned out to be little more than a sack with neck and arm holes. No bra, no underwear. To say I felt exposed was an enormous understatement.