"I just might, Harper." Mica glared at him, then glanced away. "So, what do you want? More of our people to sacrifice for your sister's sake?"

Harper didn't respond to the accusation. He simply answered her first question as if she hadn't said anything else.

"I just need to talk to Nick," Harper said.

"You honestly think he'll do anything for you, after this?" Mica asked.

"I'm the lesser of two evils. If he doesn't help me, then he ensures that these killings go on."

"You're a heartless bastard, Harper."

Harper said nothing. At last Mica turned the lock and opened the door.

"I'll get him." She left the room.

"You take me to the nicest places," I whispered to Harper.

"You're the one who decided we should come here." Harper leaned back into the padding of the settee.

"You might have mentioned that all the members of Good Commons were going to want to kill you before we walked in."

"What's life without a few surprises?" Harper flashed his hand up at me. "Don't answer that. It was a rhetorical question."

"Are you still drunk from last night?" I asked.

"No." Harper smiled. "Having my life threatened always makes me a little giddy."

"Giddy?"

"I have to find my pleasures where I can."

"I'd be hesitant to call that exchange with Mica pleasant." I scraped at a droplet of wax on the arm of my chair.

"You ought to allow a man to retain his conceits, Mr. Sykes."

The slight smile on Harper's lips sank back to a flat line. "It wasn't pleasant. It shouldn't have been. I gave her my word that Roffcale would be safe in my care... He should have been safe."

"Yes, he should have been."

Both Harper and I looked up at the man who stepped through the doorway. I stared at him for several moments longer than his sudden entry deserved. It was strange to be startled, not by his silent appearance, but by the familiarity of his face and voice. He, too, seemed taken off guard by the sight of me.

I should have known from the moment I tasted the air in the room. The scent of conjuring melted with the musk of his sweat and the camphor oil he rubbed into his skin to give it a golden sheen. It was the singular essence of Nickolas Sariel.

He had hardly changed, despite the years. His eyes were still the color of opium poppies. His hair was like fire, winding through streaks of smoky red, yellow, and white. His black nails had grown longer, but they still gleamed with the same carefully filed edges.

I saw him take in a quick breath of the air as he stared at me. He would have expected to smell fresh ink and the must of old books lingering on me. But I was no longer the man he had known, and the scents of my body had become far more bitter.

"Belimai?" He whispered my name as he came closer.

There was an instant when I wanted to say yes. But a stinging pain flared through the prayers engraved into my skin.

"No." I glanced down at the wax spattered arm of my chair. "I'm afraid you've mistaken me for someone else. I'm sorry."

That was all I had to say. Sariel would not allow himself to ask a second time. He immediately turned to Harper.

"So, Captain, Mica tells me you want my help."

Harper paused for a moment, looking between Sariel and myself. We said nothing. Harper shook his head and pressed on.

"I need you to reach Joan if you can."

"Are you asking me to use my powers as the presiding officer of Good Commons? Or were you thinking of something less in keeping with the law?" Sariel crossed his arms over his chest.  "Because if it's the latter, I want you to understand that the price runs very high. I won't work for free, not for you."

"You're not the first devil I've dealt with." Harper gestured to me but Sariel didn't look. "I'm aware of the going rates." Harper reached into his jacket and dropped several gold coins into Sariel's hand.

I couldn't help but wonder where Harper was coming up with all the money. Perhaps Talbott was financing him. That, or he was bankrupting himself. It bothered me that I didn't know his nature well enough to decide if he would use another man's money or only his own.

Sariel studied the coins in his hand, then shook his head. "I was thinking of a little more, Captain Harper."

Harper handed Sariel more fistfuls of coins. Harper went through every one of the pockets of his coat and even gave Sariel his watch and chain. He did it in a matter of a fact manner. If there was any expression on his face, it might have been that look of slight amusement that seemed to pass over his lips at the strangest times.

"That's all I have," Harper said at last. "If you want more, you'll have to wait until I'm paid at the end of the month."

"All I wanted was everything you had." Sariel piled the coins on the table without even counting them. I counted them. He had taken almost ten times what Harper had paid me.

"I'll hold the summons here." Sariel pushed the door shut.

He walked around the table twice, moving the candles until they formed a series of circles within each other. He whispered softly to himself as he walked. I recognized some of the words from the curses he used to spit out behind teachers' backs at St. Augustine's reform school.

"...Ashmedai, your flame." He swept his hands over the outer ring of candles and the wicks lit up. The flames skipped like stones across water, lighting circle after circle of candles. "Sariel, father of my bloodline, your power..." Sariel went on.

The flames of the candles began to burst up into geysers of fire. Sariel continued circling. His eyes were open but not focused.

He whispered words so quickly that I could hardly catch more than hisses of his breath. Each time Sariel let out another string of incantations, the flames surged up, forming a rolling mass of blazing fire.

I couldn't help but glance at Harper. He sat still, watching Sariel with his fingers steepled and pressed against his lips.

"Lucifer, light bearer, lord of wisdom." Sariel came to a stop only a few steps in front of me. He raised his arms, then slashed the long talons of his left hand across the open palm of his right hand. A deep furrow of blood gushed up. Sariel thrust his bleeding palm into the fire. A scent of searing camphor choked the air.

"Show me this woman," he hissed as the tongue of fire surged up over his hand. "My will is greater than even your own." Sariel grasped a single flame and lifted it up above the rest.

"Show me," he commanded.

Suddenly the candles dimmed to mere sparks. The single flame in Sariel's hand leapt up to a blinding white heat. It twisted and rolled, growing larger and brighter. Slowly it formed the soft curves of a woman. Smoke rolled and wound over her, adding shadows and dark hollows to her luminous flesh. She floated above Sariel's outstretched arm, gazing out at the empty corner of the room.

"Joan." Harper came to his feet and stepped up to the edge of the table.

As the woman turned I studied her face. She was beautiful. Her dark eyes were wide and luminous. Her black hair had been pulled down and hung in long curls around her torn clothes. Her mouth moved, but only a curl of white smoke poured out. She looked frightened.

"Is she alive?" Harper demanded.

Sariel said nothing. His eyes were clenched shut as he concentrated. Tremors of strain passed through his arm. Slowly he nodded his head in answer to Harper.