A Demon’s Guide to Wooing a Witch

Heat flared over Calladia’s skin, and her vision was obscured by a brilliant orange glow. She covered her face with a forearm and kept running, and moments later she burst through the flames.

The fire had been set in a ring around Isobel’s house—thankfully a narrow ring, because otherwise Calladia’s impulsive decision would have been significantly less badass and much crispier.

Three demons faced her, blocking the path down the slope. Moloch was instantly recognizable with his rosy cheeks and dimpled smile. Next to him stood a demoness wielding a flaming whip and a massive demon who looked like a Viking and carried a sword.

Astaroth skidded to a stop next to her. “Baphomet?” he asked incredulously.

The redheaded Viking shot a look at Moloch. “I thought the witch said he’d lost his memory.” His horns were ivory-colored and looked alarmingly sharp.

“She did,” Moloch said. “I’ll resolve that issue with Isobel later.”

“I still can’t believe Isobel ratted us out,” Calladia muttered, running a list of possible spells through her head. “What happened to witch solidarity?”

“Money happened,” Astaroth replied succinctly. He hefted the tree branch higher. “I find it interesting, Baphomet,” he declared loudly, “that you, famously the centrist of the high council, have joined Moloch on a mission to kill me.”

Baphomet scowled. “You earned your punishment.”

The demoness with the whip cracked it, sending sparks through the air. She had dirty-blond chin-length hair and marbled gray horns. “Let me snap his head off, Moloch.”

“Ah, Tirana,” Astaroth said, giving an elaborate bow. “You are as charming as ever.”

The name was familiar, and Calladia racked her brain for what she’d learned about high council politics. Baphomet was the oldest demon on the court and its ostensible leader, and Sandranella had mentioned him seeming sympathetic to Moloch’s cause. Sympathetic to both Moloch and Tirana, she remembered, Tirana being the anti-hybrid extremist who wanted to claim Astaroth’s former position on the council.

Two conservative hard-liners were collaborating with the powerful centrist demon everyone wanted to sway to their side. That Tirana had asked Moloch for permission to attack Astaroth, rather than Baphomet, told Calladia the swaying had already happened. “Looks like Baphomet is no longer in charge,” she told Astaroth. “I wonder if the rest of the council knows?”

Baphomet glared at her. “Who are you?”

“None of your business.” Calladia looped thread over her fingers, whispering as she tied knots faster than she ever had in her life. A defensive shield formed in front of them, invisible to the naked eye.

“She’s casting a spell,” Tirana said. The whip flashed forward in a bright blur, and Calladia flinched when it ricocheted off the shield.

Astaroth shoved her behind him. “Your quarrel is with me, not her.”

Calladia made an irritated sound. “I can fight.”

“I know,” he replied. “So can I.”

“You have a stick.”

“Indeed I do.” He waved the branch in front of him. “Come on, you cowards. Who wants to face me first?”

Moloch burst out laughing. “Oh, this is too good,” he said between chuckles. “What a fearsome stick you wield.”

Calladia kept tying knots. “What are you doing?” she whispered hotly.

“It’s called a diversion,” Astaroth muttered. “So hurry up with whatever diabolical spell you’re working on.”

Oh! Astaroth knew he couldn’t win against three armed demons, so he was distracting them until Calladia could come up with something dramatic enough to get them away safely.

Calladia didn’t have a plan, but that hadn’t stopped her before. Remembering a spell from her textbook, she focused on the earth at the feet of the three demons. “Descendren ti talammven,” she said, weaving a pattern like a spiderweb between her fingers.

The ground collapsed beneath the three demons. The pit was only a few feet deep, but it would at least slow them down.

“Run!” Astaroth said.

“Already on it!”

They sprinted into the forest together. Calladia hurdled over logs and wound around trees like escaping demons was an Olympic event. When a vine stretched across the path, Astaroth sliced through it with a swing of his branch, clearing the way.

Behind them came shouts and crashing noises as the demons pursued. Calladia desperately wanted to weave a new spell, but it was impossible to get the precision she needed while running. Damn it, why couldn’t she have an ounce of Mariel’s nature gifts? Mariel could have made the forest attack their pursuers with little but a whispered request.

Calladia’s throat burned with her heaving breaths. She leaped over a log, then ducked under a branch.

A cracking noise accompanied a sting at the side of her head, and Calladia cried out as pain burst white hot over her skin. When she touched the spot, her fingers came away wet with blood, and the smell of burned hair filled her nostrils. Tirana had cracked her whip, and only Calladia’s incidental dodge had prevented it from doing further damage.

Astaroth turned and flung the branch like a javelin, and a cry of pain followed. “Leave her alone,” he shouted.

“Just run,” Calladia gasped. The pain of the strike numbed out as adrenaline kicked in, and despite the blood, it didn’t seem like a devastating injury. Head wounds always bled excessively. It was too bad the whip hadn’t contacted her skin long enough to cauterize the cut.

The river glinted through the trees downslope. They were nearing the trailhead and Clifford the Little Red Truck, but the demons were far too close. “Lilith,” Calladia wheezed. “She needs to know.” Shit had officially hit the fan, and this situation was more than they could take on alone.

Astaroth yanked his phone out of his pocket. “Baphomet, Moloch, Tirana,” he panted a moment later. “Working together, very murdery. We’re at . . . fuck, no idea where.”

A flurry of alarmed female voices followed, but Calladia couldn’t make out what was being said. She wanted to laugh hysterically at the futility of it all. Was this how she was going to die? Filleted by a fire whip in the middle of the woods?

Astaroth scooped up a rock and threw it at their pursuers. In response, the whip slashed at him, narrowly missing his face.

At last, the ground leveled out, and the parking lot appeared ahead. A familiar green SUV was parked next to Calladia’s truck, and it took a moment to process what she was seeing.

Ben, Mariel, Oz, and Themmie were getting out of Ben’s vehicle. Hope swelled in Calladia’s breast, followed by terror. “Demons!” she screamed as her feet hit the asphalt. “Watch out!”

A second SUV pulled up. To her shock, Kai, Avram, and three other werewolves jumped out. They were armed with a variety of makeshift weapons, from baseball bats to . . . was that a home-brewed crossbow?

Was this a bounty hunter mission again? Who were they here to hunt?

Mariel faced the forest, a determined look on her face. The curvy witch wore a long-sleeved burgundy dress and her usual hiking boots. She braced her feet, then lifted her hands and spoke a few words.

Behind Calladia, Tirana cried out. When Calladia looked over her shoulder, she saw the demoness’s whip had been yanked out of her hands by a dangling vine. Another vine wrapped around Tirana’s throat before dragging her into a bush.

Astaroth had fallen a few feet behind after throwing the rock. “Eat shit, wankers,” he shouted, scooping up another stone and flinging it at Moloch. It grazed the demon’s dun-colored horn, and Moloch grimaced. He raised his hands, and the air around them began to glow orange.

“Astaroth,” Calladia shouted, fear beating frantic wings in her chest.

Oz had been running toward Calladia, but he stopped short, staring at the scene like he’d seen a ghost. “Astaroth?” he asked.

“Fight now, ask questions later!” Themmie yelled. The pixie scooped up an armful of the rocks ringing the parking lot and launched into the air, wings blurring. She began dropping the rocks on the heads of their pursuers.

A crossbow bolt zinged toward Moloch, answering the question of who the wolves were there to hunt. It struck the demon in the shoulder right as he unleashed a fireball. It barely missed Astaroth, hitting a tree instead. The tree went up in flames as splinters shot everywhere like shrapnel. Astaroth grunted and staggered, and Calladia was horrified to see a large fragment of wood jutting from his shoulder.

She turned back without hesitation, ignoring Ben’s calls to get in the truck and get out of there. Astaroth was still moving, but his face was tight with pain.

“He did not just do that to a tree,” Mariel said. She looked pissed. As the woods thrashed and grabbed at Baphomet and Moloch, she raised her hands to the sky and chanted a spell to summon rain. Soon the fire was smoldering under a localized deluge.

Calladia wrapped her arm around Astaroth to help support his weight. “Come on.”

He groaned. “You try running with a skewer in your chest.”

“Suck it up, fragile little buttercup.”

She didn’t mean it, but the taunt worked. Astaroth made an outraged noise and staggered forward with Calladia’s support. By the time they reached Clifford, he was sweating and even paler than normal.

“Reconvene in Griffin’s Nest,” Ben told her. The werewolf was wearing his usual sweater vest, gold-rimmed glasses, and a nervous but determined expression. Next to him, Avram punched his palm, showing off a pair of brass knuckles. Side by side, the two werewolves were clearly related.

Calladia had a lot of questions, but now was not the time. She bundled Astaroth into the passenger side of her truck, then headed for the driver’s seat. As she was about to get in, the three demons finally escaped the now-hostile woods and Mariel’s magic. They squared off against the werewolves and Calladia’s friends.

For a moment no one moved. Tension stretched tight between the two groups as each weighed their next steps.

A portal shimmered to life next to Calladia’s truck. She spun, ready to throat-punch whoever came through, only to stop when Lilith emerged.

Astaroth’s mother looked furious. Bones were woven into her red braids, and she wore an iron breastplate and greaves over a black catsuit. She was holding a sword with a wickedly barbed end. “Who’s ready to bleed?” she called out. “Mama’s thirsty.”

“Oh, shit.” Tirana sketched an oval in the air with her finger, and another portal opened, which the demoness immediately disappeared into.

“Coward,” Moloch muttered.

Sandranella stepped through the portal after Lilith. At the sight of her, Baphomet hastily made his own portal exit, but not before Sandranella pointed at him and shouted, “You!”

Moloch looked between the various people facing him and apparently came to the same conclusion as the others. He bared his teeth. “This isn’t over.” He opened a portal and disappeared.

Silence fell.

Kai was the first to break it. “Aw, bugger,” the werewolf said, lowering his crossbow. “I was hoping for a decent fight.” The other werewolves grumbled in agreement.

Themmie landed next to Ben’s SUV, and Mariel and Oz joined her. Calladia winced as Oz pointedly looked at Astaroth in the passenger seat of her truck.

“So,” Mariel said, planting her hands on her hips. “Care to explain what the heck is going on?”

They agreed to meet in Griffin’s Nest for a debrief. Since the werewolves showed no signs of leaving—I sniff good trouble! Kai had cheerfully declared—they picked the only restaurant that wasn’t overrun with tourists for the Mariachi Festival. This was, unfortunately, NecroNomNomNoms, which catered mostly to creatures of the night and smelled even more strongly of blood inside. The walls were black, the windows were painted over, and the only light came from dramatic candelabra. The day shift waitress was a nonmagical human, but she seemed unruffled by the eclectic mix of supernaturals that had descended on her. She led them to a back room and left them with menus and water glasses.

The mystery of how the werewolves and Calladia’s friends had teamed up had been solved by the revelation that Ben and Avram were cousins. After Avram had shared news about the brawl in a family chat, Ben had decided the Glimmer Falls gang needed to investigate what Calladia was up to. Bronwyn had given Avram the same directions she’d given Calladia and Astaroth, and the combined expedition had reached them just in time.

Calladia was grateful for the intervention, if not particularly eager to explain what she’d been up to. She squinted at the menu to avoid looking at Mariel, whose initial confused look had settled firmly into the “damning gaze” category. The reason for that gaze sat to Calladia’s right, playing nonchalantly with his water goblet.

Or maybe Astaroth wasn’t so nonchalant, after all. His expression was relaxed, but his shoulders were tense, and he kept sneaking glances at Oz.

The waitress returned with a tray. “Chips and salsa,” she declared, plunking down a bowl of what looked like dried severed ears and a ramekin holding a very liquid salsa Calladia suspected was not made from tomatoes. The waitress handed a steaming goblet to Astaroth. “Regenerative potion.”

“Cheers,” he murmured, giving her a smile that made the waitress do a stutter step and nearly walk into a wall. He downed the drink in one go and grimaced. “Whew. I’ve got to say, I prefer immortality to whatever that was.”

Calladia had done what she could to patch Astaroth up, but it had been a relief to find out the restaurant had a wide potion selection. As Calladia watched, the wound left by the splinter she’d pulled out of Astaroth’s shoulder closed until all that was visible through the hole in his shirt was smooth skin.

“Feeling better?” Calladia asked him.

“Much.” He turned his smile on her, though it was a softer, more genuine version of what he’d given the waitress. Calladia wanted to smile back, but her skin itched under the weight of too many stares.

Time to face the music. She was seated at the head of a long table, and she took a deep breath before confronting the rest of the group. It was like presiding over the weirdest Last Supper ever. On her right were Astaroth, Lilith, Sandranella, Kai, and two random werewolves. On her left were Mariel, Oz, Themmie, Ben, Avram, and the last unnamed werewolf. The wolves were eagerly digging into the “chips and salsa,” but the atmosphere on Calladia’s end of the table felt more like a standoff. Oz and Mariel in particular were glaring daggers at Astaroth.

“So,” Astaroth said. “Who talks first?”

Oz exploded out of his seat and slammed his hands on the table. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Mariel aimed a similar question at Calladia. “Are you seriously hanging out with Astaroth?”

Calladia squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. “It’s complicated.”

“You’d better uncomplicate it quickly,” Mariel said. “Because I’m honestly really hurt that you’re helping the demon who took my soul and wanted to kill Oz.”

“I mean, you got the soul back . . .” Calladia said, trailing off when she saw Themmie wince, shake her head, and drag her finger over her throat.

Astaroth did not get the same message, apparently. “And clearly I didn’t succeed at killing Ozroth,” he said, “so let’s let bygones be bygones, shall we?”

Lilith frowned and pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. “You failed to kill someone? Are you feeling all right?”

“Who is that?” Themmie asked, wings twitching. “Who are any of these people, for that matter?”

Calladia sighed and made quick introductions. “To my left, my friend Mariel and her boyfriend Oz, formerly of the soul-bargaining persuasion. Then my friends Themmie and Ben, Avram, Ben’s cousin who I met in a brawl, and . . .” She squinted. “Some other werewolves I fought.”

The werewolves cheered and raised their ear-chips in a toast.

“Then Kai,” she said, continuing her way around the table, “also from the brawl.”

“Damn straight,” Kai said, thumping his chest. “She skewered me in the chest and stole my heart.”

Astaroth bared his teeth at that, so Calladia hurried on. “Next to him is Sandranella of the Nine, member of the demon high council, and Lilith, Astaroth’s mother.” She cleared her throat. “Everyone knows Astaroth already.”

Silence followed the introductions. Then multiple people began talking at once.

“You’re brawling with werewolves again?”

“Wait, Lilith the Mother of All Demons?”

“It’s been less than a week, and suddenly you’re hanging out with—”

“Is he forcing you to be here?”

“—a pack of werewolves and multiple demons?”

“Bro, Lilith is hot.”

“Did you make a bargain?”

Calladia raised her voice. “Enough! Let me speak.”

“This had better be good,” Mariel said.

“Why yes, I am that Lilith,” Lilith said, ignoring Calladia’s instruction as she fluffed her hair. “Reports of my offspring are wildly overstated, but reports of my promiscuity are sadly understated.”

Kai clapped a hand to his chest. “Knock me over. I heard bedtime stories about you. My mum told me you’d dismember me if I wasn’t a good pup.”

Lilith eyed the buff werewolf. “I prefer my bad pups in one piece.” She winked. “Unless you cross me.” Then she pulled a knife out of nowhere, leaned across Sandranella, and plunged it into the wooden table a few inches from Kai’s hand.

Kai shuddered. “I think I’m in love.”

Oz glared at Astaroth. “I ought to sever your head after how you betrayed me.”

Calladia tried again. “If you’ll all just be quiet—”

“Seems excessive,” Astaroth said. “In this state, a decent clobbering will take me out.”

Calladia took a deep breath, then yelled at the top of her lungs. “Shut up!”

Silence fell. Every eye in the room fixed on her.

“So, the short version,” Calladia said, taking advantage of the pause. “Astaroth has amnesia, and he’s mortal now.”

“What?” Oz asked, looking shocked.

“It’s true,” Calladia said. “He made a bet with Moloch on the demon high council. If Oz succeeded in taking Mariel’s soul, Astaroth could do whatever he wanted to Moloch. If Oz failed, the reverse was true.”

“That was the dumbest wager I’d ever heard,” Sandranella said. “I tried to talk him out of it, but nooooo, he was so sure Ozroth would succeed.”

Oz recoiled. “That was the bet?” he asked Astaroth. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know.” Astaroth’s gaze was fixed on his clasped hands, and Calladia could tell he was deeply uncomfortable. “Amnesia and all that. But since you’re now dating the mortal you were supposed to target, I suspect learning the terms of the wager wouldn’t have altered the outcome.”

Oz looked at Mariel, and his gruff features softened. “No,” he said. “It wouldn’t have.”

“Apparently I had far too much faith in you,” Astaroth said.

Calladia smacked his thigh under the table. “Not a helpful response. We want to get them on our side.”

“Your side?” Mariel looked between Astaroth and Calladia, hurt shining from her hazel eyes. “I thought you were on my side.”

“I am,” Calladia said. “Like I said, it’s complicated.”

“Uncomplicate it,” Oz said. He put a protective arm around Mariel, and she leaned into him.

Calladia was torn between conflicting impulses. A longing for that kind of casual intimacy, the urge to scoot closer to Astaroth, and the guilt of having let down her friends. How could she have fallen so quickly for him? Seeing her friends’ horror was a blunt reminder that the demon she’d been fighting so hard to save had committed crimes against them mere days before.

Haltingly, she gave an overview of events, from finding Astaroth bleeding on the street to Sandranella’s concerns about the balance of power on the demon plane. “Moloch wants to eliminate half-demon hybrids,” she said, “or at least strip them of rights.” She looked at Astaroth, wondering if it was okay to share his secret.

He sighed. “Go on, then.”

“Astaroth has always supported hybrid rights,” Calladia said. “Among other reasons, he’s half human.”

That set off a flurry of questions. How and why, why he’d lied, what it meant. Astaroth was growing tenser with every moment, so Calladia did her best to answer succinctly. When she mentioned how Isobel had stolen his immortality to supplement her own life, she reached under the table to grip his hand. Astaroth looked surprised, then squeezed her fingers in return.

“So,” Mariel said when the explanation was done. “Where we’re at now is that Astaroth doesn’t remember the last few hundred years, but he apparently knows something about Moloch that might defeat him.”

“He was going to share what it was at the council meeting,” Sandranella offered. “Baphomet intervened.” She clenched the stem of her water goblet so tightly, Calladia wondered if it would shatter. “He must have been working with Moloch for some time. Why else would he have agreed to such an extreme punishment?”

“Today’s murder attempt was a bit suspicious as well,” Astaroth said.

“We need to remove him from the council. Him and Moloch both. But how do we do that without leverage?”

Themmie piped up from halfway down the table, where she was sipping on a sickeningly pink milkshake the waitress had sworn contained no blood but lots of sugar. “Make leverage.”

“That’s why we’re trying to recover my memory,” Astaroth said. “Were you even listening?”

“Don’t be a dick,” Calladia said, smacking his arm.

He gave her a half smile. “But I do it so well.”

Themmie stuck out her now–bright pink tongue. “You aren’t thinking big enough. So maybe Astaroth has some kind of leverage on Moloch. Cool. But he can’t remember it, and Moloch’s already making moves, so we need to expand our approach.”

“Our approach?” Mariel asked, looking askance at the pixie. “Are you suddenly on Astaroth’s side, too?”

“No, I’m on the side of justice.” Themmie tucked her green-and-pink hair behind her ears, revealing a scattering of piercings. “However you feel about Astaroth, there are countless other hybrids who might be exiled, oppressed, or killed if Moloch gets his way. That’s worth fighting for.”

“Oh.” Mariel frowned. “Good point.”

“Moloch made a speech the other day,” Sandranella said. “He went to a public square and declared our species has grown weak because we accommodate impure demons. He wants to close the borders and outlaw breeding with humans or other species.”

“Boo,” Lilith said around a mouthful of questionable meat, which she’d ordered along with the werewolves—other than Ben, who was picking at a wilted-looking salad. Blood trickled down her chin. “That’s no fun.”

“He and Tirana have been planting hateful posters around town,” Sandranella continued. “There was a counterprotest from a few hybrids, but it went poorly, and most were thrown in the dungeon for inciting violence.”

Themmie’s dark brown eyes widened. “Whoa, you have a dungeon?”

“What happened to a fair trial?” Mariel asked, looking distressed.

“Being more level-headed, we don’t have as many . . . incidents . . . as humans do,” Sandranella replied. “If an incident is serious enough to require imprisonment, the high council normally presides over a trial.” Sandranella winced. “Moloch wants to skip that though. He’s advocating for banishment or execution of all hybrids.”

Mariel gasped. “That’s awful!”

Themmie slurped noisily on her milkshake. How the pixie could consume so much sugar every day was a mystery, but then again, Calladia didn’t have wings to power. “So,” Themmie said. “We have a wannabe dictator and his violent stooge spreading propaganda and imprisoning the opposition, with plans to kill them. The small group of demons who rule the plane are split between conservatives and liberals, but without Astaroth, they’re leaning conservative, especially since Baphomet is apparently in cahoots with Moloch.”

“Correct,” Sandranella said.

Themmie waved her milkshake wildly enough to slop some on the table. “Astaroth needs to rejoin the high council, but he’ll need to eliminate Moloch first. He theoretically knows how to but has an inconvenient case of amnesia. The plan so far seems to be spinning our wheels while waiting for his memory to return.”

“There’s been more of a plan than that,” Calladia protested. “We went to Isobel to see if she could help.”

“Sure,” Themmie said, “but the goal was all about Astaroth, right? Restore his immortality, heal his brain, get the memories back, defeat Moloch, everyone’s happy. Badda bing, badda boom.”

“Well . . . yes.”

Themmie shook her head. “Dumb plan.”

“With all due indifference,” Sandranella said, “you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lilith shushed her. “Let the colorful bug speak. I want to hear.” She’d swapped seats with Sandranella and now sat next to Kai, who held a forkful of mystery meat to her lips. When Lilith snapped up the meat faster than a cobra, Kai flinched, then beamed, looking besotted.

Themmie practically radiated sunshine with her vibrant hair and frilly yellow dress. She didn’t look like a master tactician, but Calladia had witnessed her rise as a social media influencer and knew how competent and whip-smart the pixie was.

“A cause needs a movement,” Themmie said. “It isn’t enough to swap Moloch out and sub Astaroth in—there’s still a fundamental issue to be solved. Namely, hybrid rights. You need to sway the minds of the people, build support from the ground up. Otherwise this issue will keep cropping up.”

“I agree,” Calladia said. She looked at Astaroth. “Remember what I told you? Maybe hybrids aren’t just victims. Maybe they can be warriors.”

Themmie snapped her fingers. “Exactly. So we spread word on social media—wait, do demons have social media?”

“Yes,” Oz confirmed. “Or so I hear. I never wasted my time on such puerile activities.”

Mariel practically had hearts in her eyes. “That’s the curmudgeon I know and love.”

Oz returned her adoring look. “As much as I love you, my velina.”

“So,” Themmie continued, “we start a social media campaign.” She pulled out her phone, and her fingers danced over the screen. “I’ll set up a private server for logistics and start recruiting any hybrids I find. We’ll arrange some protests, maybe a march. Ooh, T-shirts!”

“And then what?” Astaroth asked. “Those protestors get thrown in prison, too? I’m sure the matching T-shirts will make up for it.”

Calladia elbowed him in the ribs for the sarcasm.

“Not if there are enough of them,” Themmie said, undeterred. “And not if we can figure out a decent defensive strategy.”

“If that means fighting, count the pack in,” Kai said. The other wolves cheered and pounded their fists on the table.

“I can help with magical defense,” Mariel said. “I’ve always wanted to see the demon plane anyway.”

Oz’s brow furrowed. “It will be dangerous.”

She pecked his cheek. “That’s why you’ll be with me to scare everyone off with your big, frowny face.”

“We also need high-profile allies.” Themmie looked at the two demonesses across the table. “If you would be willing to denounce Moloch’s bigotry and voice support of the hybrid community, it will sway some people.”

“Sounds chaotic,” Lilith said. “Fun!” She pulled a bone out of her hair and started gnawing on it.

“It will be complicated politically,” Sandranella said, drumming her fingers against the table. “The high council has always presented a united front. Publicly feuding with Moloch goes against precedence.”

“So because Moloch got his hateful message out first, he gets to be the only one speaking up?” Calladia asked. “If you don’t oppose him, you’re complicit in what he does.”

Sandranella pursed her lips. “True, but tradition . . .”

“Fuck tradition,” Astaroth said suddenly. “Calladia’s right. The demon plane has grown stagnant. We have a chance to change things.”

“If only you hadn’t conveniently forgotten your leverage over Moloch,” Oz said nastily. “Or is that part of your game? Fake amnesia, stir up unrest, then seize power once other people have taken care of him for you?”

“Hey!” Calladia straightened in her chair. “That’s not fair.”

“How would you know?” Oz asked. “I was mentored by him for centuries. The Astaroth I know is cold, calculating, and willing to do anything for advancement.”

Lilith beamed at Astaroth. “That’s my boy.”

Rather than looking pleased at his mother’s praise, Astaroth flinched.

“He’s not like that anymore,” Calladia said.

Oz scoffed. “He’s manipulating you, Calladia. Why can’t you see that?”

“I’m not manipulating her.” Astaroth’s fists were clenched on the table, and he’d still barely made eye contact with Oz. “And whatever I’ve done in the past doesn’t matter right now.”

“It matters to me!” Oz roared, shooting to his feet. “You trained me to suppress any soft emotions. You taught me how to torture, manipulate, and take advantage of humans. Now you claim to have suddenly changed?”

“I don’t expect you to understand.”

“I don’t expect anyone to understand,” Oz replied. “Because this amnesia scheme is obviously bullshit.”

“Oz,” Mariel said softly, touching his arm.

He looked down at her hand. A muscle in his jaw ticked. “It isn’t right,” he told her. “He can’t come back acting like some hero.”

“I’m not a hero.” Astaroth looked solemn and sad; even his shoulders were drooping. “I don’t remember what I did to you,” he said, his eyes fixing on Oz at last, “and I don’t expect you to forgive me, but if nothing else, think of this as a way to make amends. I could have come out as half human centuries ago, helped codify hybrid rights into law, but I didn’t because I was afraid to lose power. Now an entire group of people like me are in danger.” His lips twisted bitterly. “Hate me all you want. I’m still going to fight for this.”

Calladia’s chest ached for him. She squeezed his hand, wishing she could lend him strength.

Oz, Mariel, and Themmie clearly had no idea what to make of that. “He does seem a bit different,” Themmie said at last. “I mean, not that I saw much of him before Calladia punched him over a mountain.”

Mariel lightly brushed Oz’s forearm. “Sweetheart, I’m going to suggest something that you may think is a terrible idea.”

Oz looked down at her warily. “What?”

“I think the two of you should talk.”

“We are talking,” Oz said.

Mariel shook her head. “Not like this. Alone. Go hash some things out while we make plans for Themmie’s protest.”

“I don’t want to talk to him.”

“That hasn’t stopped you from shouting at me so far, has it?” Astaroth asked. Calladia lightly kicked him, and Astaroth exhaled and held up his hands. “All right, all right. We can talk.”

Oz glowered at Astaroth. “I don’t like this.” He took another look at Mariel’s pleading hazel eyes, then sighed. “Fine. Let’s go outside.”