“What do you think?” Ivy asked.

She, Virian, and Rose were standing in Virian’s chambers shortly after Ivy had—sort of—forgiven Virian. Well, they were standing, at least. Ivy might not make it through the night without being sick and opted for a seat on the bed. Still drunk, and soaked to the bone, she felt absolutely awful. Virian gave her a strange look, and she wasn’t sure if he wanted to wrap her up in a blanket or boot her dripping self off of his bed. Or neither. His mood was just as likely to be more influenced by what she had just said.

Rose, for her part, had let her mask slip when Ivy had presented her plan. The old witch had nearly jumped for joy, an insane smile on her face. How long had she been waiting for Ivy to propose such a thing? Whatever.

“It could work,” Rose said, struggling to contain a grin.

“Wait,” Virian said, “this is crazy!”

“It’s better than death,” Ivy said, “probably.”

His expression darkened.

“We’re talking about giving my sister to a demon!”

“That is not how it works,” Rose said, “I was bonded with one for nearly two hundred years.”

Virian ran both hands through his hair, then fell beside Ivy on his bed.

“Okay, then tell me,” he said.

“I would love to recount two centuries of history for you, but if I remember correctly, Camellia is near death?”

It was almost comical, seeing Rose like this. So…impatient. Ivy wasn’t sure she had seen such a thing before. She put a hand on Virian’s shoulder, who looked like he might explode.

“A little eager, don’t you think, Rose?” Ivy asked. “Do you imagine yourself being next?”

The ancient witch frowned, the smoothness of her previously burned cheek on full display. Just a taste of a demon’s power had seemed to get to her head. Ivy had not seen her grieve for as much as a second for her supposed lover.

“We serve as something like an anchor for them,” Rose said, “they need us to manifest in our world. And from those I have known, they love it here.”

But that didn’t make sense. The demon who led the siege in Atrican was more grounded outside the witch world.

“I didn’t see a witch with Algramath,” Ivy said.

“He is different. We do not know why or even how.”

Virian stood again, beginning to pace around the cabin.

“So, Ivy,” he said, not stopping his path around the room, “when you disappear, you go to the demon realm? And you can go find one of them?”

She shrugged.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“They really make you guys stronger?”

“Yes,” Rose said, “and assuming Ivy finds one, they will not harm your sister. Especially with us nearby.” Us? Rose really thought she was going to be a part of this. “Ivy, in particular, they would not dare to offend.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean? Not only was it a load of crap—the two she had met so far had no issue “offending” her—but it made Ivy sound somehow related to the monsters.

“Rose,” she said, “remember our deal.”

With a long sigh, Rose also joined Ivy and Virian, sitting on Ivy’s other side.

“Please do not panic,” Rose said.

Ivy couldn’t help but laugh.

“This is starting off great.” She also felt Virian shift on his position against her.

“You are the first of your kind to be born since Queen Calanthe over two thousand years ago.”

“My…kind?”

Another deep breath from Rose. And then she stood, placing as much distance between herself and Ivy as possible.

“All of us—witches that is—have some of their blood, or maybe essence flowing within us.” Demon ancestry. Okay, great. Ivy didn’t quite believe something like the monster beneath the cathedral could ever procreate with a human, but sure, Rose. Wait. Algramath though…he had been beautiful. Suddenly, her heart was hammering in her chest. “None more so than Calanthe…or you, Ivy.”

Ivy was on her feet in an instant, Virian right there with her.

“Just say it, Rose,” she said.

“We do not know how their essence passes down through the generations. Some, like myself, inherit a great deal of their power. Other powerful witches give birth to normal humans.” Ivy thought of the Rhune queen and her figurehead of a regent sitting on the throne. “It is a hard thing to measure. But with you, I believe there is only one conclusion.”

Ivy’s hands balled into fists, her nails digging gouges into her palms. She knew what was coming but opened her mouth to ask anyway.

“Which is?” Virian beat her to the punch. Oh, shit. What was he going to think, now? How would he react to sleeping with a demon?

Rose pretended that Ivy had asked, keeping her gaze on her.

“You are a half-breed. Able to walk freely in their world, or ours. Not only are you kin to them, but the key that allows them to experience everything our world can offer. They have a name for you.”

“Ll’qixllin,” Ivy said. The demonic language would have felt strange speaking it for the first time, but she found herself numb, the strange word coming out hollow. “Witch queen.”

“A bastardized translation,” Rose said, “literally, qixllin is more akin to something like: ‘of us.’ Ll’qixllin—”

“Half of us,” Ivy said. Just as it had many times before, the meaning of the words came to her through pure instinct. She fell back against the sheets. “I’m literally a monster.” She let out a cruel laugh, quickly devolving into a mad cackle. “It fits. Of course it does.”

“Ivy,” Virian said, reaching out to her. She batted his hand away.

“I’m fine with it. I should have known. How could I not? Everything makes so much more sense now. Fine. Let’s go find some of my—” she laughed again, “—family, so we can heal yours.”

She called on her power.

“Well, she didn’t kill me,” Rose said.

Virian just stood there, staring down at his bed where Ivy had been just a second ago. He still wasn’t sure he believed everything he just heard. He needed time to process it, but for now, Cammy came first. He got to his feet, pushing past Rose, and throwing open the door to his cabin. A second later he had already crossed the hall to Cammy’s room and yanked it open with similar force. There was no one inside.

Ivy cut the distance between her and the shore in a single slash, crossing hundreds of miles of ocean in a single step. She scanned the chaos of the witch world around her before, before letting go of her power. A half-conscious Camellia collapsed at her feet in a heap. She blinked a couple of times before Ivy crouched down at her side.

“H-huh? Ivy?”

“We’re going to get you healed,” Ivy said.

“Wha—”

“Yeah, time to bind a demon to your soul or something. But don’t worry, he won’t hurt you because we’re cousins!”

Ivy laughed as she had in Virian’s cabin, much to the dying girl’s alarm.

“W-what!?”

Ivy reached down and placed her bracelet against Camellia’s frail, thin arm.

“Close your eyes,” she said, before pulling them back into the witch world. She chose a direction and distance at random, taking a look at her unsheathed blade. Serathil. Both Rose and the demon Algramath had called it that. Apparently, there was some history there, but at the moment Ivy couldn’t care less. She swung, cutting away the space between where they were and their destination. She didn’t bother dispelling her power, just spun in a circle, searching for anything that resembled the dark, impenetrable eyes of a demon. Finding nothing, she moved again. And again. Every time she found nothing but kept repeating the process without end. Camellia was far too weak to stop her, barely having enough strength to mumble the occasional question that Ivy didn’t bother answering.

Hours passed before Ivy rested. These days the well of her strength felt almost bottomless. The witch world around her fueled her more than the stored power living inside her. Dormant energy saturated the air and every time she chose a new location to move to, it was drawn to her without even trying to take it in. The will of the world caressed her, and though her movements seemed random at first, once again she could sense its guiding hand directing her.

But at this point, her legs felt heavy and the muscles in her right arm burned from swinging her dagger all day. She was more just exhausted in general as opposed to magically drained. She finally exited the witch world to find herself in the middle of a barren, red-orange wasteland. The sun rested high in the sky, illuminating the all-encompassing nothingness. Ivy crouched over the unconscious Camellia. The two of them were the only thing visible in any direction. Except for the cracked, dry dirt, of course.

This must be what the kingdom called “the borderlands.” The church supposedly kept this place in check, suppressing a full-scale demonic invasion. Even Armond had said something about the place. That weaker demonic creatures roamed the area. It appeared none of that was true. The land was nothing more than an empty expanse that served a convenient lie. Or maybe the demons had simply lost the war as the witches had all those years ago. With the demons all dead, the paladins only had people like her left to kill.

With a long sigh, Ivy called on her power one last time just in case, spun in a full circle, and…found something. What the hell? Off in the distance, something disturbed the otherwise uniform pattern of lines that made up the borderlands. A tiny little blip, nearly imperceivable to her augmented senses in the twisted world. It was as far off as she could see, which could mean anything in the witch world, but no wonder she hadn’t seen it before with how tired she was.

Well, what did she have to lose? One more go before she fell asleep, and Camellia likely died. She sliced the distance between her and the unknown location, arriving in an instant. Immediately, the hairs on her body stood on end. The temperature where they had landed was many times colder than it had been moments ago. Directly ahead stood a construct that held its shape in the witch world, unmoving or perturbed by the transient nature of the witch world’s constant writhing magic. It teemed with bottled-up power, shining a brilliant white against the muted grays around it. And at its heart sat a darkness that no light could touch.

It felt like Ivy’s heart was in her throat, her stomach on the ground. Suddenly finding exactly what she had been looking for, she wasn’t sure what to do. Not to mention whatever housed the creature. Should she talk to it? It was a place to start, she guessed.

“Ahn Nerod,” she said, then froze before bringing her free left hand up to cover her mouth. What the? She had tried to say, “Hey, demon,” but it had come out all wrong. Or maybe, right? She had spoken in their language, as though it were natural. She dropped her hand and tried again, only for it to come out the same. The feeling was odd yet seemed to calm her down.

The darkness stirred at the center of the enchanted structure.

“Na gtshosh. Gtyerik na ftghah iok.” Just as when the strange language came out of her mouth, her mind translated the demon’s words without her effort. “A voice. Such a sweet one.” Its voice was deep and smooth like Algramath, yet softer. She continued to hear his rambling as though he wasn’t speaking an alien language, “Am I dreaming again?”

“If you are, wake up,” Ivy said. The words came out in the demonic tongue again, but she paid it no mind. She had more important things to worry about.

The puddle of darkness shifted again, revealing two dots within itself, somehow darker than the rest. Its eyes stared directly at her.

“Ah, so it is a dream then. How many times has an Ll’qixllin come to me in my madness? Tell me, illusion of my broken self. How many times have you come?”

“Shut up and come out of there,” Ivy said.

“Ah, how bad it must be when my own delusions disobey me.” His dark form swirled within the scintillating magic formation, ending in a crash against its confines. “Alas, I cannot do as you ask.”

“This,” Ivy waved a hand at the glowing structure, “is your prison?” She utilized what little knowledge she had, “Did Calanthe put you here?”

“I do not know of this ‘Calanthe’, but yes. The combined might of an age confined me here for a crime that was no crime.”

Ivy was almost afraid to ask.

“What did you do?”

“I killed them all.” Oh, great. The answer was vague, but she had an idea who the "them" was. So Rose was full of shit, once again. Why else would ancient witches who enjoyed the strength of the demons spend so much power to lock one away? “But don’t worry. As a figment of my imagination, you are quite safe.”

“And if I’m not?” she asked but didn’t wait for an answer.

She let go of her power, falling back into the normal world. The wasteland unfolded around her no different from what she had seen before with one small exception. A few paces from where she hovered over Camellia, a square foot of etched dark metal interrupted the arid soil. Pure, enchanted alaricite. Just like Serathil. Carved along its surface were dozens of concentric circles and lines with letters of a script she didn’t understand.

“What the hell did I stumble upon?” she asked the air. With a glance down at Camellia, she swore. The girl’s pale complexion was getting worse by the minute, and her breathing was ragged and broken. There was only so much time left. Ivy paced around the strange prison of the demon, her emotions battling against her logical mind. If she didn’t try, would she ever forgive herself? Would Virian? Yet the monster contained within could be worse than Algramath for all she knew. It didn’t know Calanthe, which meant it was either lying or from an even more ancient time.

She recognized a foreign presence in her head before it spoke.

Wait, are you real? It didn’t hurt like all the times before. When you disappeared, I thought my mind had pushed you away. But I can still feel you out there. Tell me, please. Are you real?

Ivy reentered the witch world and the ambient power around her pushed the creature out of her mind.

“I need your help,” she said before she could think better of it. Worse than that, she slashed with Serathil, and the distance between her and the demon became nothing. The blob of darkness, once confined in its radiant prison, now loomed less than a pace before her. She could only hope it would be grateful to her more than anything else. So far it hadn’t threatened her like the other demons she had met and had been almost pleasant. It had gone so far as to admit the cause of its punishment. Although it did believe it was talking to itself for most of the time.

“It’s impossible,” the creature said, “a thousand qixllin burned away their souls to forge my bonds. Not even a daughter of the First Traveler could destroy it so easily.”

Ivy wasn’t sure whether she wanted to know more or never recall its words again. The demon implied it knew something about her…father. Yet that still was something she hadn’t quite accepted herself. Besides, she had more pressing concerns at the moment.

“I didn’t destroy anything,” she said. The creature's two pits for eyes spun to the rear of its gaseous form, inspecting the still intact prison. “Now bond or merge or whatever the hell it is your kind does with this woman here.”

The demon’s regard returned to Ivy, and then to Camellia.

“This qixllin hangs on by less than a thread. Corruption thrives throughout her body. The First Traveler’s essence flows within her, but it is not nearly potent enough.”

“That’s why you’re here, save her, or I put you back where you came from.”

The demon’s cold, black eyes pierced her once again, and a chill ran over her body. It would fight to the death before it allowed such a thing. But an instant later the feeling was gone, its gaze back on Camellia.

“I’m still not convinced this isn’t a delusion,” the demon said, “so why not?”

Ivy let out a breath—as well as her power—and sat back against the dry earth. Hovering in the air a few feet off the ground, a cloud of black smoke floated in the open air. It looked basically the same as it had in the witch world: a formless cloud with two spots of coalesced darkness for eyes.

She shook Camellia, slapping her face a few times softly, and then another ten times with increasing force. Eventually, the dying witch’s eyelids fluttered open. She opened her mouth, but Ivy held up a hand.

“Just listen,” Ivy said, “if you want to live, you must do something insane. You have to let this demon in.” She pointed at the floating black cloud. Camellia’s eyes followed her finger, but surprisingly barely reacted to what she saw. Maybe like the demon, she also thought everything was in her head. “Just go along with what it wants, okay?” Camellia weakly nodded.

The demon floated closer to them, its form elongated and shifting into a humanoid shape, though still made purely of smoke. It kneeled opposite Ivy.

“Do you accept my Bond, qixllin?”

The barely conscious Camellia looked to Ivy first, who nodded, and then to the gaseous form of the demon.

“Y-yes?” she said.

“The Bond is forged.”

The demon’s humanoid shape twisted and floated directly above Camellia, and then fell into her, vanishing. At first, nothing happened. She didn’t convulse or shake or react at all to the foreign being merging with her. But after a few minutes, the changes started to show. Color began to return to her skin. Her breathing steadied. Ten minutes in, her torso shot upright as she gasped for air. Her eyes opened, shifting erratically, taking in everything around her.

Yet Ivy only sat there, staring, a pit growing in her stomach. It lasted less than an instant, but she had seen it. When Camellia had opened her eyes, there had been nothing there. Nothing. Only two pits of pure darkness.