God had graced Hiram Montgomery Reinhart with a life of privilege. He had come into the world as the son of a wealthy planter in southern Georgia. He had chosen to give that away, and though he would not have admitted it, he spent a lot of time regretting that decision. He did not regret freeing the slaves or ending the fighting ring, and he certainly didn’t regret buying his niece back from the monster to whom his father had sold her.

He missed the warm weather.

He missed his soft bed and the rich food that Susan had prepared.

He missed having nice things.

In Georgia, he’d had a lot of nice things. A full wardrobe of fine clothes, a feather mattress, and a four-poster bed. He’d eaten off fine China with polished silver. Every luxury paid for in human flesh.

In his new life, luxuries were more than limited; they practically didn’t exist. What he did have, he’d bought with coin he’d worked to earn.

Ellen, a girl of six, sat with Hannah, her mother, and Cassie, her grandmother, at the table. She played with her only doll as the two women mended clothes. They all worked, the women doing what domestic work they could find and Hiram selling his services as a mage.

On the plantation, Ellen would have worked, too. Chores all day. She would have cared for Hiram’s children, her own cousins, if Hiram had ever married. Here, she didn’t worry about things like that.

Hiram didn’t want her to work.

He felt bad even making her sit down for reading lessons when she didn’t want to do them. Sometimes, he made her, but most of the time, he agreed to let her play a little longer or consented to read her a story instead. She would follow along as he read; sometimes she even giggled when he did voices.

He felt he had to do voices. His mother had always done voices.

He wondered if anyone would remember his birthday. He would be twenty-six on August seventh, which was this coming Friday. It was a greedy thought, but for more than two decades, his birthday had been marked with lavish gifts and a large party where his father hosted other planters, their poised wives and pretty daughters, their haughty sons.

Someone knocked on the door.

Hannah opened it but stepped back just as quickly and said, “Hiram, someone for you.” More quietly, she warned, “He stink of magic.”

Hannah did not trust mages, as a rule. Hiram did not blame her, considering the way magic had been used at Fall’s Hill.

He went to the door, looked over the man, who must have been about ten years his senior, and asked, “Mr…Blackwell, correct?”

“You traffic with demons,” Blackwell said.

Hiram balked, his eyes widening. The crispness of the statement startled him.

“Everyone knows it.”

“Um. Perhaps you should come inside so that we might speak privately,” Hiram suggested.

The man stepped inside, glancing at the other three. He was not as tall as Hiram, most people weren’t, but he was broader-framed, with pale skin and slate gray eyes.

“It is Blackwell, is it not?” Hiram asked.

“Mathew Blackwell,” the man said. “You’re Hiram Reinhart. You traffic with demons.”

Hiram cleared his throat and checked the urge to run his hands through his curls. “I wouldn’t say I traffic with them, but there are some unnatural creatures that I have gotten to know.”

“I require your assistance in finding one.”

“I…uh.”

“Or give me the book you use to summon and bind them,” the man said. “Your presence is of no consequence.”

“Ellen, come on into the other room,” Cassie said to her granddaughter. She stood and headed toward the kitchen.

Ellen looked at her grandmother for a moment. Hiram thought she might refuse, but she took her doll and walked away.

Hannah followed them.

“Come sit,” Hiram said, gesturing to the now-vacated table. “We can talk.”

“There is not much to talk about.”

Hiram went to the table.

Blackwell followed him.

They sat across from each other, and Hiram folded his hands on the table, hoping it would disguise his nervousness. He did not know Blackwell as anything more than an acquaintance. He disliked that he had developed a reputation for dealing with unsavory beings. Not that Hiram found inhuman creatures unsavory, by and large, but most people did.

“Who told you that you should seek my help?” Hiram asked.

“Your name came up,” Blackwell replied.

“That’s vague.”

“Julian Candace,” Blackwell said tiredly.

“Oh.”

“He says he’s seen you with some horned creature. Some blue monster. That points towards fey or demons and given your family’s reputation, I feel safe betting on demons.”

“That was only once, and I’ve been warned against doing it again,” Hiram said. “Besides, he’s not the kind of demon you summon to have unpleasant things done.”

“I already know the creature I’m looking for. I need help finding it. And you can summon them. Your help or the book, I’m not leaving without one of them.”

Hiram did not manage to keep his hand from running through his hair this time, sending the brown locks astray from their careful arrangement. “Why?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters a lot. All sorts of things can be done if you have a creature bound to your will. There’s a reason it’s a closely guarded spell.”

“I don’t want to bind one,” Blackwell stated. “I want to kill one.”

Hiram did not know what to say.

“It took my wife. I’ll see the thing ended.”

Scrambling for time, Hiram asked, “Which demon do you seek? Give me a name.”

“I don’t need your permission—”

“No, but you do need something I have.” Hiram sat up straighter.

“It calls itself Phaedrus.”

Hiram said, “I’ll look into it and contact you with my decision.”

“That’s not acceptable.”

Hiram stood, straightened his waistcoat, and went over to the door. He opened it and asked, “Is there a way that’s best to contact you?”

“I am not leaving without that for which I brought myself to this…place.” Gray eyes swept over the room. His lip curled.

“May I remind you that this place is my home, and if you’re refusing to leave, I wouldn’t be remiss in using force to get you to do so,” Hiram said, trying to keep his voice even. Trying to sound like his father.

Blackwell stood but did not move towards the door.

Hiram, out of the corner of his eye, caught Ellen’s small, brown face peering out from the doorway between the main room and the kitchen.

Blackwell remained where he was.

Hiram began to whisper a spell, calling up power to twist around the other mage.

“Stop!” the man called, stepping towards Hiram. “I will be back tomorrow, and you’ll help me then, whatever you decide.”

Hiram opened the door wider.

Blackwell pushed through it.

Hiram closed it behind him and closed his eyes. He leaned against the door and took a breath.

“Uncle?” Ellen asked.

“Yes, dear?” he asked, turning to face her.

“Is he going to hurt us?”

“No,” Hiram said. “Don’t worry.”

She nodded.

Hiram expected that she would worry anyway.

“Nanny says you shouldn’t deal with those sorts.”

“Don’t worry, Ellie,” he said, “We’ll be all right.”

“Are you sure?”

“I will keep you safe,” he said.

She regarded him with dark eyes that shone like bits of obsidian, then turned away and went back to her mother’s side. She still did not trust him, and he could not blame her; he was sure she only called him Uncle because he had asked her to.

She had been very young before her father’s death, and Hiram had not been much involved in her life until it had fallen on him to return her to her family. After that, she had been sent away with Cassie and Hannah to wait for him. He wondered if the three of them had been happier without him.

He went to kneel beside her. He put a hand on her shoulder, so small and fragile beneath his palm. “I will always do whatever it takes to keep you safe. I promise.”

She nodded.

“Don’t I keep my promises?”

“Sometimes.”

He laughed. “What promises don’t I keep?”

“You said I could have a friend to keep Dolly company.”

He grinned. “Have you ever been told that patience is a virtue?”

“No.”

“I’m very sure I said it to you last week.”

She wrinkled her nose.

He gave her shoulder the gentlest of squeezes. “You may say I broke my promise if I don’t deliver by Christmas. Is that fair?”

“That’s fair,” her grandmother answered for her.

Hiram stood. He scanned the room until his eyes settled on his jacket. He almost always put it somewhere different. He retrieved it from where he’d placed it and pulled it on.

When he opened the door, Cassie asked, “Where you headed?”

“I’m going to speak to a friend. I hope to be back soon.”

She nodded.

He set down the road and made several turns, out of the area where he lived and toward the nicer part of Pickering where Julian lived. If Hiram had lived alone, he could have lived in this part of town as well, as Julian was not a better mage than he was.

Even if he had passed off the women as servants instead of family, they would have been able to secure better housing, but that was not the choice he’d made.

He knocked on Julian’s door, and his sister, a woman a few years younger than Hiram, answered. She smiled when she saw him and said, “Oh, Mr. Reinhart, what surprise. I’m sure my brother will be so glad that you’ve called. Please come in.”

“Thank you, Miss Candace,” he said as he entered.

“I’ll go get him.”

Julian could usually be found in his study. He worked hard, taking on extra jobs and projects. Hiram doubted he needed to do it to survive, but Julian liked to keep his family comfortable.

Hiram waited just inside the door.

Julian entered, tidy and well-dressed, without his sister, and said, “Come in, don’t be a stranger.”

Hiram took a few steps further in.

Julian gestured for him to follow. The other man led Hiram to his study, where they sat and Julian asked, “What can I do for you, Hiram?”

Hiram’s initial instinct, as it always was when speaking to Julian, was to say something kind. He liked Julian a lot, more than he should have, and had to remind himself not to act like a girl who wanted to be courted.

“You’ve given someone my name,” Hiram said.

“I did. Perhaps it wasn’t my place, but I assumed that with so many mouths to feed, you wouldn’t balk at extra work,” answered the blond mage.

“I’d rather not have it spread that I deal with demons.”

“You do deal with demons, Hiram,” Julian said practically.

“June is the only one I know personally, and he is not that sort of demon.”

Julian rolled his eyes, beautiful honey-colored eyes, and said, “Fallen angels or Devil’s spawn, they are all the same sort of demon. Monsters.”

Hiram shook his head but did not argue. It did his reputation no good to defend the kindness of unholy creatures.

“One demon is more than most mages of our level know anyway,” Julian said. “I thought you would be the man for the job.”

Hiram sighed.

“What?” Julian asked. “I didn’t think you’d be this upset. I didn’t think you’d be upset at all, truth be told.”

“Blackwell…he’s very insistent that I either help him kill this creature or turn over my books so that he can do it alone.”

“Kill it?” Julian asked, his brow knitting. “He said he wanted to find it.”

“I don’t like to kill things, Julian. It sits poorly with me.”

“Have you killed someone?” Julian asked.

“Things, Julian. And it sat poorly.”

“And I don’t imagine you’d turn over your books?”

“They have been in my family since before the Americas were settled by Europeans. I’m not handing them over to anyone.”

“You’re going to tell him you won’t help,” Julian guessed.

“Yes.”

“And you think he’ll take your answer poorly.”

“Yes. He came to my home.”

Julian tapped the table. He thought for a while, then advised, “Send a note, tell him to meet you somewhere public. I’ll come with you. I know Mathew rather well. He should listen to me.”

“Thank you, Julian. I owe you a favor.”

“If you want to do me a favor, you can marry my sister,” Julian said.

Hiram felt his face grow hot and knew he had blushed. “What?”

“Cora just ended her third engagement. Father would never have stood for it, but she’s got Mother wrapped around her finger. She’s love-struck for a few months, engaged for a week, and then suddenly she can’t stand him anymore. Driving me mad. And it isn’t good for her reputation.”

“I don’t see how you think she’d treat me any different.”

“Oh, I don’t. I was joking. You take everything so seriously, Hiram.”

He blushed again.

Julian smiled. “It’s one of the things I like about you. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. You understand what it means to be responsible for something, not like the others.”

“Others?” Hiram asked.

“You know, the other mages our age. Frivolous and silly, more concerned with showing off.”

Hiram nodded.

“And Mother is always asking me when I’m going to marry Angeline, as though I don’t have a hard enough time saving for that and supporting her and Cora,” Julian said, then immediately looked reticent. “I shouldn’t complain about all this.”

Hiram shifted. “I imagine that’s a burden.”

“You’re doing it right, Hiram, waiting. I don’t know what everyone’s hurry is.”

Hiram almost laughed at the idea that he was waiting to be engaged to anyone.

“Anyway, tomorrow. Set the meeting for one, let’s say. Come get me before you go,” Julian said.

Hiram nodded. “Thank you again.”