“It's going to be okay," I told her, even though I was pretty sure we were all going to be skewered on L'Occhio silver daggers any minute now.”

“The costume is great," I said to Lysander, "but a crown? Really?"He glared at me, his black wings beating. I'd only been in his shop for thirty minutes, but I was pretty sure the guy already hated me. "It was my understanding that you were to go dressed as the goddess of witchcraft, and Hecate wears a crown.""It's not really a crown, Soph," Jenna offered from her spot on a nearby white satin settee. "It's more like a tiara." She had her chin in her hand, and there was practically a little black rain cloud over her head. We had taken Vix to the airport, so Jenna was Sulky McSulkerton.”

“She sounded so bright and businesslike that I wondered if I had hallucinated the part where she basically told us we were all going to die.”

“You're going to be okay," I said, but my voice was wavering and I was shaking. "It's probably not even that bad, and you're just being a big drama queen as usual.”

“So when you left Hex Hall after Holly died, that wasn't because you were the grief-stricken fiance. You were going to The Eye.""Yeah. I told them that I thought Elodie and her coven had raised a demon, so we decided I should get close to her,see what was really going on.""And you decided to get really close to her."He laughed softly. "I can't see you, but I have a feeling you're cute when you're jealous,Mercer."Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, "It's not jealousy you're hearing, it's digust. You dated a girl you didn't even like just to get information out of her."His laughter died, and his voice sounded weary when he said, "Trust me, a lot of my brothers have done much worse."There was so much I wanted to ask him, but it's not like we could sit out here all night passing the sharing stick or whatever.Time to cut to the chase."So did The Eye tell you to get all Mata Hari on me too?”

“Oh, come on, Sophie. Don't you get it? He's L'Occhio di Dio's ultimate weapon. They used him as a spy at Hecate for years, so what makes you think that's stopped now? This is probably just his new assignment, getting close to you so he can use you for information about the Council.""Actually, I was just going to use her for her body, but that's a good idea, too.”

“I told you, I suck at this. It's like any time I try to do a spell, it goes all big and scary and explodey...”