Chapter 19
My magic is what wakes me.
Because it’s pissed.
It doesn’t stir gently or hum with quiet awareness.
It claws, reaching outward in quick, irritated pulses, searching for something it’s used to finding.
It hits open air and keeps reaching anyway, as if sheer stubbornness might drag the missing piece back into place.
The absence registers like pressure behind my ribs, like a limb that has fallen asleep and refuses to wake.
I open my eyes.
For a moment, I don’t recognize where I am.
The ceiling arches higher than I remember, draped in the gauzy white fabrics my mother insisted on hanging when I was a child—long panels that shift softly in the breeze from the open windows.
Sunlight pours through them in warm gold ribbons, the light diffused until everything looks softened, unreal.
Peaceful in a way that feels deeply offensive.
Because my magic is still searching, still reaching, and still not finding him.
I sit up too quickly, the motion pulling at half-healed muscle.
My body remembers the fight in flashes—Belvedere destroying my body on the pavement, the force of his magic crushing the air from my lungs, Jonah collapsing beside me—but the pain itself is distant, dulled by whatever restorative work my family must have done.
My childhood bedroom. I am in my childhood bedroom in the Magdangal house. The realization lands like a betrayal. I reach for my phone on the side table and check it for something I know I’m not going to find.
The door opens in front of me.
My mother steps inside, already dressed, already composed, her posture as straight and immovable as it has been every day of my life. Alunsina Magdangal does not look like a woman who nearly lost a daughter. She looks like a woman who has won a war. “You’re awake,” she says.
The question tears out of me: “Where’s Jonah?”
My mother pauses. “Who?” The word is a punch in the gut.
I stare at her. “Jonah.”
Her face remains smooth, untroubled. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
The void inside my magic widens. My hands curl into the sheets. “The half-demon. He was fighting Belvedere. He was with me.”
Understanding flickers across her expression, faint and clinical.
“The demon,” she says. Not Jonah. Just demon.
“I have no idea. But I want to commend you,” my mother continues, tossing Jonah aside and commenting as if we are discussing a successful academic presentation.
“Your decision to engage Belvedere showed courage and fortitude. And preparation. Your notes were thorough. Your brothers gathered the tribunal’s younger generation exactly as you instructed. ”
“What happened,” I cut in, “after I passed out?”
“Belvedere was defeated.” The words do nothing to soothe me. “We used much of your preparation,” she continues. “Your containment geometries along with your layered binding symbols. Your father recognized your notations immediately. We went to prepare reinforcements.”
Images flash behind my eyes—chalk lines on my apartment floor, maps taped to hardwood, hours spent refining escape routes and civilian corridors while Jonah worked alongside me.
“My brothers?” I ask.
“They and the others held him as long as they could,” my mother replies.
“Barely. Belvedere’s age made him exceptionally difficult to destabilize.
But when the heads of the five families arrived, we ended it.
” Ended. Finished. Solved. A mere inconvenient problem.
“I also want to thank you,” she adds, the words sounding foreign coming from her mouth.
I look at her sharply. “For what?”
“For your willingness to sacrifice yourself,” she says simply.
“Your actions ensured Belvedere could be contained.” She pauses, as if choosing the least uncomfortable way to display true empathy.
“For almost dying,” she says finally, then the word seems to catch in her throat and she corrects, stiffly, “for us.”
“No,” I say, immediate and absolute. “It wasn’t for you.”
Her brow creases slightly.
“I did it for my demon.”
She recoils. “Your demon?”
“And his name is Jonah. It’s a name you should be thanking, too.”
“He was a demon,” she spits.
“He is—” My magic spasms.
My mother’s jaw ticks once. “What is happening,” she says, voice low, “and why do you keep speaking about this demon as if—”
“Because he is,” I snap. “And because you’re not listening.” My chest heaves and I have to force a breath. “He asked me a question that I didn’t know how to answer. He asked me what my magic does.”
Her eyes narrow, impatient.
“And I realized,” I continue, “that no one has ever asked me that before. Not really. They’ve only ever told me what it should do.” I push the blankets aside and stand. My legs tremble, but they hold.
She watches me with growing disapproval. “You should be resting.”
“I have a forte,” I say instead.
Her posture stills.
I meet her eyes. “It surfaced.”
Silence stretches between us.
“When?” she asks.
I swallow. “Ten years ago.”
Her expression shifts, subtle but unmistakable. “And you’re only telling me this now?” she asks.
“Because I didn’t understand it,” I reply.
“I thought it was hesitation. Weakness, even, because of you. I thought it meant I was failing.” I can still feel the resistance of that blade.
Still hear Tasha’s voice breaking against my circle.
“It isn’t,” I continue. “It’s the manifestation of my forte. ”
My mother’s eyes sharpen.
“I can feel what a demon intends to do,” I say. “Not how powerful it is. Not how old it is. What it intends to do, and whether those intentions are good or bad, helpful or harmful.”
She says nothing.
“Gabriel can feel it too,” I add quietly.
My mother’s jaw tightens. “Intent is irrelevant.”
“No,” I say, and my voice doesn’t shake. “It isn’t.”
She steps forward. “Mayari—”
“You killed demons who weren’t going to harm anyone,” I say. “Families. Children.” The accusation hangs between us, raw and undeniable.
Her expression hardens into a defensive shield. “You are emotional,” she says. “You are injured—”
“I am correct,” I interrupt harshly. The words surprise both of us, but my magic hums beneath my skin, steady and certain.
“Jonah isn’t like Belvedere,” I say. “My magic knows the difference. I know the difference. And you need to be thanking him for defeating Belvedere and protecting mankind, too.”
My mother stares at me as if she’s trying to reconcile the daughter she raised with the one standing in front of her.
“You will call Tribunal,” I tell her. “You owe me this. After my—after our sacrifice—” I sneer the words, “—it’s the least you can do.”
“Tribunal is not convened lightly.”
“This changes everything,” I say. “Every slayer family needs to know. We don’t just sense demons. We can read them. We can choose. Jonah was fighting Belvedere, protecting the soup kitchen from him. He di—” my throat closes up before I can say it. “Is that not proof enough?”
Her silence stretches.
I hold her gaze.
Finally, she inclines her head once. “I will convene Tribunal,” she concedes.
Relief crashes through me, sharp yet fleeting. “Good,” I manage to reply.
She watches me for another moment. “Where are you going?”
“The soup kitchen.”
“Why?”
Because Belvedere didn’t operate alone. Because demons like him leave wreckage behind.
Because Jonah is gone, and the place he protected is vulnerable.
Because my magic is still searching for him, and it hasn’t found him yet.
“Because it needs protecting,” I tell her instead, and it’s the truth.
I brush past her before she can stop me.
Outside in the hallway, I nearly collide with Gabriel. He’s leaning against the wall across from my bedroom door, arms folded, the posture casual in a way that fools no one who grew up with him. He’s been waiting. His eyes sharpen the second he sees me upright. “You’re awake.”
My throat feels raw, as if I’ve been screaming for hours. Maybe I was. “What happened to him?”
Gabriel exhales through his nose, slow and measured, deciding how much truth I can survive. “We brought him to New York-Presbyterian,” he says. My brain struggles to connect the dots, but then he adds, “Tasha Greene’s ER.”
My hand moves before I think about it. The smack against the side of his head echoes down the hallway. He barely flinches, just closes his eyes briefly like he expected it.
“Mayari—”
“Was he alive?”
Gabriel hesitates. That hesitation opens a pit inside my chest. “He had a hole through his stomach, Mayari,” he says carefully. “Not in. Through.”
“Gabriel.” My voice cracks, splintering around his name. “Was. He. Alive.”
He studies me for a long moment, something softening behind his eyes, something that looks dangerously like pity. Then he nods once. “Barely.”
Barely is not dead. Barely still breathes. Barely still fights. Barely means we may both still exist in this world together.
Alive.
That is all I need.
I run.