Page 88 of Demon’s Snack

Vaerith’s voice rings from the dais, smooth and urgent enough for the crowd. “Stand back! Do not approach the hybrid!”

Syrenya’s warning lands in memory. Proof ritual.

I look up, meeting Vaerith’s gaze across the struggling creature in my grasp. He is not afraid. Not truly. His eyes gleam with the satisfaction of a man watching the story turn exactly where he pushed it.

My smile bares too many teeth.

“Problem,” I call, my voice rough with smoke, “is your demon’s still breathing.”

The crowd ripples.

Vaerith’s expression flickers.

Small. Fast. Real.

Isolde moves beside me, close enough that the bond steadies before the absorption can become a flood. She looks at the demon, then the pedestal, then the cracked runes under my boots. Her face hardens with visible understanding.

“This was bound inside the device,” she says, loud enough for the nearest witnesses.

Vaerith’s attendants freeze.

A clerk near the rail stops writing.

The demon shrieks again, fighting my grip, and I feel the exact instant its essence tries to burst outward into the crowd. I clamp harder, pulling the surge into myself before it can scatter. Power slams into my arm, bright and vicious, but Isolde steps closer and the bond catches the first violent edge before it can spread through me.

I force the demon’s essence into a narrow current that burns up my arm and into the cage of my ribs. My knees threaten to buckle beneath the impact. The runes beneath us flare hot enough to scorch the air, and the crowd gasps as the demon’s body thins in my grasp, black smoke tearing into gold-lit strands.

Isolde’s hand hovers inches from mine, her eyes fixed on my face with fierce concentration. I can feel her through the bond already, steady and sharp and fully aware of how close the surge rides beneath my skin.

“Controlled,” she says.

The word lands inside me like a hand closing around the monster’s leash.

I breathe once, deep and ragged, tasting ash, rain, blood, and her.

Then I pull the demon in before it can touch her.

12

ISOLDE

From inside the ritual circle, I watch Corin swallow a demon in front of half the district.

There is no polite language for it, no clean contract phrasing that can make the sight less terrifying. The creature’s body unravels in his grip strand by strand, black smoke and red-lit essence tearing loose from its shape and threading into his chest as if his ribs have opened around a furnace. The courtyard inhales all at once. Nobles, clerks, guards, servants, guild witnesses, humans crushed near the rear rails, every one of them draws the same sharp breath as Corin’s eyes flare molten gold and the runes under his boots scorch bright enough to paint his face in hellish light.

His horns stand fully visible now, black and curved above his brow, the failed glamour shivering around them like heat over stone. Blood darkens the tear across his shoulder where the demon’s claws struck him, but the wound is already steaming, already knitting too quickly for anyone nearby to mistake him for human. The absorbed essence hits him hard enough that his body rocks backward. He plants one boot against the inner line of the circle, shoulders drawn tight, one hand still raised where the demon had been and the other clamped over his sternum as if he can physically hold the surge in place.

The demon vanishes into him with a final shriek that rattles the ward posts.

For one horrible second, silence follows.

Then Vaerith speaks.

“You see?” His voice rises through the amplification runes, smooth, urgent, and triumphant beneath the tasteful horror he has arranged across his face. “Remain back. Do not approach it. You have witnessed the danger with your own eyes.”

It.

The word strikes through me so cleanly that my fingers curl around the strap of my ledger satchel.