Being cooped up in my library felt good. Familiar. Having books underneath my fingers felt purposeful. Even if I was literally going through pages and pages of Demonology.

"Why is it so much easier to study now?" I asked when I realised I've gone through more today than in the past three months.

"Because your life depends on it." Morta, sitting in the middle, flipped the page.

I glanced at Amma, sitting on Morta's other side, "Is that why your grades are so perfect? You feel like your life depends on it?"

"Pretty much." Amma was leaned back, her hand now wrapped in her hoodie.

Her phone was in front of her, and she was staring at pictures of the little book she's found in the hidden parts of the library all those months ago. The one written in Daemon Tongue. Even having those words cross my mind felt eerie, like my body remembered the shudders that went down my spine that day. When the words rolled down my tongue.

Amma stood up and walked over to me, then put a blank piece of paper in front of me.

"Write it down."

"What?" I looked up.

"The spell you used to bring Leon back." Amma put the pen next to it as well. "The pronunciation."

Chills went down my spine, "Why?"

Her eyes widened, "Because I need more letters for the alphabet."

"You sure are taking this seriously." I murmured and took the pen. "How do I write it?"

"The way you've heard it. How... the demon pronounced it."

Fortunately for her, the word was engraved in my memory, and I still sometimes thought I heard its echo. Ashah-han. Revive.

"Why did you put a dash here?" Amma put her finger underneath the word.

"That's how I heard it. Like it's re-vive."

"Don't think in English."

"How am I supposed to think?" I raised my eyebrow.

"It could be two words." She stared at the paper. "Or it could indeed be a dash."

A second later, she hopped off, then returned with a phone. She put it on the table in front of me and scrolled through the photos. When she came to my father's spell, she pointed.

"There's no space between the letters." She scrolled further, to the book she stole from the library, "And there are spaces here between letters. Or maybe those are sentences. There seems to be no period. Or maybe the dash is a period-."

She scrolled back. Then back.

"Shit!" She cursed. "Jade, write it down."

I grabbed the pen, my gaze jumping to Morta's wide eyes.

"This." Amma pointed at the spell I used to bring Leon back. "Write it down."

I quickly scribbled the symbols underneath the word-

"Neatly! We don't know if the angle of the lines means something!"

"Okay, okay." I rewrote the symbols.

"Look." She scrolled back to the photos of the book, but I was already too confused to keep track. "I think this might be a dash. Since the As are the same as in the words the demon- Jade!"

"What?" I looked up.

"You need to be writing this down!"

"Okay, okay." I grabbed the pen, but I had no idea what she wanted.

"The dash, write the dash, then- Not the word dash! The dash!"

"Amma-"

"Fuck." She stomped away.

Morta and I exchanged a glance.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"No!" She shouted, and when she turned around, her eyes were watery. "I can't do anything! I can't write, I can't drive, I can barely wipe my own ass-"

Morta was out of the seat in a second, "Hey, It's o-"

"No, it's not." Amma's arms fell by her sides, and for the first time we could clearly see she was missing a limb. "I'm useless."

"Are you kidding me?" Morta scoffed. "You're more capable than the two of us combined."

"Oh, shut up." Amma let out a laugh, tears welling up in her eyes. "The only thing I'm good at is writing things down, and I can't do it anymore."

"Hey, Socrates thought written word was overrated anyway." Morta waved.

I frowned, "What?"

"Yeah, he thought people were gonna get dumber if they write things down."

"How do you know that?"

"Philosophy, Jade. I'm educated." Morta turned back to Amma. "Look, the point is you're not useless. You're the most useful thing we've got. And all the things you can't do now, you'll relearn."

Amma's lower lip quivered.

"Amma." I said gently. "It's all good. You don't have an arm, I don't have magic, and Morta has no motivation or ambition whatsoever. Together, we're almost an entire witch."

This made her laugh through the tears, "We're doomed."

Morta chuckled, "You said 'fuck' earlier."

"I think I deserve to swear every once in a while." Amma said. "Okay, can we try writing things down?"

"Yes, but remember-" I raised my finger. "I'm an idiot, you have to go slow."

Amma laughed again, "Fine, I'm sorry. I forgot I wasn't the one controlling your hand."

"Thank you."

"Do you have a blackboard in here?" Amma asked.

"Of course," I smiled and swore her eyes lit up.

Morta and I found the blackboard in the library and pulled it next to the window overlooking the forest, the same forest I've become terrified to venture in, even though I've spent my childhood roaming through it. Amma found the chalk and handed it to me. Then, she sat in the chair and began flipping through the phone.

"Okay, let's start with A. A vertical line with a dot on the right side of the top."

I wrote it on the blackboard.

"Then there's the 'sh' sound you wrote, but there only seems to be one symbol for the sound. The next in line is another A." Amma spoke to no one in particular, and I didn't know what to write, so I just put 'sh' on the board.

"Alright," She looked up from the phone, "Write the word in English."

I did. Ashah-han.

"Three As." Amma stood up, phone in hand. "Two Hs, the 'sh' sound and the N at the end."

"Okay." I murmured, not sure what to think.

"Write in in their letters" She gave me the phone.

I did, and made sure it was neat.

Her eyes darted across the board, "It looks orthographically transparent."

"What does that mean?" Morta jumped in.

"The relationship between phonemes and graphemes is direct, one-to-one." Amma faced Morta. "One sound is one letter. Except for the 'sh' sound."

I pointed at the line between two Hs, "And what's this?"

"That, ladies, is a dash." Amma took a step away from the blackboard.

Morta and I exchanged a glance.

"So, what does this mean?" I asked. "Is a demon trying to teach me its language?"

"Alphabet." She corrected. "You're a long way from even beginning to learn its language."

Unease crawled up my spine, settling in my shoulders.

"But why?"

"I don't know." Amma's gaze was set on the blackboard. "But one thing is certain. They are at least just as intelligent as humans."

An unnerved chuckle fell off my lips, "So, I'm not being haunted by a wild beast, I'm being haunted by a conniving clever creature that's trying to communicate with me. That's awesome."

"I mean, we kind of knew." Amma shrugged. "Leon is still intelligent."

"For an ape." Morta offered a tight smile.

I sighed, not wanting to steer the conversation in that direction, "Can we do more about this language?"

"I'll go through photos I have." Amma said. "Maybe I recognise something. But there's not much we can do without more letters."

She wanted me to communicate with a demon.

I raised my eyebrow, "We're getting rid of the demon."

"I know, I know." Her gaze fell on her hand.

"I think you should try to find out its name." Morta said suddenly, making Amma look up.

"That's not a bad idea." She said.

"Hello, demon, I'm Jade, and what do I call you?" I let out a brittle laugh, then almost choked on it, "I hope it doesn't answer me now."

"No, you have to know its name if you want to banish it." Morta lifted a book. "At least that's what centuries of knowledge tell us. Apparently."

I took a step closer, "How do I do that? There's no way it would tell me its name if that's what I need to get rid of it."

Morta lifted another book and grinned, "Demon nomenclature."

"Ugh, fuck my life." I murmured.

"I guess we should start with A..." Morta flipped the page when my phone rang, making us jump.

No one had called me in three months. This was way too many phone calls in two days. I took the phone out of my pocket. Thar.

I swallowed and answered, "Hello?"

"Are you still at school?"

It sounded like he was moving.

"No, I'm home."

It also felt weird talking to him.

"Is your dad there?"

"Uh, no."

My heartbeat picked up the pace.

"Can I come over? I need to talk to you."

"Sure." I quipped, gaze jumping between Amma and Morta. "But Amma and Morta are here."

"That's fine." Thar said. "Be there in ten."

"Okay."

He hung up.

"Thar is coming." I pursed my lips.

Morta threw herself in the green velvet armchair and laughed, "I can't believe you got the poor guy fired."

I took in a sharp breath.

"Wait, you got him fired?" Amma asked. "I think I need coffee."

"I didn't get him fired." I murmured. "He got fired because of me, kind of."

"Yeah, him and Jade got down and dirty when the ooze attacked the school." Morta wiggled her eyebrows.

Amma's mouth opened-

"My father poisoned him with a lust charm." I explained, simultaneously realising it was way worse when explained. "And he kissed me. So my father used that to fire him."

Amma's gaze kept jumping between Morta and me, "Where was I when this happened?"

"Off somewhere being useful." Morta chuckled. "Unlike Jade."

"Hey, I figured out what was going on fairly quickly." I frowned. "I could have slept with him. You would have all died if Thar had stayed in that room half an hour longer."

"Thank you?" Morta raised her eyebrow.

"Have you talked to him about it?" Amma asked. "Thar, I mean."

"Of course not." My frown deepened. "I haven't begun to unpack it."

"What are we going to tell him?" Morta asked. "About the demon language?"

"I don't know." I mumbled. "Nothing?"

"He's never happy when we tell him nothing." Amma said.

"Yeah, well, he's not happy when we tell him something either." I shrugged.

"That's true." Amma murmured. "I'm not comfortable with the number of secrets we're keeping from him, though."

"Me neither." I glanced at the blackboard, wishing he would for once understand that what I needed from him was understanding, not reprimand.