(Full SFW Episode)

--!!Mature/Graphic Content Warning!!--

The wards burned blue fire across the private room, freezing Varik's claws mid-swipe and Dante's teeth bared inches from his throat. Cassian's quill hung suspended above the page, ink dripping in slow, arrested beads. Even Elias was stilled at his post, golden eyes fixed on nothing.

Only two moved.

Elara, palms pressed flat against the bar, breath steady despite the strain thrumming through every wardline she commanded. The Tooth's veins of iron and salt sang with her will, and for a moment the bar wasn't wood and stone at all but bone, sinew, a living body she held upright.

Then there was Malachi.

He strolled causally past the frozen table like smoke slipping between bars, lazy, deliberate. His grin gleamed hotter in the blue light as he plucked a glass from the counter, turning it idly in his hand. "My, my," he murmured, voice velvet over ash. "Even kings and dons look so small when the rules are real."

He tipped the glass toward Dante's fangs, then toward Varik's claws, savoring their impotent fury. "Sharp teeth and sharper tongues—and yet here you are, like dolls strung on a witch's thread."

Elara shot him a glare, sharp enough to cut, but the wards thrummed steadier under her hands with his presence pacing the fire. Devil or not, he was part of the circuit now, and the bar held because of it.

Malachi winked at her over the rim of the glass. "Don't scowl, love. They needed reminding. Neutral ground isn't just a story you tell.."

(Flashback)

Elara Keene was born in the back room of The Tooth, her mother cursing and sweating on the same cot where the Lantern Walk girls sometimes slept off a shift. The story went that her father barely noticed until the crying cut through the bar's din and one of the regulars shoved him toward the door.

Her mother never stayed long after that. A Lantern Walker couldn't—her life was the street, the coins pressed into her palm, and the bruises half-hidden under rouge. She'd sweep in once a month smelling of spice and powder, humming old songs, leaving little trinkets on the mantle: glass beads, scraps of ribbon, a cracked charm etched with symbols Elara only half understood. Then she'd be gone again, swallowed by the Walk.

Her father was steadier, but not much better. A man with fists scarred from too many fights, temper quick as fire, and debts that always outpaced his coin. But the bar was his pride. The Tooth stood crooked and worn on the corner where the ley-lines tangled, its wood soaked in a century of spilled liquor and whispered deals. He told her once it was older than Ashgrave itself, older than the cobbles outside. "This place has teeth, girl. Don't forget that."

By the time Elara was twelve, she knew how to sweep floors, pour ale without spilling, and set broken noses with ice from the cellar. By sixteen, she'd memorized half the runes scratched into her mother's old charms, testing them against the ley hum beneath the bar's floor. Sometimes they worked. Sometimes they fizzled. Sometimes they burned her fingertips raw.

When she was eighteen, her father didn't come home from a card game. They found him knifed in an alley two streets over, pockets turned out, the winnings gone. Elara cleaned the blood off his coat herself, scrubbing until her hands ached. The Tooth became hers that night—not by choice, not by inheritance, but because no one else claimed it.

But the city smelled the blood before it dried.

Within a week, the wolves were at her door, muttering about debts her father hadn't paid. The Cabal sent a runner, all silk and sneer, asking what price she put on keeping her roof intact. Even the Watch came sniffing, not to protect, but to remind her that protection had a cost.

Elara tried to fight them off with grit and her mother's charms. She stitched wards into the window frames, etched sigils into the lintel, fed blood to the ley-lines under the cellar floor. They hummed under her palms, alive but restless, never strong enough to hold against the weight pressing in from every side.

By the time the first window shattered—a wolf's stone through her glass—she knew she was losing.

As Elara knelt on the cellar floor, knees pressed to the cold stone, palms slick with blood she'd cut from her own hand. The wards etched into the wood above had failed three times that week—wolves testing the door, Cabal coins left on the counter like threats. She'd patched what she could, stitched charms into corners, but the ley-lines running under the bar thrummed restless and hungry, their hum vibrating through her bones.

She was out of time. Out of coin. Out of strength.

Her father's old knife lay beside her, blade blackened from the blood she'd already fed into the sigils chalked on the stone. Her mother's cracked charm glimmered faint in the lanternlight, beads strung like a spine across her altar of crates. She whispered words half-stolen from grimoires she'd scavenged, half-woven from instinct.

"By blood and line, by tooth and chain, by shadow bound beneath the earth—come."

The ley hum deepened. The lantern flame guttered, shadows stretching long across the cellar walls until they seemed to crawl. The air pressed thick in her lungs, a weight like the city itself leaning closer.

Her breath stuttered. She thought of her mother's laugh, of her father's scarred hands, of Iris's grin tugging her braid when she dared step into the Walk without her around. All of it pressed sharp against her ribs as the sigils burned.

The shadows thickened—then the lights flicker, just once.

And a figure stood behind the bar. Not crawling from smoke or clawing from the ground. He was simply there, as though the Tooth had always known him. Tall, coat draped loose across broad shoulders, hair rumpled like he'd just risen from a lover's bed. His grin cut white in the lanternlight as he reached for a bottle, pouring amber into a glass as easily as if he owned the place himself.

"You don't mind, do you?" His voice slid smooth, velvet laced with smoke. He lifted the glass in a mock toast, eyes gleaming gold as the shadows leaned toward him. "It's been centuries since I've stepped foot on this mortal plane. And I do love whiskey." He took a long swallow, the grin sharpening as the glass hit wood with a soft clink. "They call it the Devil's drink for a reason, after all."

Elara froze at the base of the stairs, blood dripping slowly from her hand on to the ground beside her feet. The wards hummed wild under her skin, caught between terror and recognition.

She had called. And the devil had come.

Every book she'd stolen, every half-burned grimoire she'd pieced together whispered that rituals like hers failed more often than not. That demons lied, that bargains meant ruin, that summoning was suicide. She'd told herself she was prepared for failure, even for death.

But not for this.

Not for the man—no, the thing—lounging behind her father's bar as though it had been waiting centuries just for her. His coat hung open, his shirt undone at the throat, the gleam in his eyes not just gold but molten, alive. Shadows bent toward him like lovers leaning close.

"You're staring," he murmured, swirling the glass, grin curling sharper. "Not that I mind. Mortals usually do."

Her throat scraped dry. "You're real."

He tilted his head, mock-solemn. "And here I thought the whiskey gave me away."

The wards in her blood thrummed, terrified and entranced both. Elara gripped her bleeding hand against her apron, pulse hammering so hard she thought it might shake the sigils apart. "I... called you."

"You did." He set the glass down, slow, deliberate, as though savoring her realization. "And I answered."

It had been centuries since he'd felt it.

The raw snap of tether pulling taut, not to chains, not to contracts, but to a soul. Her soul. Young, raw, iron-spined and already half-wild with grief—but the thread was there, burning red and gold under her skin. The first flare of a bond.

His grin almost faltered. Almost.

Poly-soul bonds. Old knowledge, buried with the last age of blood and fire. He hadn't thought he'd taste one again. Witch, wolf, vampire, fae, devil—the five threads that bound worlds steady. He'd thought them myths by the time his name was written in curses and prayers alike.

But here she stood, hands shaking and eyes too sharp for her years, and the wards themselves hummed around her like they knew too. His grin curled slow again, hiding the jolt in his chest. If she knew—if she even suspected—she'd run screaming into the night. Best to keep that part tucked. "Now," he drawled, leaning against the bar like it was his throne, "what shall we call this little arrangement? You've got blood on your hands, fear in your bones, and debt snapping at your heels. You summoned a devil, girl. That means you want something."

Her breath hitched, but she lifted her chin. Brave. Foolish. Beautiful. "I want my father's bar. My bar, to be safe."

The words landed heavy, more vow than plea. The wards hummed at her back as if they approved, or as if they were waiting for the devil's answer.

Malachi leaned across the bar, golden eyes gleaming in the lamplight. "Safe," he repeated, savoring the word like smoke on his tongue. "A delicate thing in a city that chews through bones faster than it spits them out."

Elara's nails dug into her palm, blood drying sticky against her skin. "You can do it. That's what the books said. Devils can seal spaces, twist the rules of the city to hold it at bay."

He chuckled low, a sound that curled around her like heat. "Careful, little witch. Summonings usually end with souls in jars, not polite requests for renovation."

Her jaw clenched. "You're already drinking my whiskey. The least you can do is listen."

That startled a laugh out of him—sharp, delighted. "Oh, you'll be fun." He tipped his glass toward her, amber catching the flame. "Very well. Tell me what you're offering. Because I assure you, love, nothing's free."

Elara's stomach turned, but she stood straighter. "My blood's already on the sigils. My word with it. You'll have my bond."

His grin sharpened. "A contract, then. Safety for this crumbling little bar in exchange for your bond."

"Not just the bar." Her voice rose, steadier now, fueled by the weight of her fear. "Neutral ground. If the wolves come sniffing, if the Cabal comes with their silk smiles, if the Watch wants to drag me into the gutter—it stops here. The Tooth stays standing. My word on it. My bond."

Malachi's gaze flared, hungry. The wards trembled under her words, as if they knew she was cutting something binding into the air.

"Neutral ground," he murmured. "Mm... such a bold witch. Bolder than anyone's ever dared to be." He finished the last of his whiskey in one swallow, set the glass down with a clink, and smiled like he already had her soul bottled. "So be it. Your bar will stand. Your Neutral ground will hold. But your bond is mine."

Her pulse stumbled. "Define 'bond.'"

His laugh was smoke and fire both. "Oh, you'll learn, love. You'll learn." The wards thrummed hard, sealing around her words like iron closing a lock. Then his grin curved slow, wicked as sin. The wards hummed, faint but incomplete, like a circuit not quite closed.

Malachi's grin spread slow, wicked as the first spark of a match. "Ah. Then you'll need to seal it." He leaned in across the bar, golden eyes burning hotter. "There's only one way to make the wards bite for me as well as you."

Her heart stuttered. "A kiss."

"Exactly." His voice dripped velvet and sin. "Blood and breath both. Devils deal in nothing less."

Elara's pulse thundered. "That wasn't in any of my notes."

"Of course it wasn't. Notes teach rules. Devils thrive on loopholes."

For a moment, silence pressed like the weight of fog. Her mind screamed trap, but the wards under her palms hummed higher, aching for completion. She could feel it—this was how the ritual wanted to end.

So she leaned across the bar, jaw set, eyes locked on his.

Their lips met—brief, deliberate, nothing more than the press of skin.

But the wards flared. Light tore through the bar, sigils burning bright on wood and stone before sinking deep, binding themselves in ways she hadn't thought possible. The air hummed sharp and alive, like the whole building had taken its first breath.

Elara staggered back, gasping. The wards thrummed steady under her palms, strong as steel. Safe. She'd done it.

And yet—her chest ached, her skin still tingled where his mouth had touched hers.

She pressed the feeling down, hard. She was eighteen, barely a witch, stumbling through self-taught spells and desperation rituals. Of course she'd be stupid enough to flush over a devil with golden eyes and a smile like sin. Anyone would.

That's all it is, she told herself, forcing her gaze away from him, from the way his grin curved sharper, almost knowing. Just a crush and foolishness. Something she could ignore if she stayed busy enough.

Malachi leaned lazily against the bar, sleeves rolled, watching her with that grin that looked carved from temptation itself. "Well then, love," he purred, voice silk and smoke, "shall we open our doors?"

Elara straightened, spine stiff, ignoring the heat in her cheeks. "We'll keep them open. For everyone. And you stay behind the bar and never leave it."

His laugh rolled low, delighted. "As you wish."

But when her back was turned, the devil's grin lingered, sharper still.