Page 121 of The Devil's Canvas

I’m gone. And I have no intention of coming back.

Find the summoning.The words echo again, but they’re not spoken. Not really. Just a pulse in the back of my mind—louder now, as if the silence made room for it.

“I don’t know where it is,” I whisper, my voice more breath than sound. “I don’t know how.”

The journals.It’s not a voice, not in the traditional sense. But it answers. Soft. Steady. Like something ancient and patient that’s been watching me unravel, waiting for this exact moment.

My limbs scream when I move. Every part of me aches with the weight of nothing. But I push off the floor, staggering to my feet, half-hoping I collapse before I can go any farther.

But I don’t.

I cross the room, dragging myself toward the stacks of boxes still lined up by the front door. I never unpacked them. Couldn’t bear to.

Now, I tear them open like they’re filled with oxygen.

Not this one.

Not that one.

I dig through old canvases, shattered frames, journals stained with tears and paint and grief.

My hands land on something strange. A book I don’t recognize. It’s old. Bound in something that isn’t quite leather. It’s not mine. It's in a language I know I can't read, but yet I can. The book isn’t just old—it buzzes under my skin.

I flip through its pages, expecting nonsense. Gibberish. A metaphorical scream in ink. But it isn’t that. It’s a manual.

Summoning a Demon Without Knowing Their Name.

My heart skips. The letters feel alive on the page, like they’re watching me as I read.

The summoner must still provide an offering – blood, a personal sacrifice, or a deep emotional cost.

Instead of calling a specific demon, they invoke any entity willing to answer.

The summoning phrase must be general yet binding: “I call to the ones who walk between shadow and flame. Let one who would bargain step forth.”

My breath hitches.

No name. No control. Just… whoever hears me. And they will come. Something always comes.

The strongest, most interested demon will respond – but the summoner has no control over who appears.

A low-level demon may answer and demand a steep price.

A powerful demon may be insulted and punish the summoner for wasting their time.

Some demons will not bargain fairly and will take more than what was intended.

A chill spreads through my chest. Julian would never answer something like this. Not unless fate forced him to.

And it did.

He wasn’t supposed to get that call. But he did. Because the bond tugged the thread. Because fate doesn’t ask permission.

It brought us together when it shouldn’t have. And tore us apart the same way.

I may hold the Loom now. But fate has always known how to pull its own strings.

Before I can turn the page, it flips on its own.

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