Item from Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco
The most dangerous tool in a witch's arsenal — a blood-drawn circle of symbols that tears a hole between worlds and calls a demon prince to your threshold.
A summoning circle is witch magic at its most primal and most reckless — a direct line from the mortal world to the Seven Circles of Hell, powered by blood and intention and sheer audacity. The process is technically simple: draw the symbols, speak the invocation, offer the blood. The consequences are anything but simple. When Emilia draws a summoning circle to call a demon prince who can help her find her sister's killer, she gets Wrath — and in doing so, triggers a cascade of events that rewrites reality. The circle is not just a tool but a contract: by summoning a prince, the witch enters a relationship of mutual obligation that cannot be broken by mortal means. The blood used to draw the circle becomes a bond, and the demon who answers is bound to respond — but the nature of that response is entirely up to them.
A circle drawn on stone or earth in the witch's own blood, inscribed with symbols from a language older than Latin. The circle glows faintly when activated — a lavender-silver light that pulses like a heartbeat. The symbols shift and rearrange themselves depending on which prince is being summoned, as if the circle itself is a living equation solving for a specific demon.
Also known as: blood circle, witch circle, the summoning