Sapphire Flames

Chapter 15

I sat on the opulent sofa in Linus’ Houston mansion and watched him scrutinize my video testimony.

After the opera, Linus and I drove here. He reviewed the recording of Cristal, told me I did well, then interrogated me about it. I wanted to run and find Alessandro. I wanted to kill Benedict. I wanted to search for Cristal’s lab so I could rescue Halle. Instead, I had to patiently recount everything that happened, several times over. Once I was done answering questions, Linus instructed me to write an account of what happened, which he then spent half an hour editing, then he had me recite the statement in front of the camera. He wasn’t satisfied with my first try, so I’d had to do it again. And again. He was reviewing attempt number three now.

“What happens now?” I asked.

“We wait for authorization. Once granted, we will dismantle House Ferrer until someone tells us where the lab is.”

“How long will that take?”

“Does he mean so much to you?” Linus asked.

He was asking about Alessandro. “It’s not just him. Halle’s life is on the line.”

Linus pivoted to me in his chair. “That’s not what I asked.”

“He means something.”

“Why him instead of all the others?”

“What others?”

“You’ve had opportunities, Catalina. I’ve watched you come in contact with several young men in the past three years. Four months ago, at the Mercier Exhibit, Justin Pine followed you around like a tail for the entire hour you were there. He is also handsome, wealthy, and a Prime.”

I’d barely noticed. I only attended because Arrosa wanted someone to go with her and Nevada couldn’t disentangle herself.

“Alessandro Sagredo is dangerous. You could do better. Is it a teenager crush?”

Linus waited.

“I like him,” I said. It seemed completely inadequate to describe what I felt. “He’s immune to me.”

Linus leaned forward, his face serious. “When I was asked to witness the birth of your House, I researched your talent.”

How exactly had he done that? I was the only siren in existence. There was another family somewhere in Greece, but they claimed to have lost the magic generations ago.

“Have you ever wondered why your family is immune?”

“They already love me.”

“Exactly. Your talent is a survival mechanism, like all magic. It seeks to keep you alive. It activates when it senses someone is a threat. Think back to your childhood. Some adults succumbed to your magic, but others didn’t. Do you understand me? Any man who truly falls in love with you and is invested in your survival will be immune. Alessandro isn’t your only chance at happiness.”

“Even if that’s true, I still like him.”

“Why?”

I spread my arms. “I don’t know. Half of the time I’m with him, he makes me grind my teeth. But I know that if I were in danger, he wouldn’t stop until I was safe. He looks at me like I’m beautiful. And he makes me laugh.”

Linus put his hand over his face. “God help us all.”

What did I say now?

He waved his hand. “Go. Go save Halle and help that young idiot. I’ll have the car ready for you.”

The little dog stirred on my bed and let out a quiet woof. I opened my eyes. My bedroom was dark, gloom pooling in the corners. The clock on my nightstand said 3:21 a.m. All was quiet.

When I’d gotten home, everyone had swarmed me. I’d kept the explanation short, omitting anything to do with the Osiris serum. I’d told them that Cristal was doing illegal research to make super assassins for Diatheke. They’d bought it, probably because it was mostly true. I told them about Benedict. We made plans for tonight with Heart. We had to get the location of that lab no matter the cost. Every minute we delayed, Halle was in danger.

Alessandro hadn’t responded to my text messages. I asked Bug to track him down, but he couldn’t find him. I scoured Cristal’s background and her family, looking for any scrap of information about the location of the lab until the words on the screen blurred. Finally, I went up to my room and collapsed. That was two hours ago.

Shadow looked at the window. Woof.

Woof.

An intruder was coming.

I sat up, scooped Shadow into my arms, and carried her to the bathroom. I set her on the floor and shut the door. I didn’t want her to get hurt.

A long-clawed hand hooked my window and slid it up.

I leaned against the wall in the corner.

A dark figure slipped through the open window and into my room. Tall and gangly, he wore a black bodysuit painted with swirls of grey. It clung to him like second skin, highlighting every imperfection of his odd, disjointed body. His shoulders and thighs were too short, while his forearms and shins ran disproportionately long, ending in huge clawed hands and feet. His neck, long and flexible, supported a round head, and as he crawled through my window, he swiveled it like an owl to glance back at the street.

He stepped on the floor and straightened, a bogeyman born from childhood nightmares.

I held very still.

He turned, scanning the room, and the moonlight caught his eyes, big and white, reflecting the light with an eerie green glow.

In the bathroom, Shadow broke down into a cacophony of barks and snarls, digging at the door.

He pivoted to the bathroom door. Step. Another step.

Another.

Far enough. I stepped into the soap circle on the floor and sank my magic into it. The arcane lines ignited with sapphire flames in a complex, dazzling array. The assassin froze, startled, his face clear in the glow of the glyphs. Bald, with thick glossy skin mottled with a patina of green, brown, and orange, like the carapace of some strange beetle, he didn’t look even remotely human. The typical contours of a man’s face, the cheekbones, the nose ridge, the brow, were thickened, as if someone had injected fat under his skin in all the wrong places. The nose had no tip, reduced to a broad, flattened bulge. His chin receded, almost delicate by comparison. The eyes, unnaturally large, stretched toward his ears. Only the mouth was somewhat normal.

Revulsion slithered through me. The urge to flee was so strong, I almost took a step back. I couldn’t even tell if it was his magic or just intense xenophobia, triggered by encountering a thing humanlike but not human enough.

Benedict had sent his butcher. He must’ve given up on taking me alive.

The lines around the assassin pulsed with yellow. The feedback jolted me. He’d struck at me and the circle dispersed it. A wave of emotion washed over me, disgust, hate, and anger, and underneath it all, a sucking vortex of bloodlust. The circle had lobbed his feelings at me. There was no way around this feedback.

The assassin leaped to the side. The circle pulsed in response, and he landed back where he started.

I had designed the circle by modifying an Acubens Exemplar spell to incapacitate an intruder, no matter what brand of magic he or she wielded. It was an all-purpose trap created to contain and interrogate. From above it looked like a large circle filled with a maze of lines and glyphs, with a double circle inside it at one end. Five smaller circles, each filled with progressively smaller rings, touched the outer rim of the main circle.

I stood within the smaller double circle, while the assassin was trapped in the larger ring. The complex pattern around the butcher imprisoned him. He couldn’t attack me. He couldn’t leave the circle either. His own magic interacting with the boundary held him back. However, he could still attempt to strike at the circle itself, and when he did, his magic would surge through the lines and run off into the five smaller magic sinks.

The assassin crouched on all fours, looking around. The circle fluoresced brighter under his feet. His big, misshapen eyes found me. “Die.”

A bright yellow flash exploded from him and ran through the lines of the circle. The five magic sinks spun, absorbing it and became still.

“Die. Die, die, die.”

Each burst sent a fresh spike of fury and hate through me. I waited until the sinks stopped spinning. I had all the time in the world.

The assassin stared at me. “Release me.”

“Tell me your name.”

“Release me or I’ll eat your family.”

That’s what I liked about warped assassins. They were reasonable, pleasant people. Such deep thinkers.

“Tell me your name.”

“I’ll kill you and eat your guts while you scream.”

“Not in that order, you won’t.”

He charged my circle, clawing at it, his mouth gaping, his small, sharp teeth trying to scrape at the wall of magic. We were barely six inches apart, yet we might as well have been on different continents.

Outside, the emergency streetlamps came on.

The assassin had worn himself out and crouched on the floor again.

“You’re here because I let you come here,” I told him. “I told the soldiers outside to stay out of your way. I knew Benedict would send you or someone like you. I hoped he would come himself, but he doesn’t like to get his hands dirty, does he?”

The assassin bared his teeth. “Whore.”

“Answer my questions and it will hurt less.”

The assassin grinned. “You sound like him.”

“But I’m not him. I didn’t look for you. I didn’t force you into the circle. You came here to kill me, my friends, and my family. You are a murderer.”

“Self-righteous bitch.”

He had retained more IQ points than Lawrence. He had a good vocabulary, and his reasoning ran deeper than the summoner’s “Kill that bitch because my bugs are hungry.” Explained why this one didn’t have a handler.

I raised my arms and concentrated. The circle around me began to spin, sending hair-thin chalk lines spiraling through the larger ring. The lines collided with the pattern around the warped, forming a new design in the circle’s matrix.

The assassin swiveled his head side to side, trying to keep track.

I sank a burst of power into the circle. The magic shot through the new lines like a spark running down a detonation cord. The assassin’s mind flared before me, a bright hot target. I zeroed in on it and struck.

With the right circle, even a weak mental mage could put pressure onto the target’s mind, and I was not weak.

The assassin shrieked. I gripped his consciousness with my power and squeezed.

To be beguiled, a person had to be capable of love, and no matter how deep that spark was buried, my magic would coax it into a bonfire. This inhuman creature was knitted from deep-seated hatred, and rage, and contempt for humans. For all of his regression, Lawrence had loved his swarm. The butcher loved nothing. Guilt, fear, or doubt never troubled him, and regret wasn’t a concept he understood. I couldn’t wrench him open by pulling one of the usual levers present in a human mind. He had none. His will was an impenetrable shell and his inhumanity gave him an extra layer of protection.

I wasn’t at my strongest. I was tired, but I didn’t need to beguile him. I just had to squeeze his mind open. The circle would do most of the work and it didn’t ask for anything complicated. It required raw power, so I reached deep inside myself and found some.

In the ring, the killer raged. Yellow radiance drenched the lines, saturating them. The magic sinks spun, siphoning it off. He had an insane reservoir of magic. His loathing battered me, wave after wave, relentless, his mind churning with rage. Wading through it was like trying to swim through waves carrying razor-sharp rocks. My emotional defenses shook. I gritted my teeth and squeezed him harder.

The two sinks closest to the butcher turned yellow, then orange, saturated to the brink. A normal mage would have stopped out of sheer self-preservation. Spending too much magic too quickly taxed the body, and if a mage exhausted all of their reserves, they lost consciousness. Some never woke up. But he had no capacity for self-preservation. He pounded and pounded against the circle, trying to shatter it, driven by pure rage.

The tide of psychic hatred drowned me. I could no longer keep my head above the water. His emotions coursed through me, threatening to tear me apart. My own reserves were running dry.

A faint crack appeared in the assassin’s will. Fear of being trapped and helpless. Finally.

Another magic sink turned orange and stopped spinning.

I gripped at the edges of the crack with my will and pushed.

The fourth sink froze. We were down to one.

He howled, throwing all of his power against the circle in a frenzied barrage.

The final magic sink stopped, saturated. The tide of his emotions swallowed me whole and I hung suspended, no longer sure where I ended and his fury began.

I couldn’t quit now. Runa deserved answers. Her brother deserved answers. Halle deserved a life. I would give them that.

The first two sinks collapsed. Magic tore out in twin geysers. My room cracked like a broken mirror. Chunks of wall and window hung motionless for a tortured moment and exploded outward. The roof vanished and the stars stared down at us, cold and indifferent. The entire wall facing the street collapsed. I glimpsed people running below.

The crack in the butcher’s mind widened. I could almost sense the creature beneath, a hateful, evil ball of spite.

The third sink burst. The floor under us fell apart. We hung in mid-air, held up by the power of the circle alone. In the bathroom, still safe behind the door, Shadow howled.

He would not win. He crawled into innocent people’s houses in the night and he murdered and took them from their beds. He would not take anyone else. He would not kill another mother, another daughter or sister. I would not let him.

I tore myself open and fed the last of my magic into the circle. His will cracked open like a walnut. Darkness clutched at the corners of my eyes. I fought it off and stared at the assassin cowering in the middle of the circle.

“Tell me your name.”

“Louie Graham.”

“Did you kill Sigourney Etterson?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because Benedict De Lacy ordered it.”

“Did you kidnap Halle Etterson?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you take her?”

“To Diatheke.”

“Where is she now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where is the lab where Cristal made you?”

“I don’t know.”

Damn it. He truly didn’t know.

This was why I had let him in. That was all I wanted, and I wouldn’t get it. Damn it!

“Do you know that what you did was wrong?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you keep doing it? Did you ever think about leaving? Running away?”

He raised his head to look at me. “Why? Benedict doesn’t force me to do things. He lets me do things. I like to kill. I like to feed. I would kill you if I could and I would enjoy it.”

That was it. There was nothing more to ask. I pulled my power out of the circle. The last remaining sink—the fourth one must have shattered while I interrogated him—vomited magic to the sky. The circle faded slowly, collapsing. We fell to the ground, softly at first, then faster. I landed in a blanket stretched under me. The people who held it gently lowered me to the ground.

Louie crashed on the hard pavement ten yards from me. A ring of people surrounded us, Heart’s soldiers, Mom, Grandma Frida, Arabella . . . The familiar faces were turning fuzzy. I’d overextended.

Someone pushed through the crowd and walked over to Louie. Red hair—Runa.

“You killed my mother,” she told him.

Louie bared his teeth at her. Magic lashed from him, but the butcher had nothing left. His strike cut Runa’s cheek. She touched the cut, looked at the red staining her fingers, and smiled.

I would remember that smile till the day I died.

Deep green magic flared like a glowing ribbon between Runa’s bloody fingers. It snaked out and kissed Louie’s cheek.

The assassin screamed.

I sat on the curb, wrapped in a blanket and drinking a cup of hot tea, Shadow curled by my feet chewing on a stick. Arabella had found my phone among the rubble and brought it to me. A big crack split the screen, but miraculously the phone still worked. Alessandro still hadn’t replied to any of my messages.

The warehouse was wrecked. The entire corner where my room used to be and everything under it was gone, as if a giant had looked at the warehouse from above, decided it was cake, and carved himself out a piece. I could see straight into our house. Heart’s soldiers had declared it unsafe and made us stay back fifty feet.

To the right, across the street, Bern stood with a despondent look on his face gazing at the collapsed floor between him and the Hut of Evil inside. We had no idea if any of our servers survived. On his left, Bug tentatively touched his shoulder, the way you would do to comfort someone at a funeral. On his right Runa was talking. I couldn’t make it out, but I understood her expression. It’s not that bad. I’m sure it will be fine, you’ll see.

It would not be fine. Before all of our modifications and insulation, the warehouse was a single steel building. The integrity of the structure was likely compromised. The electric wires, the pipes, and the walls themselves looked neatly cut. A stream had formed on our street, where water had fountained out of the severed pipes before someone shut it off.

Our water bill is going to be huge.

I didn’t know why, but that thought almost pushed me over the edge. If I had any strength left, I would have cried, Head of the House or no, but I was too tired.

Where would we find the money to repair this? Where would we live? Theoretically, we could split up and move into other buildings we owned, but the warehouse had been our home and now it was gone.

A chunk of the roof the size of a garage moaned with a metallic screech and plunged to the street.

I couldn’t even. I wasn’t sure I could ever even again.

On the bright side, we had no insurance to pay for any of this.

I had gambled everything on finding Halle and I lost. I was so sure that Benedict would send another warped assassin after me and it seemed so logical that they would know where they had been altered. I was wrong.

Mom came over and sat next to me.

“I destroyed the house,” I told her.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You tried to save a child. We all went along with it. Nobody could have anticipated this.”

My cell rang. I looked at it. Nevada.

“Hello?”

“Hi! How’s everything?”

Next to me, Mom shook her head, her eyes really big.

“Everything is great,” I lied. “We’re doing great. The warehouse is great.”

“Umm, Catalina?”

Another chunk of the roof collapsed. “We’re having a thunderstorm.” It was good her magic didn’t work over the phone.

“Okay,” Nevada said. She wasn’t buying a word of what I was selling. “I have big news.”

“Oh good. Mom is here. I’ll put you on speaker.” I pushed the icon. “Go.”

“I’m pregnant!”

I raised my voice. “Hey everybody, Nevada is pregnant.”

Everybody made cheering noises.

“Catalina,” Nevada said. “I can hear water running. I can tell by the sound that you’re outside. If it’s raining, why are all of you outside in the storm?”

“Love you, got to go.” I hung up.

A van pulled up to the curb. Shadow dashed toward it, barking. The windows rolled down and four heads stuck out, one human and blond, and the other three belonging to boxer dogs.

Cornelius stared at the warehouse. “What did I miss?”

I’d laugh, but again, no strength left.

Mom and I looked at the warehouse some more.

“Sorry,” I said.

“It will be okay,” Mom said. “It was time to let it go, anyway.”

Runa looked at her phone and jerked it to her ear, her eyes wild. “No! Don’t do it, please don’t do it!”

Oh, what the hell now?

Runa hurled the phone to the ground, then dived down, grabbed it, turned, and ran to us.

Mom and I looked at her. Arabella dropped what she was doing and sprinted over to us.

“It’s Ragnar.” Tears wet Runa’s eyes. “He just walked into Diatheke.”

“Why?” The word fell out of me.

“He said that he was done surviving. He couldn’t let them hurt anybody else.” Desperation skewed her face. “I need a car. A fast one.”

“I’ve got you,” Arabella said.

“I’m coming with you,” I said.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” Arabella looked at everyone around us. “Can we have some privacy?”

“I’ll meet you at your car.” Runa spun on her foot and walked away.

Arabella crouched by me. “You’re in charge and if you order me, I’ll take you. But you’re tapped out. You can’t even stand. My car sits four. I’ll take Runa, Leon, and Mom.”

She was right. I hated it but she was right. Every second counted, and they needed to pack as much firepower as they could into four seats.

“Go,” I said. “I’ll come with the second wave.”

She hugged me and took off at a run. Mom followed her.

My phone rang again. Alessandro. Alive. Oh my God, he was alive. Relief drowned me.

“Are you okay?” I whispered.

“Yes,” he said. “Are you?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t get Benedict.” Frustration sharpened his voice. “I’ll be at the warehouse in half an hour.”

“I won’t be here. Ragnar just attacked Diatheke. We’re going to get him.”

“What the hell is he doing?” Alessandro snarled.

“Trying to kill everyone by himself.”

“I’ll get him. I’m closer.”

“Don’t! It’s suicide.”

He growled something fast in Italian and hung up.

Ten minutes later I strapped myself into the safety harness inside Heart’s APC. Next to me Bug fiddled with a tablet, his hand flying over the onscreen keyboard.

The APC rumbled and lurched forward. All around me Heart’s soldiers rode, their faces relaxed.

Bug thrust the tablet in front of me. On it, Alessandro walked into Diatheke.

What the hell was he doing? My heart squeezed itself into a tight, painful ball in my chest. Please, please let it be okay. Let it all be okay.

The sound of gunfire emanated from the building on the tablet, tearing the silence. Everyone looked at us.

“That’s all I got,” Bug said.

The doors of Diatheke were gone. Glass shards littered the sidewalk. The metal grate hung crumpled to one side. Heart’s people streamed into the building past me. I wanted to run, but walking was the best I could manage, and the two bodyguards Heart assigned to me refused to move faster.

Bodies sprawled in the lobby, two men and a woman. Black fuzz sheathed the corpses. Runa or Ragnar had been through here.

A soldier waited by the elevator. He swiped a bloody keycard and the doors swung open. “Your mother and sister are on the top floor,” he said. “Leon is sweeping the building with a team.”

We stepped into the cabin and the elevator carried us up. I couldn’t even worry anymore. I was just numb.

The elevator opened to the aftermath of a slaughter. Bodies lay on the expensive carpet, some slashed, some shot, others sprouting the same black fuzz from downstairs. The door to Benedict’s office had exploded and broken shards protruded from the walls. Inside, the butchery continued. Blood soaked the carpet. Corpses stared with unseeing eyes as we passed. Priceless art lay discarded like trash, ripped from the walls.

We turned into the Ottoman room. The massive rug had disappeared. The remnants of an arcane circle smoked, etched into the floor. To the right, my mother slumped in a chair, Arabella kneeling by her. To the left, Runa wrapped her arms around a sobbing Ragnar. Blood drenched him from head to toe, dripping from his hair and clothes.

A heap of clothes smoked slightly in the center of the circle. I had seen this before. Someone had used an arcane circle to teleport out. Unless the teleporting mage was a Prime, teleporting killed almost as many people as it transported safely. It was a desperate last resort, it required a high-caliber teleport mage, and it couldn’t transport anything inorganic. When someone teleported a human, clothes, breast implants, and pacemakers stayed behind.

Mom saw me.

“Is anybody hurt?”

“No,” she said. “This wasn’t us. The place was like this when we got here. The boy and Alessandro turned this place into a graveyard.”

Panic punched me. “Where is he?”

Mom shook her head.

What does that mean?

“Is he dead?” Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God . . .

“He saved me,” Ragnar said through his sobs.

“Where is he?” I barked.

“They teleported him.” Arabella stood up. “They contained Ragnar and were going to take him to the lab, and then Alessandro showed up and murdered everyone in the damn building. When he broke into this room, the teleport mage panicked and teleported herself and Alessandro out.”

The teleport circle took forever to set up and it corresponded to a marker at the destination. You couldn’t just change the arrival point on the fly.

I turned to Ragnar. “Were they going to teleport you?”

“Yes.”

The teleporter had to point to the lab. If Alessandro survived, he would arrive naked, dazed, and without weapons. He had already taken on a building full of killers. He had to be near his limit.

We had no time. We had to find the lab now.

If they tried to magic warp him . . .

I shoved that thought aside. “Ragnar, did they say where the lab was?”

“No. I’m sorry, this is all my fault . . .”

I tuned him out, scouring my memories. There had to be something, something I heard, something I saw, something that would point me in the direction of that damn lab.

Going to Linus was out of the question. He told me to wait. I didn’t wait. I would have to answer for that. There was no way to predict how he would react.

Benedict would know. Benedict—

It hit me like a freight train. I spun to Arabella. “I need you to drive me.”

She didn’t ask where. She jumped to her feet and followed me to the elevator.

“You are out of your mind,” Arabella said.

The Shenandoah State Correctional Facility, nicknamed the Spa, rose in front of us. About an hour and a half north of Houston, the Spa knew it was a prison, but it really wanted to be a luxury resort. Wrapped in a picturesque stone wall ten feet high, it was built in the style of the Spanish masonry star forts, a four-story-high pentagon with bastions at the corners of the walls. A luxurious park occupied the space between the wall and the citadel, complete with a track, a driving range, and a tennis court. As we drove past the guard at the gate to the main parking lot, elderly people on the track waved at us.

When the Texas magical elite chose to serve time, they did it at the Spa. The residents were predominantly older, not necessarily nonviolent, but shrewd enough to recognize that spending a few months at the Spa for their transgressions was much more pleasant than pitching a fit and being shipped off to the Ice Box in Alaska or the Iron Locker in Kansas. This was the place our grandmother chose to pay her debt to society.

Arabella parked. “She’s not going to help you. Even if she wanted to, she’s locked up here. What do you think she can do?”

“I have a plan.” I got out of the car and headed for the arched doors. My body ached, and my legs shook a little. I had passed out two minutes into the drive and didn’t wake up until Arabella turned the music all the way up about two miles back.

My sister followed me. “Your plan involves making a deal with a rabid shark.”

“Sharks cannot get rabies. They’re fish.”

My sister waved her hands. “You know what I mean. Don’t do this. We’ll find him another way. We can go to Linus. He likes us.”

I looked her in the eye to make sure I had her attention. “Linus forbade me from attacking Diatheke. Right now we have to stay away from him. If he calls, don’t answer the phone and don’t tell him where we are.”

“What the hell happened at Linus’ ranch?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“What will he do when he finds out you disobeyed?”

I put my hand on the door handle and pushed. “One problem at a time.”

We walked into the lobby. Two surveillance cameras and an automated turret mounted on the ceiling registered our presence. The Spa seemed old but looks were deceiving. It was a state-of-the-art facility. By now our faces had been scanned and run through their database.

“Please don’t do this. Nothing good will come from it.”

She was right, but I had no choice. “Please wait for me. Don’t go anywhere.”

“No, I’m going to drive off and have ice cream.” Arabella rolled her eyes and headed for the elegant reception area equipped with its own coffee bar.

I walked to the officer trapped in a round cage of bulletproof glass.

“Catalina Baylor, Head of House Baylor,” I spoke into the small window covered by a grate. “I’m here to see Victoria Tremaine. It’s urgent.”

“Visitor hours begin at eleven,” the officer behind the glass told me.

“Did you not hear me? I’m here to see my grandmother.”

The officer took a step back, spoke into her headset, and then said to me, “Proceed. Follow the blue line.”

As I passed by the booth, an older white woman sipping her coffee leaned to her visitor, a dark-haired man about my age, and murmured, “Apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

Ugh.

I followed the blue line, which consisted of a beautiful glass mosaic built into the travertine floor. It brought me to a heavy door, which swung open at my approach, releasing me into the inner garden. Roses bloomed on both sides of the brick and gravel path, behind a row of boxwood. I stopped and waited.

A door opened somewhere. A few seconds later my grandmother walked onto the path from the side. She’d lost weight. Six inches taller than me and two shades paler, my grandmother wore a white blouse of tiny hexagons defined by silver thread, soft grey slacks, and a brocade coat with silver and mother-of-pearl embroidery tracing a pattern over cream fabric. Her silver hair was twisted into an elegant coil on the back of her head. Her makeup was understated but flawless. The only concession to prison she had allowed were her shoes, light grey, expensive, but with a short heel. The type Grandma Frida would have called sensible.

Victoria Tremaine looked at me. Everything about her, from the way she stood to the way she stared, communicated unapologetic power. She turned and walked down the path.

I chased after her, caught up, and fell in step. I had demanded an audience, and now she put me in my place.

“What can I do for you, Head of House Baylor?”

I had rehearsed this speech in the car on the way over, after Arabella woke me up. Looking at her now, I knew none of it would work. She was a truthseeker and she would know if I lied. “I need your help.”

“Obviously. Be more specific.”

“Runa Etterson came to me for help because Diatheke killed her mother and kidnapped her sister. Diatheke had recruited Cristal Ferrer to produce warped killers capable of magic manipulation. Cristal Ferrer has a secret lab, where she’s holding Runa’s sister. Runa’s brother attacked Diatheke. Alessandro Sagredo, who has been working with me, went in to save him, and was teleported to that same lab.”

I paused for a breath.

“So far I fail to see how any of this is my problem.”

“I have to get Alessandro and Halle out of the lab.”

Victoria narrowed her eyes. “This Alessandro, what is he to you?”

“I love him.”

Alarm dashed down my spine. I had admitted it.

“I see. Where do I fit in?”

“Before I took the case, Augustine warned me away from it. His exact words were ‘I know exactly what you’re up against. Sometimes when you search the night, you’ll find monsters in the dark.’ I discovered later that Augustine’s agents caught one of Diatheke’s warped assassins in action. By now Augustine’s people would have extensively surveilled Diatheke. That’s how he operates. He knows where the lab is.”

“Most likely. Has Montgomery approached you with an offer? House to House?”

“Yes. I regretfully declined.”

Victoria raised her eyebrows. “Why?”

“Because House Baylor will not be a vassal House.”

She didn’t say anything.

I kept going, trying to stuff my desperation deep inside to keep it from showing on my face.

“Augustine never shares. He trades. When I rejected his offer, I told him that if I came seeking information, I would bring valuable information in return. I have to give him an item in trade.”

Victoria tilted her head. “You could just accept his offer.”

“I can’t do that.”

“But what about Alessandro?”

I closed my eyes for a second. It felt like I was being ripped apart. “I can’t. Not for him, not for Halle. This is about our survival as a House. If I put on Augustine’s leash, he would force us to compromise everything we stand for.”

“So you come to me, because you think I have information to trade?”

“I know you do. You approached Augustine when you were looking for Nevada. You would not have gone to that meeting empty-handed. Please help me.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m your granddaughter. Our House doesn’t bear your name, but we have your blood. We’re the only family you have. You don’t want to see us fail.”

I held my breath.

She stopped and pondered the delicate golden roses. “Your older sister failed me. She has my magic, but she’s too set in her ways. She’s inflexible and incapable of cruelty, and sometimes survival requires it. Arabella, adorable as she is, is too young and impulsive, and her magic makes her think she’s invulnerable. She’s rarely afraid, and the Head of the House needs to know fear. Failure is the best teacher, and fear is the best motivator. Of the three of you, you’re the most like me. You’re smart like me. You’re sensitive like me. The world cuts you deeply, and it will either kill you, or you will grow armor the way I did.”

When I thought of my father’s mother, sensitive was not a word that came to mind.

Victoria studied me. “I can work with you. But it will cost you.”

I raised my chin and waited.

“And that’s the difference between the three of you. Nevada would have told me she would give me nothing and stormed off to fight the war on her own. Arabella would have promised me anything. And you are . . . just waiting.”

I kept waiting. It seemed to be working for me.

“For the House to survive, the family needs someone to steer it. You can’t belong to two Houses at once; you have to choose. If you marry into a powerful House, you’ll choose your husband over your House the way Nevada did.”

I opened my mouth to argue.

“I’m not finished. My deal is this: I’ll give you information to trade to Augustine. And I’ll help you in the future with advice, knowledge, and influence. In return, you’ll dedicate yourself to House Baylor. You won’t dilute your bloodline. If you marry, your husband must be a Prime and he must join your House and renounce all ties to his other family.”

That was impossible.

“So, you can save your pretty Italian, you can fuck him, but you can’t marry into his House. I know that family; they’re old nobility, so wrapped up in their own blue blood, they can’t see past their noses. They’ll never let him go. You won’t be a countess. You will never go to Italy. Your place is here. Think very carefully before you say yes, because you might get out of a deal with the devil, but you won’t bargain out of a deal with me.”

With one hit she ripped my future away from me. I stood there frozen while my mind feverishly sorted through it all.

What did I want from my future? I’d never asked myself that before, but I always knew the answer. I wanted to find someone who made me happy and whom I made happy. I wanted to marry him. I wanted kids. I wanted a family. And most of all, I wanted to be myself, to be open instead of clenching myself into the tight fist of my will every waking moment. I wanted to be loved for who I was, and I wanted to love in return.

There would never be another Alessandro for me. Having sex with him wouldn’t be enough. She’d shattered the little fragile hope that I could pry him loose from whatever trap he was caught in and we could be together.

Even if I found another Prime immune to my magic the way he was, even if that Prime agreed to abandon his House—which would never happen—that Prime would not be Alessandro.

My life was over. In fifty years, I might end up just like her, alone, abandoned by everyone because of the things I had to do to keep them alive. If I somehow managed to have a child, would my grandchild stand before me fifty years from now and pass judgment on my life? Would he or she think I was horrible and didn’t understand what it meant to be young and in love?

This was the first step onto the path of my new life. There would always be hard choices, hard decisions to make, but none would be harder than this.

My future versus Alessandro’s life. Halle’s life.

I had to look my reflection in the eye at the end of the day.

“We have a deal,” I said.

“Ten years ago, another House attacked House Montgomery and murdered Augustine’s father and his younger sister.”

I knew everything there was publicly to know about House Montgomery. There was no record of that attack anywhere. Public record said Augustine’s father died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

“The attackers were killed, but the identity of their employer was never discovered. The hit was arranged through a middleman, Melvin Rider. Before the attack he disappeared. Hand me your phone.”

I unlocked my phone and passed it to her. She grimaced and showed me the crack in the screen. She typed exactly the same way my mom did, holding the phone in her left hand and pecking at the letters with her right index finger. Grandma Victoria handed the phone back to me.

“This is Melvin Rider’s new name and his current address. Make sure Augustine gives you the information first. Always make it seem like you are negotiating from a position of strength. Remember, you are my granddaughter. Chin up, shoulders back. Look them in the eye and make them cower.”

I walked back to reception. Arabella saw me and hurried over.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“You’re crying.”

I swiped at my eyes. My cheeks were wet. Weird. I hadn’t even noticed.

“I’ve got what I need,” I told her. “Let’s go.”

Montgomery International Investigations owned an entire building downtown. An asymmetric structure of blue glass and steel, it rose above its neighbors like a shark fin whose owner was about to surface.

Augustine’s office took up an entire corner of the seventeenth floor. I had walked on my own power across the lobby to the elevators and now to the office. I had fallen asleep again in the car. When I reached for my magic, I no longer felt a void. I wouldn’t be at full strength for another forty-eight hours or so, but it was coming back slowly. Sleep helped.

Augustine’s receptionist, a young woman with pale brown skin and lavender hair, saw us and picked up the phone.

“He’ll see you now, Ms. Baylor.”

“Thank you.”

I headed toward Augustine’s desk behind a wall of frosted glass. Behind me, Arabella chirped, “I love your makeup.”

“Thank you!” The receptionist’s voice warmed by at least ten degrees. “It’s the new Oksana palette.”

“The limited edition one?”

A section of the frosted glass slid aside with a soft whisper and I walked into Augustine’s office. He sat at a modern white desk in an ergonomic chair. Behind him two walls of cobalt glass met at a sharp angle, presenting a panorama of the city below.

Augustine looked up from his computer, a god in his palace of crystal and ice. The door slid shut behind me.

“Do you have anything for me?”

He knew I did. “Yes. Before we trade, I need to know if you have the information I require. The matter is urgent. A yes or no answer will be fine.”

“Please sit.”

I sat. “I need to know the location of the lab Cristal Ferrer uses to produce warped mages for Diatheke.”

Augustine’s eyebrows rose. “I have it.”

Of course he did.

“How good is your information?” he asked.

“It comes courtesy of my grandmother. She sends her regards.” I had weighed this answer very carefully. I could have taken credit for the information or left him wondering where I got it, but I couldn’t give him any reason to doubt its authenticity. Victoria’s name was an iron-clad guarantee.

He considered it. “Very well, I’ll play.”

He took a pad of paper from his desk, wrote on it, tore off a page, and slid it across the desk to me. I picked it up. An address northeast of Houston, in Williams, a small town along I-69. I could be there in less than two hours. He could’ve texted it to me, but then I would have proof it came from him.

Hold on, Alessandro. I’m coming. I would get him and Halle out of there, if they were alive.

“Thank you.” I took a picture of the page with my phone and sent it to Bern. “You may want to write this down. Bradley Lynton, 12703 Mistie Valle Drive, Houston, Texas 77066.”

Augustine wrote it down. “And why is this important?”

“Because Bradley Lynton is his new name. He was previously known as Melvin Rider.”

All the color bled from Augustine’s face. The illusion fractured for a moment and I saw his real eyes, shocked and triumphant. His face snapped back into perfection. “Thank you, Ms. Baylor. I look forward to our cooperation in the future. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have someplace to be.”

So did I. I rose. “Good luck.”

“You too. You’re going to need it.”

Arabella shook me. “We’re here.”

I opened my eyes. The inside of Brick was surprisingly comfortable and the narrow side windows let in just enough light to make it cozy. Across from me, Runa grinned from the bench. Arabella slid back into her seat to her right.

Next to me, Leon was checking two P320-M17 Sig Sauers. Same model as the official sidearm of the US Army, they were his favorites. Each came with a seventeen-round magazine, which meant he could fire thirty-four 9mm rounds before he had to reload. He rarely had to reload. Leon was a one-shot, one-kill shooter.

In the front passenger seat Mom patted the rifle case resting against her shoulder. Her Barrett sniper rifle was inside. She’d also taken her favorite.

Grandma Frida brought Brick to a stop. I peered through the windshield. We had left the road behind and parked on top of a low hill. Below, sheltered by a concrete wall topped by razor wire, sat a fourteen-story tower. Unlike most modern buildings of glass and steel, this structure looked older, made of rings of concrete interrupted by rows of narrow, dark windows.

I unbuckled my harness and opened the back hatch. We filed out. I checked my face in the side mirror.

If I’d had an extra day, I would have spent it in a charging circle trying to regain my magic. But I had no time, and you couldn’t draw a circle on the floor of Brick. There wasn’t enough space. So, instead, I drew the glyphs on myself. My face, my neck and most of my body where I could reach it were covered with arcane patterns in henna. I’d turned myself into a walking arcane circle absorbing magic at an accelerated rate. It would give me back my power, but in another hour, maybe two, I would collapse.

Had anybody in my family known how dangerous this was, they would have never let me do it. I was lucky Nevada was in Spain.

The lab building rose, so close. Somewhere in that tower Alessandro and Halle waited, hopefully still alive. I checked the Beretta on my hip and the gladius in its sheath on the other hip.

“Are you sure about this?” Mom asked.

“Yes.”

“You will have to tell Duncan,” she said.

I took out my phone.

Linus picked up on the second ring.

When in trouble, go for the good news first. “I have learned the location of Cristal’s lab,” I said.

“Delightful.” He did not sound delighted. “Where are you right now?”

“May I have authorization to assault the lab?”

“Are you at the lab?”

“Technically, no. But I’m looking at it.”

The steady rumble of a helicopter echoed from above. A large chopper passed overhead, carrying a container on steel cables. The cables snapped free, and the container plummeted to the ground and landed in the field with a loud thud.

“Oh,” Grandma Frida said. “A present.”

The sides of the container collapsed outward, revealing a strange-looking block of metal parts. With a loud metal clang, the block rose, unfolding into a nine-foot-tall exosuit on two sturdy legs. Massive turrets protruded from its arms. Its shoulders bristled with weapons.

Great.

The exosuit turned, zeroed in on us, and stomped in our direction. Runa raised her hand, aiming for it.

“No,” I told her.

The exosuit treaded over, each step of the heavy metal legs like a blow of a giant hammer, and towered over me. Its facial shield turned clear, and Linus stared down at me from the inside.

Perfect. Just perfect.

Linus’ voice spilled out of the loudspeaker. “When this is over, you and I are going to have a long conversation about the nature of orders and the meaning of the word wait.”

I winced.

Grandma Frida wiggled her fingers at him. “Hello, Linus.”

Mom put her hand over her face.

“I promise to sit through the entire lecture quietly,” I said. “May I please have authorization to rescue Alessandro and Halle Etterson?”

“Authorization granted. You are authorized to go down there, gain entry to the facility, neutralize any hostiles you encounter, and retrieve any civilians you find. Do not screw with anything in the labs. Don’t touch anything, don’t drink anything, don’t put anything in your mouth.”

Leon looked like he was about to speak. I made the no face at him.

“Follow me,” Linus ordered. “And cheer up. We’re about to embark on a killing spree accompanied by massive property damage. Try to have fun.”

The facial shield darkened. Leon grinned and gave Linus two thumbs-up.

The exosuit started down the hill. Mom climbed onto Brick’s roof with her sniper rifle. Grandma Frida took a picnic basket out of the vehicle and perched on a grassy spot. The rest of us followed Linus.

“So, do we have a plan?” Runa asked.

“We go inside, Leon and I try to find your sister and Alessandro, and you and Arabella kill everyone you see. Try not to die.”

“That’s it?”

“The best plans are simple,” Leon said.

Ahead of us a barrel on the exosuit’s right shoulder spat out thunder. A missile streaked through the air and smashed into the wall. Concrete exploded, huge chunks hurtling into the air. Sirens wailed, reaching a hysterical pitch.

Linus continued his advance, the exosuit stomping forward, boom, boom, boom.

“Well, I’m off,” Arabella said.

“Give me a few minutes before you start on the building,” I told her.

“It’s not my first time.”

Leon grinned. “Remember, try to have fun.”

My sister smiled. “I always do.”

She sprinted after the exosuit. Her body tore, the transformation so fast, it seemed almost instant. An enormous shaggy beast spilled out of my sister, towering sixty feet above us. Arabella raised her head with two curved horns, opened her maw, baring a forest of fangs, and bellowed.

Runa jumped back. “That’s the Beast of Cologne!”

“Yes, it is,” I told her.

“How?”

“Long story,” I told her.

The monster that was Arabella charged to the left, circling the lab, and cleared the wall in a single leap. Gunfire erupted. She screamed in rage, grabbed a vehicle, and threw it at the building.

In front of us Linus broke into a run. The barrels on his shoulders spat more missiles, trailing smoke in their wake, and for a moment he had wings of smoke. The missiles flew through the gap in the wall. Explosions blossomed, yellow and orange. Linus charged into the gap, the turrets on his arms sending death into the air.

I stopped. Leon sat on the grass next to me and whistled. Runa stared at the two of us. “Shouldn’t we go in?”

“Not yet.”

“You have to let the big kids have their fun,” Leon said.

Arabella had gotten ahold of a semi-truck and was pummeling something with it.

Seconds ticked by, dragging minutes behind them. Waiting was torture.

Please stay alive. I’m almost there.

The sound of explosions receded, moving deeper toward the building and into it.

“Now we go in.” I ran for the gap.

The inside of the wall was chaos. People ran back and forth, equipment and vehicles burned, broken bodies slumped everywhere. Thick, oily smoke poured out of what once might have been a truck and was now an unrecognizable clump of metal. Small firearms crackled. Somewhere a turret was going, spitting out a staccato of bullets. I turned toward the tower.

The doors no longer existed. I jogged inside, Runa and Leon following me. The inside of the tower was hollow. A bank of glass elevators waited in the center of the room. Each floor resembled a wheel with a central narrow hallway and individual rooms radiating from it like spokes. If I rode that transparent elevator, I could see the entirety of the lab.

A woman with a gun stepped out from behind the elevator. Leon’s gun barked and she collapsed.

“Don’t shoot the next one,” I said. “We need a guide.”

“No promises,” Leon said.

I closed my eyes, looking for the nearest mind. Someone was hiding behind the counter to our right. I turned and started humming. “Mary had a little lamb; its fleece was white as snow . . .”

The mind under the counter responded to the tendrils of my power. A chair rolled to the side, and an older white man in a lab coat stood up and smiled at me. His name tag said “Chad Rawlins.”

“Hello, Chad,” I said, sinking power into my voice.

“Hi.” He waved at me.

“Come stand by me.”

Chad moved over on trembling legs. “I’m very scared right now.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

An explosion burst above our heads. The building shook. Chad cringed.

“Do you know where they’re holding Halle Etterson?” I asked. “She’s my friend. I want to find her. It would make me very happy.”

He nodded. “She’s on the seventh floor. Room 713. Can we go? We shouldn’t be here. It’s very dangerous.”

Runa ran to the elevator and mashed the call button. Stairs would be safer, but I wasn’t sure I could make it. My magic was replenishing, but my body was still exhausted and getting more so by the minute.

“What about the prisoner they teleported in this morning? Where is he?”

Chad blinked. “I don’t know about a prisoner.”

Leon nudged me. “Ask him where Benedict is.”

“Is Benedict De Lacy here?”

Chad nodded. “He’s on the top floor.”

Of course he was. Benedict would never pass up a chance for a penthouse. If Alessandro was here, Benedict would keep him close. They hated each other, and Alessandro made a valuable hostage.

“Tell me about the top floor where Benedict stays.”

“I don’t go up there. I don’t know what’s up there, except that you can’t bring any weapons up there. He’s got an automated turret pointed at the elevator. The elevator opens in this little room that scans you and he won’t let you exit it with a gun.”

Fuck.

“You can go,” I told Chad.

He started toward the hole where the doors used to be, then turned. “But what about you?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I think I should stay with you. Just in case.”

Leon sighed and reached for his gun. I put my hand over his. “Chad, do me a favor. Go outside and check to see if it’s safe for me to escape.”

“I’ll do that. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”

He took off for the door and the three of us ducked into the elevator. Runa had pressed the button for the seventh floor. I reached over and pushed the top button.

“What are you doing?” Runa asked.

“Leon will go with you. He’ll get you and Halle out.”

“That wasn’t the deal,” Runa growled. “You can’t go up against Benedict by yourself.”

“That was always the deal,” Leon said. “You’re the client. We’re here to save your sister.”

The elevator doors opened. Leon thrust his arm out to keep them open.

“We get Halle and we go after Benedict together,” Runa said.

“No,” I told her. “That would put you and her into additional danger. Save your sister, Runa. Please.”

“Come on,” Leon said. “Halle is waiting.”

He took Runa’s arm and pulled her out of the elevator. The doors shut and the cabin sped upward. The elevator climbed through what I had thought to be the ceiling and kept going, the shaft no longer transparent, but dark.

Linus’ priority was the research and retrieving the serum. Runa’s priority was her sister. In the grand scheme of things both Alessandro and Benedict mattered very little. But Alessandro meant everything to me.

I took out my Beretta and placed it on the floor of the elevator. I would never get through that room with it.

The doors whispered open. A small room waited for me, complete with an X-ray arch. A security camera stared at me from the ceiling just above a turret facing me.

I pulled out my gladius and jammed it in the elevator door.

“Entertaining but futile,” Benedict’s voice said.

I stepped out of the elevator. The door behind me tried to close but my sword kept it open. I stepped into the X-ray, letting the beam of the scanner dance over me.

There was a pause, then the door in front of me opened. A big room lay past the doorway, the entirety of it taken up by an arcane circle of dizzying complexity, its lines glowing with pale light. In the center of the circle Alessandro paced, nude, his face furious.

“Welcome to my parlor,” Benedict said.

I took the chalk out of my pocket, palmed it, and walked through the doorway.

Time slowed and I saw everything at once, as if my mind was a camera flashing to capture the details: Alessandro, his magic flaring around him; Benedict to the side standing in a separate circle connected to the larger one; a windowless round room, a cupola above us; a large screen on the wall showing the elevator still trying to close; the body of a woman, crumpled at the far wall; and the bigger circle itself, a seemingly chaotic array of circles and lines.

The glowing patterns snapped together in my head. Alessandro was trapped in the center, able to use his magic, but cut off from the rest of the room and the building by the power of the circle. He couldn’t manifest any weapons because his magic didn’t work past the arcane boundary. Benedict, on the other hand, was free to use his magic, and the circle allowed him to attack at will. The lines would channel his power and unleash it on whoever was trapped in the center.

It was eerily similar to the trap I had created in my bedroom, but my trap was designed to contain and inflict mental pressure. This circle was designed to contain and amplify Benedict’s power. Old blood smears and scratch marks scarred the wooden floor under Alessandro’s feet. The kind of scratch marks human nails made.

This was Benedict’s fun room. He brought women here and tortured them in that circle. This was what Alessandro had saved me from with that shot shattering the elephant. The teleport spell had been less than thirty feet away from that window. I had crossed the rug that covered it to talk to Benedict.

Benedict must have tried it with Alessandro, but Alessandro’s magic worked within the small space allowed to him. He would have nullified Benedict’s attack. The moment Benedict left the smaller circle, the power of the bigger one would dissipate, and Alessandro would be free. They had trapped each other.

Benedict’s suit coat lay discarded on the floor. His tie was missing, his shirt open at the collar. Sweat drenched his face, darkening his hairline. They must have been at this for hours.

All I had to do was knock Benedict out of his point of power. There were forty feet between us.

“Get out,” Alessandro snapped, his voice harsh.

“Let me guess,” I said to Benedict. “You were packing, getting ready to disappear, and then, poof, Alessandro lands in your trap, and a terrified teleport mage appears in the room. You had no time to do anything except step into the circle to activate it and contain Alessandro before he killed you. Did you murder the teleport mage?”

“Catalina, run!”

Benedict smiled. It looked a bit deranged. “Unlike our friend, I’m genuinely happy you’re here.”

He would try to force me to walk to him. The magic of my body could power the circle even if I was unconscious. If he managed to knock me out, he could drop me into the circle under his feet and walk away, while Alessandro remained trapped. He must have tried it with the teleport mage, but she died before he could get his hands on her.

I had to let Benedict think he was winning. If he thought I retained my will, he would kill me.

“Come here,” Benedict ordered.

“Walk away,” Alessandro called out. “His magic is line-of-sight only.”

The dark cloud erupted out of Benedict. I snapped my wings up, shielding my mind. The ghostly serpents struck. Fangs tore into my feathers, ripping lesions in my defenses. I let them slither in. Panic burst in my mind, a gaping, bottomless hole filled with darkness and fear. I collapsed into it, curling into a ball to keep from unraveling.

The void melted away. I blinked my eyes open. The boundary of the circle shone only inches away. I had collapsed on the floor in a fetal ball.

“Dear God,” Benedict squeezed out.

He shook in the circle, his face slack with euphoria.

“You taste like nothing else,” he whispered. “Come here.”

I leaned on my hands, drawing a tiny line with my chalk from the boundary out, and struggled to my feet. He didn’t notice. He was too focused on getting another hit.

“No.” I turned.

The serpents struck again. Pain ripped through me. Before it dragged me down, I let my magic wind about them. They took it back to Benedict, carrying my power in their phantom mouths.

Darkness melted away. Benedict moaned.

“It hurts . . .” I murmured. I was out of breath. My mind burned, writhing from hundreds of needles stabbing it. I drew another line.

“Come here. Come to me and it won’t hurt anymore.” His voice was almost tender.

In the circle Alessandro was screaming.

I needed one more. I almost had him. I turned, trying to crawl away.

The serpent swarm engulfed me. This time I couldn’t escape into the darkness. They wrapped around me, biting, striking, pulling me to Benedict, as my power wound around their bodies. It hurt. It hurt worse than anything I’d ever felt. The agony pierced my mind again and again.

I crawled forward, striking small lines along the boundary with every move of my hand.

In the circle Benedict crouched, waiting for me. “That’s it, you’re almost there. A little more. I want more. I need more.”

I collapsed a foot from his circle. He reached for me, pulling me up to my feet, and as he dragged me upright, I struck the last line, long and sharp against the boundary of the larger ring.

Benedict pulled me to him, hugging me to his chest, his eyes insane, the pupils tiny specks of black in the pale blue irises. The serpents wrapped around us, shredding my wings. My feathers bled.

“Mine,” Benedict said. “Mine . . .”

“Hit him now!” I barked.

Magic detonated around Alessandro. The lines of the larger circle flashed with orange. The outer boundary cracked along the faults I had added. The circle exploded, melting into nothing.

A single gunshot cracked. A bright red dot blossomed between Benedict’s eyes. His deadweight hit me. I dropped him, and then Alessandro caught me, my Beretta smoking in his hand.

“You’re crazy,” he snarled, and kissed me.

The cupola above us groaned, tilted, and was lifted up, like the lid off a jar. Arabella peered down into the room and saw us hugging, me draped over a nude Alessandro with dead Benedict at our feet.

Silence reigned.

My sister opened her nightmarish mouth and laughed.

I walked up the iron steps to Alessandro’s lair. Shadow bounded ahead of me, no doubt expecting a treat.

Three days had passed since we raided the lab. I slept for two of them. I had dim memories of being moved and Alessandro sitting next to me, but I couldn’t tell if it had been real or wishful thinking.

Today was the first day I was up and moving around. While I slept, the rest of the wall near my former room had collapsed. The warehouse resembled a crushed shoebox, with one side still up, and the opposite wall in shambles. We had to move into the nearest building while we figured out what to do. At least we managed to save the servers.

Runa did rescue her sister. I met Halle this morning. She was just like her sister and her brother. Ragnar wouldn’t stop touching her to reassure himself that she was really alive, and she finally told him to knock it off or else.

Linus left a cryptic email for me, consisting of exactly two sentences: “One down, four to go. To be continued.” I assumed it meant the National Assembly wouldn’t be coming for our heads.

Nevada would be on her way home in four days.

Ahead, Shadow barked.

I climbed the last of the steps and walked into the old fire station rec room. Alessandro turned and my world stopped.

“Hey,” I said. An intelligent human being, that’s me.

“Hey,” he said.

So far this conversation was going splendidly.

It dawned on me that the folding tables in the middle of the room were gone and so were all his weapons. Two suitcases and a duffel bag waited in the corner.

“You’re leaving,” I said.

“I have to go.”

He said something else, but I couldn’t hear it over the sound of my heart breaking.

Embarrassment flooded me in a hot rush. I was an idiot. I loved him, so I thought he loved me and wanted to be with me, and he had never considered it. The job was over, and he was leaving.

He was leaving.

I had this whole speech planned. I was going to tell him that I loved him, but I could never join him in Italy. I planned to explain that a fling with him wouldn’t be enough for me, that I knew it was presumptuous because we hadn’t even gone on a date, but I’d made a deal with my grandmother and I had responsibilities to my House. I wanted to tell him that I would help him break free of whatever forced him to do what he was doing now no matter how he felt about me. I wanted to get it all out in the open, so if he wanted to try to be with me, he would know everything before we even started.

I had built a fantasy in my head again, and the sight of his packed suitcases shattered it. He wasn’t even thinking about introducing me to his family or taking me with him. If he had, I couldn’t, but I still thought . . . I wanted . . .

I was a moron.

“Catalina?” he asked.

I forced myself to look up and meet his eyes. “Are you going back to Italy to your family?” My voice didn’t shake. It was a small miracle.

“No,” he said.

“Too bad. I’m sure you must miss them.” The words came out on autopilot. I was babbling but it was better than crying. “If they are ever in the States, I would be happy to meet them.”

He crossed the floor and put his hands on my shoulders. “I’ll never take you to meet my family. They wouldn’t understand. They don’t deserve it.”

Of course. Who was I to meet House Sagredo?

“I have to go,” he said.

He looked like he was about to kiss me. I waited for another breath, but he didn’t move.

“Let me help you, Alessandro.” The words escaped before I caught them.

Alessandro let go of my shoulders and stepped back. “You can’t.”

“Are you coming back?” Tell me you’re coming back. Tell me you’ll move mountains to get back here to me and I’ll wait for you, no matter how long it takes.

“I won’t lie to you.”

And just like that it was over. I turned around and walked down the stairs, out of the building and all the way back to our makeshift house.

He did not come after me.

Arabella stepped out of the doorway and saw my face. “What happened?”

“He’s leaving.”

“What? He can’t leave! You fed him the pepper! You joked. You were happy!” She spun toward the fire station. “I’ll make him stay. I’ll bring him back here . . .”

I held up my hand. “No. I don’t want anyone to force him. It’s for the best.”

“Catalina!”

“It’s for the best,” I repeated, my voice wooden.

She hugged me and we walked into the house together.