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Fresh. Real.Now.

A shock tears through my throat as I try to breathe in too fast, like dragging sandpaper down the inside of my windpipe. It burns, raw and scraped from smoke and screaming. My ribs ache with every shallow breath and the edges of my skin feel tight and swollen, like I’ve been scorched from the inside out.

This isn’t the river.

This time, I lit the match myself.

There’s a sound beside me. Rhythmic. Steady. Mechanical. Someone breathing, but not naturally. A soft hiss and release. I turn my head, the movement slow and heavy like swimming through glue.

Damon.

He’s right there, in the bed next to mine. Slumped in half-conscious sleep, his face slack and pale. His piercings are gone, like they had been at the fight, and for some reason it makes him look younger. The oxygen tubes plug up his nose, tape pulls at his cheeks, and his lips are cracked like desert earth. The muscles in his jaw twitch. If it weren’t for the soft beep of theheart monitor behind him, I’d think he was gone. That I’d taken him with me when the fire came.

That I killed him, too.

A sick pulse of guilt curls through my stomach.

Movement on the other side of the glass draws my attention, and I see a man pacing. Tall and with a dark coat over his broad shoulders. The sharp lines cutting across his silhouette like armor. A Shadow? No. No. Not one of the King’s men. This man’s expression is unreadable–cold, remote.I know him. Even from here, I know that set of his jaw. That stiff, calculated posture.

Agent Knight.

He’s from before. From the last time. After the river. The man who asked questions I didn’t want to answer. Didn’t knowhowto answer. The one who came with a notepad and quiet suspicion. A shiny belt buckle that looks like the devil. He was calm then, and calm now. Like all of this is normal for him. But it’s the words I hear next that pull me tighter into the present.

“No,” snaps Hunter, stepping into view. “Absolutely not.”

He looks wrecked. His pale skin is streaked with soot, ash clinging to the edges of his jaw and threading into his tattoos. He’s still wearing the same white T-shirt from this morning, from when he…

I swallow, remembering the look in his pale eyes as he watched. Participated.

The shirt is now torn and singed in places, revealing a burn on his forearm. He’s furious, but he’s holding it in like a grenade with the pin halfway pulled.

“She doesn’t answer to you,” he growls.

Agent Knight doesn’t so much as blink, but his voice raises just enough for me to hear. “Mr. Sorrin, she’s a key witness–”

“She’s nothing to you, Agent,” Hunter spits. “She’s mine. She’s the King’s. And no one speaks to her until he gives his approval.”

That word–mine–hits like a cuff. Hunter’s voice is pure authority, razor-edged and absolute. Like he’s daring anyone to question it. But I do. I question it. Am I still theirs? After everything I’ve done?

Agent Knight's mouth tightens, but his tone stays flat. “A man is dead. His house burned to the ground. And the same woman is tied between that and a half-dozen other mysteries in this town.” His gaze cuts toward me through the glass, and I sink back into the pillow hoping to get swallowed up. “This makes twice that I’ve found her in that hospital bed. I don’t believe in coincidences,” he says. “Not in this city.”

Quietly thinking, Hunter squares his shoulders before stepping toward Knight. “I don’t give a shit what you believe in or not. She’s not the key to anything. She’s a victim. So why don’t you go figure out who wanted that house burned down with Owen Hexley in it. Figure out who would target the Baronesstwice. Once you do, I’ll be happy to listen, until then, you need to leave.”

There’s a beat of silence so thick it’s almost physical. Then I hear a muttered curse followed by a door slamming somewhere down the hall. Knight is gone. Which means now we’re alone.

Hunter throws the door open and storms inside, his rage vibrating off him in waves. I smell the smoke on him, the sweat. His hair is a mess, like he’s been tearing his hands through it for hours. His eyes flick to Damon–still unconscious–then land back on me.

“Ares,” I croak. My voice is wrecked. “Did he–?”

“He found you,” Hunter says, tight and bitter. “Led us right into the house. Just like you hoped, right?”

“No,” I say, forcing the word past the shards in my throat. “I told him to go.Los.”

That word–his word. The command that means leave.

“He did his job,” he says softly, “making sure that you were safe, making sure thatwe got to you.”

“Is he okay?” I know the answer before I ask it, but I ask anyway, because I need to know for sure.