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“What do you want from us?” Tanner demanded, hands hanging open at his sides. He had no weapons—nothing that would give them even the slightest upper hand here. The Wyverns had taken everything they had, even the blades tucked into the ribbing of their bodysuits. Shay could feel their absence as if she were missing limbs.

“We want you to tell us where Paxton is,” Brock replied. He pointed his gun at Tanner, teasing the trigger. “And then we’re gonna kill you.”

“Paxton?” Tanner said. “You’re looking for Paxton Slade? Why?”

Eilidh hissed, eyes wild like a hunting cat, “None of your goddamn business, Devil!”

But Austin said, in that hateful I-know-more-than-you tone, “Don’s offering a promotion to the first House who finds his kid. And the Wyverns deserve that promotion more than anyone.” He stared down at Shay. “Say goodbye to second place, Cousens.”

“You say that as if I actually give a shit,” she squeezed out, her ribs still burning hotter than the fire crackling around them andthe truck. What happened to her mother and the cesspool that was the Riptide was of zero concern to her. She hoped Donovan killed them all.

“Tell us where he is and we’ll make your deaths quick,” Sybil said.

“How would I know?” Tanner challenged. “I’ve been drugged and unconscious?—”

So theyhaddrugged them.

“You know what I’dreallylike you to tell us?” Sybil interrupted. Shay tensed when she saw that her pupils were slitted again, her heart glowing orange in her chest—visible through her pasty skin. The wyvern-scale ring on her finger was the reason the Wyverns were so indestructible. If only they could get that ring… “What a good-for-nothing Devil is doing in our city,” Sybil concluded, her teeth sharpening.

“I have friends here,” Tanner replied. “Am I not allowed to visit them?”

“Darkslayer law states that any slayer from another territory must report their arrival to the city’s Head,” Sybil rebuked. Her loopy little sister sniggered, enjoying this far too much. “Is there a reason you didn’t want to tell Don that you were coming? A reason you were sleuthing around?”

Tanner kept his mouth shut.

“Secrets,” Eilidh hissed. “He’s keeping secrets, and I want them, Sybil, I want them!” She curled her snow-white fingers in the air before her, as if to saygive them to me,her nails black and claw-like.

“Well?” Sybil snapped.

Still, Tanner did not reply.

Sybil lifted her chin, peering down her nose at him with fiery eyes. “Kill them.”

Shay’s gut dropped.

“On your knees, Atlas,” Austin ordered, opening the chamber of his handgun.

But Tanner stayed standing. “No,” he said firmly, his throat bobbing. Even from here, Shay could see his pulse racing in his neck.

“Hesaid,”Sybil drawled, raising her index finger. “On. Your.Knees.”A downward point of her finger, and Tanner dropped like a puppet on strings, knees slamming into the stones so hard he grunted.

Shay’s hands flew to the back of her head as Brock grabbed a fistful of her hair. She swallowed a cry of pain as he dragged her several feet, whipping her around like a rag doll until she was kneeling beside Tanner. The cobbles dug into her kneecaps, her scalp burning as badly as her ribs.

“Hands behind your heads,” Brock instructed.

Shay obeyed, trembling in the half-frozen rain that was now falling in sheets, plastering her hair to her head. Farther out, it was snowing, the heart of the city suffocating beneath the weight of a massive black cloud that looked like smoke.

Gods above. Was that the Void?

Beside her, Tanner did the same, hands shaking as he interlocked them behind his head.

“Last chance,” Austin warned. Bullets clinked as he loaded the last of them into his gun and closed the chamber. “Tell us where Paxton is, and we’ll make this quick.”

“I already told you.” Apart from the tremors in his hands, Tanner was so rigid, he was practically made of stone. “I. Don’t. Know.”

“Pity. I think I’ll shoot off your ear first. Or maybe hers.” Austin nudged the barrel into the back of Shay’s skull.

She bristled. “Let us go, you fucking assholes!” she spat.