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“Stay here.” There is one clear way to tell. I cloak and move through the second floor as a shadow, looking for the mother. I find her tucking the child in bed. The room darkens as I slip inside. She stiffens, her brow furrowed in confusion, gaze darting to the window. Then in my general direction.

“Honey!” she shouts.

A man rushes in. “What is it?”

“I don’t know. I just feel…there’s something.”

I move closer, letting the edges of my shadow graze her arm.

“Call the police,” she screeches. “Something isn’t right. Someone is here. I—”

“Calm down—”

She hands him the child and dashes out. I follow her before rejoining Kieran in the closet.

“They’re calling the police.” I can’t believe the words I’m saying. “This isn’t a safe house. These people are not magical. Your lead is wrong.”

“Dear,” the husband chimes, “he was just scared. He’s back in bed now.” Their bedroom door creaks open, then clicks closed. Their stirrings settle and the house is again silent.

“The child saw our faces,” Kieran whispers, his expression scrunched in horror at what must come next. “And the parents felt your cloak.” He releases a shaky breath, and it takes me back to the nightmare of cleaning up my first raid gone wrong, when I was still a deb at Hartsboro. We set the house on fire. And there were actual toushana-users inside. I couldn’t eat for a week.

“I can do it, sir,” he whispers, but he can’t even look at me. It reminds me of Yagrin. Our work should make us sick to our stomach. Taking lives should never be easy. But this…this is an acute kind of discomfort. It’s not just Kieran. I feel sick, too. But he’s not wearing a gleaming red pendant.

“You will do nothing else but leave. I can’t let you mess this up, too.” I open the closet door wider. “Take a day. I’ll file the report. After that, you’ll be reassigned to desk duty for a while, until you’re able to sleep again.”

He nods, forlorn. I squeeze my phone. “Abandon target. We’ve been compromised. Head back. I’ll finish up here.”

From the second-floor landing I can see shadows shifting past the windows as my men depart. I sit on the top stair, waiting for my hands to stop shaking, and Knox’s words tear at my conscience. We are not inhumane. We are not senseless killers. I cannot believe I’m allowing her treasonous accusations to still ring in my head.

There are principles to uphold for a reason. The sun is more beautiful after a season of rain. Forests grow back stronger after a burn. How can the Order be what it was created to be if no one will do the despicable things needed to keep its existence secret until it’s safe to be out in the open? If the Dragunhead were here, he would not balk at what’s required. I stiffen my chin, sickness thickening in my insides.

The child is so young. He’ll forget my face.

But the mother saw my cloak. She felt my touch.

She only saw shadows.

Protocol is rigid. It has to be.

I grab a fistful of carpet, just to do something with the frustration burning its way through me. I blow out a breath and force myself to stand. The soft blues of morning glow outside, streaming through the windows. I stand there for what feels like an eternity before entering the child’s room. He’s fast asleep, tucked under covers, his little hand dangling off the edge of the bed. I move closer to him, my heart ramming my ribs, as I draw the cold blackness to my fingertips. My foot nudges a stuffed bunny that’s fallen out of his crib. I stare at it. The child’s chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm. And I envy him. What I wouldn’t give to sleep like that. The admission burns my cheeks.

Protocol.

My heart ticks faster.

I stand there until the room has noticeably brightened. A sharp heaviness like I’ve never felt twists inside my chest, like a broken bridge with jagged edges trying to weld itself together.

We are not inhumane.

I am not inhumane.

Protocol.

I feel for magic and tighten my fist.

Twenty-Seven

Jordan