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“N othing?” Valen stands by my window again, his hands behind his back.

“No. I told you, the sample you gave me was no good. It’s already gone to shit. There’s nothing for us to look at, and it’s only been a day.” Frustration peppers my words as I sit down on my couch with a harrumph.

“You should try harder.”

“You should give me your blood.” I glare at his wide back, dressed in a black sweater this evening. His hair is mussed, but it’s the kind of mussed that looks so good it might be deliberate. I reach up and feel my messy bun—definitely not deliberately mussed.

“That’s not going to happen.”

“Then what the hell are you even doing here?” I flip open my journal somewhat aggressively and start penciling in how much I fucking hate Valen Dragonis.

“I’m making good on the promise of my people to yours.”

“Vague bullshit. Wow, how refreshing,” I snap.

He doesn’t reply, simply stands as still as the gargoyles downstairs as he looks out on the lights of DC, such as they are these days.

I toss my pencil down and snap my journal closed. “Look, I’m tired. If you aren’t going to help, then you can go.”

“I’m perfectly comfortable right where I am.”

I grab the nearest throw pillow and strangle the hell out of it. When I finally release my grip, I find him looking down at me, amusement tugging at his lips.

“What the fuck?” I’m on my feet in moments. “They’re gone.” I search his cheek for the wounds that should still be there. “The marks—” I lift my fingers and run them along his smooth skin.

He grabs my wrist, his pupils growing and swallowing the blue, but he doesn’t pull my hand away. “Forward of you, Doctor.”

“Once again, you need to get over yourself. Tell me how. How does it work?” I move closer, really looking, trying to find any hint of the injuries. But there’s nothing. “Holy shit.” Seeing him whole like this, knowing that he truly could be the breakthrough we’ve needed, it sends a tingle of excitement through me. I have to know more. This is like dangling a piece of red meat in front of a starved tiger.

“I heal quickly.”

“No shit.” I flick my gaze back to his and realize we’re standing entirely too close. My heartbeat kicks up a notch or twelve, though I hate myself for it. This man—this creature or superhuman or whatever Juno wants to call him—isn’t anything to me besides the answer to the entire world’s prayer. A cure. That’s all. “I need your blood. Not some garbage half-corroded sample.”

“No.” He says it simply. It would be cruel if he didn’t seem so resigned, as if maybe there’s a shred of something other than hard stone inside him.

“Why not?” I persist, exasperation making me even more stubborn. “You could save thousands of lives, millions. That’s what you showed the entire world—a chance to live, to survive. Don’t you want that?”

His gaze darts to my lips. “What I want doesn’t matter.” He seems to draw back, his face going blank as he releases my wrist and steps away. “I’ll return tomorrow.”

“With a new sample?”

“You already know the answer to that question.”

“This is bullshit.” I scowl at him as he walks past me.

“Noted.” The arrogance is back, the condescension coating those two syllables like bitter syrup.

“We’re supposed to work together. This isn’t?—”

“Goodnight, Doctor.” Again, he disappears into the elevator as I say a litany of curses under my breath. I go to the window and stare down at the street. Wondering which way he goes, where he stays. I need more information about him, about what Juno is scared of, about the secret notes. Everything and anything.

But I never see him leave.

The only thing out there is a shadow crouching on a rooftop across the street. I stare at it, wondering if it’s just a trick of the moonlight. For long moments, I wait, but it never moves.

“Whatever,” I grumble and turn from the window. Then, on a whim, I turn back.

A chill seeps into my bones when I realize the shadow is gone.

* * *

“We need the sample. You have to send what you have left to us.” Director Hamberg, the head of the CDC, sits at the front of an entire room of scientists, all their eyes intently on us through the video-conferencing app. “It’s simply ridiculous you haven’t done so, and even more ridiculous that I was only allowed to pick a small team for this process. It’s untenable. It’s-it’s?—”

“You’ll have to take that up with my sister.” I’ve spent the entire weekend working on a decaying sample, found nothing, and now I’m running on a little sleep and a lot of frustration. “We can’t send what we don’t have.”

A ripple goes through the crowd on the other end of the chat. Then the video goes still.

“This is going great,” Aang mutters from behind me.

“—promised a solution. Was it all a lie?” Director Hamberg unfreezes, his grumpy face set in an even deeper frown now. “I agreed to do as she asked, nepotism and all.”

Some of the people with him openly scoff.

Well, fuck y’all too .

“If Juno’s Miracle is real, she can’t keep this discovery away from the scientific community like this,” he continues. “We need the sample. Now.” A handful of heads nod behind him.

Director Hamberg strikes me as someone who isn’t used to being told no, especially not by a junior researcher like myself. But I’m in the same position he’s in. We’re caught in whatever tangled web Juno wove to have access to Valen’s blood—though that isn’t going as anyone expected, least of all me.

“We worked with what we were given. I expect a new sample tonight. If there’s enough to share, we will.” The Internet barely works for two hours straight these days, even when it’s all government-controlled. I find myself hoping a server blows somewhere to end this call.

“When you receive the sample, you will immediately send the entire thing to me via military courier. I expect it here within hours.” He says it with the finality of a king decreeing an execution. “I’m going to handle this myself. Putting you at the helm was a huge mistake, one I intend to rectify. I don’t care who your sister is.”

I glance at Gretchen. She’s looking at me with a curious expression, though her eyes are wide with apprehension, too. I look at the others, gauging their reactions. Wyatt is pensive, Evie’s shaking her head, and Aang is scowling at Director Hamberg.

I take a deep, shaky breath. “With all due respect, Director, we’ve got this. Every bit of data we discover, we’ll send directly to you, but we won’t be sending the entire sample. As I said, if we have any left, we?—”

He sputters, spittle flying as he looks for words. “Y-you can’t keep the greatest discovery of the—” He cuts off and the screen goes black.

“Asshole.” Aang’s finger is on the computer’s power button. “You know his mother was head of epidemiology at the CDC, right? And he’s got the nerve to talk about nepo babies?” He pulls his hand back.

I look at him with newfound appreciation.

He glowers back at me. “Don’t get any ideas. I still don’t like you. I was just tired of listening to him.”

A smile creeps its way onto my lips as Aang turns and strides off with the nonchalance of a villain walking away from an exploding building.

* * *

“The White House has roaches, you know.” Candice looks around the hotel’s atrium, the glass and chrome still gleaming despite its disuse. “I bet this place doesn’t.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I get visited by a certain pest every night.” I finish my ham and cheese sandwich and wash it down with water.

“Dragonis?” She wrinkles her nose. “The dark-haired one?”

“The devil. Yep.” I lean back in my chair. “He comes here wanting to know if I’ve cured the disease when he hasn’t given me what I need to do it.”

“I see him, too. Him and that white-haired monster.”

From her shiver, I immediately know who she’s talking about. “The one from the press conference?”

“Yeah. He’s a nasty piece of work, that one. Theo, they call him.” She looks like she wants to spit when she says his name.

“What are they doing there?” I’m desperate for news. When Candice showed up to have lunch with me, I was so happy to see her I almost bowled her over. Huffing and puffing, red-faced, she told me to get the hell off her and let her breathe. God, I miss her.

“Watching, as far as I can tell. They don’t do anything. Coming and going like they’re the president. But I’ll tell you one thing, Juno doesn’t leave that building without one of them with her. Vince has been tearing out what’s left of his hair. She won’t let him come with her, keeps him at a distance. Always goes by helicopter, always with one of those goons. I have to hear him bitching the entire time she’s gone.”

I lower my voice. “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

Her sharp gaze meets mine. “No, but whatever it is, it isn’t good. There was a lot more to this blood deal than Juno ever let on.”

I’m glad I’m not the only one at a loss. “There’s so much she hasn’t told us.”

“Don’t hold your breath. She’s more close-lipped now than ever.”

“I thought …” My voice catches on the wistful thoughts in my head. I try again, “I thought once we got here, she’d open up. It would be like before. You know?”

“I don’t think we’re ever getting those days back. Not with those creeps always up her ass.”

“She won’t see me.” I meet her gaze.

“I know. She has strict orders that you’re to be escorted off premises if you even step foot inside the White House grounds. Why’d you think I busted my ass to get all the way out here?”

“You missed me?”

She shrugs, a wry twist on her lips. “I guess I just needed the exercise.”

I temper my smile as best I can. “I’m sure that’s the only reason.”

“Don’t be silly.” She covers my hands with hers. “I’ve missed your pointy head.”

“I’ve missed you, too. I think about all of you every day, all the time.”

“Well, hopefully about me more than the rest.” She smiles, some of her old sass sparkling in her eyes.

“Of course.” I nod seriously.

“All right, enough yippity-yapping. I better get back.” She pushes herself to her feet, then lowers her voice. “Watch yourself, Professor. Don’t let your guard down, especially not around that Dragonis. They’re up to no good.”

I walk her to the door. “I wish you didn’t have to go so soon. I could show you my apartment.”

“To make me jealous?” She laughs, the hearty, full throated one that reminds me of days before the plague. “Not a chance. The roaches and I are getting along just fine, thanks.”

“At least let me walk you back?”

“Now that I can do.” She takes my offered arm, and we walk out into the day. She leans on my arm more than she used to, her steps shorter, a little less steady. Her age is catching up to her, and I can’t imagine the move to DC is helping. Worrying about her is just a new layer of sediment settling over me, weighing me down.

“Ladies.” Gage tips his hat.

“Gingers always get me going.” Candice smiles at him.

He gives a surprised guffaw.

I want to melt into the sidewalk. “Sorry. Sorry about her. I think it’s dementia. Early onset.” I pull her along.

“You know where I’m staying, young man.” She points up Pennsylvania Avenue.

“Yes, ma’am.” He grins big.

“Oh my God, Candice.” I groan and pull her away from Gage.

“Still got it.” She chortles lightly. “He’ll be thinking about me for a while.”

“There aren’t enough ‘yikes’, Candice. Nowhere near enough.”

“Just old, not dead,” she grumbles. “Not yet, anyway.”

We walk slowly along the empty street, the sun peeking from behind clouds here and there.

“It’s not safe,” Candice says once we’re out of Gage’s earshot. “Not in the White House, not in your penthouse. Nowhere. They’ve got their fingers in every pie.”

I hold onto her more tightly. “Are you safe? Is Juno?”

“No.” She glances at me. “None of us are.”

“What are they?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if Juno truly knows, either. I think they’re demons. Old Testament stuff. Pure evil. They use her like a puppet, and something bad is brewing. Something worse than even the plague.” She shakes her head. “I thought coming here would be the start to solving our problems. But it was out of the frying pan and into the fire.” Fear weaves in and out of her words. It infects me, too, and my worry—the pot I’ve kept simmering on the back burner—begins to boil over.

“Could you ask to go back home? Maybe say you don’t like the cold? Or that you want to retire?”

“They’d never let me go. Not when I’m so close to Juno. I’m—what’s the word—leverage? Yes, that’s all I am now.”

“Just ask her if you can go. Maybe?—”

She stops abruptly. “Professor, don’t be stupid.” Her eyes meet mine, but then her face softens. “Like I always said, you are such a little dummy sometimes. Don’t you see what this is? A takeover, a coup. Your sister is president in name only. They’re going to use her until they get what they want.”

“But what is that? If she’s only a puppet, they already control the nation. What the hell do they really want?” My whisper is urgent.

“Your guess is as good as mine, Professor.” She pats my hand, and we walk in silence the rest of the way.