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NICK AND I spend the rest of the day wrapped up in each other. There are no more words to say. He drifts to sleep, but I can’t rest. Everything feels urgent, but I can’t figure out how to fix it or what to do.

We meet Mariah and Zoe in their room to discuss our plan for the final hours at Penumbra. While we talk, I trade my cardigan for a leather jacket from Mariah’s closet. I keep the honey-gold dress, but step into their bathroom to strap my hidden dagger and holster to my thigh.

When we eventually head downstairs to the ballroom for the auction, the difference in the room’s setup is immediate. The ballroom seating has been changed from round dining tables to long rows of wooden pews. There are more warlocks present than I have seen before. Many of them stand near a platform with a long row of black velvet cloth–covered boxes on pedestals.

There must be at least thirty warlocks scattered around the room in suits and fitted with earpieces. I wonder if any of them are the masked warlocks that Nick and I dispatched in our rooms, and if they are, if they even remember attacking us after Ava’s mesmer.

One of the warlocks we met the first night, Santiago, appears to check our invites. After a quick scan, he gestures to some open seats at the back of the room.

Santiago hands each pair of us a numbered white card on a wooden stick. “If you win your item, you’ll be asked to approach the stage to coordinate immediate payment via wire transfer.”

Mariah and Zoe stay close to me and to each other. We stuff our overnight bags beneath the pew in front of us as we settle in. Just as Nick and I take our seats, we see Ava enter the room. She tips her head in our direction before sitting in a row closer to the front.

I want to climb over the rows and tackle her with my bare hands. Force her to take the magic out of Nick’s chest. Threaten her at the end of my dagger until she does it. Until she fixes what she’s broken. But that’s not the plan.

We’ll let Ava bid for the crown, as that’s the likeliest way she’ll try to acquire it at this point. If she loses for any reason, Nick thinks she’ll follow and attack the winning bidder once they leave the estate grounds to steal it back. Morgaines, he said, are very persistent. The crown was in their possession for a long time.

I have no doubt that Ava has backup Morgaines outside the ward of the estate grounds, ready to assist her in her attack—or escape.

Zoe and I will have to move fast if we’re going to stop Ava, faster still if she’s chasing someone. We have our bags with us for just that reason. A quick exit is the only exit we’ll be making tonight.

As I scan the crowd, a door in the corner opens to reveal the man I’d seen in the hallway. I’d described him to Nick earlier in our room, but without knowing the man’s name or how he knew me, Nick couldn’t identify him any better than I could.

But Nick must recognize him now, because he shifts abruptly, turning in my direction to speak into my shoulder. “Shit.”

“What?” I whisper.

“The man you saw in the hall, the one you couldn’t remember—did he just walk in?”

“Yes.”

Nick’s fist clenches. “Gabriel.”

“Who’s—”

“A Regent.”

My eyes widen, and I sink down too. The man, fortunately, seems to be caught in a conversation with a warlock and not looking our way at all. Before I can panic further, Zoe and Mariah lean forward on the pews in front of us, resting their arms on the back and helping to hide us where we’ve ducked. Then, the man sits down to face the front of the room.

“This isn’t good,” Nick says.

“Why is he here?”

Nick meets my eyes. “I don’t know. Did he see us?”

“I don’t think so.” I peek around Zoe’s hair.

“But he recognized you this morning?”

“Yes.”

“He’ll recognize me, too,” Nick mutters, shaking his head. “He knows both our faces too well.”

“What do we do?”

Zoe, who’s been listening, mutters under her breath, just loud enough for us to hear. “Wait it out. Avoid him. Hopefully he leaves in the opposite direction of the crown.”

Mariah speaks next. “We can’t do anything here until the auction items are won—too many opponents in one room, too many warlocks, too dangerous. Wait until the auction is over, the winners are confirmed, then we move. That’s the plan.”

“Right.” Nick nods.

I grind my teeth, and Zoe glares at me. “Bree. That’s the plan.”

I look up to find all three of them staring at me. “What?”

“You don’t follow plans,” Zoe mutters.

I glare at each person in turn. “I can follow a plan.”

Nick bumps his head softly against mine, voice strained but fond. “You have your strengths, B. This isn’t one of them. We’re outnumbered and overpowered here.…”

Indignation feels like a bright, living thing in my chest. “Fine.”

All three of them breathe sighs of relief and visibly relax in a way that honestly feels rude.

A bell chimes once, twice, three times. The auction is about to begin.

The lights dim in the room as balcony-mounted lights buzz onto the stage. Mikael appears in a full tuxedo and top hat with tails while the auctioneer takes a seat behind him. The room erupts in a steady, respectful applause that does nothing but twist the knot of anxiety in my stomach even tighter.

“Welcome, Collectors,” Mikael says, tipping his hat dramatically. “Tonight concludes our weekend festivities with an auction of fifteen rare items for your appreciation, your admiration, and, of course”—he pauses—“your wallets. ”

Low amused chuckles whisper through the room. Beside me, the fingers on Nick’s left hand begin an agitated tap on his knee.

“Without further ado, the first item for tonight.”

A warlock pulls the black velvet drape off the leftmost pedestal to reveal a piece of ancient papyrus behind a glass cube. Mikael begins to describe the origins of the document and how it survived a flooded chamber from ancient Rome. When the bidding begins, it starts in the low six figures.

“The crown will be one of the last items,” Nick reminds us. “Mikael knows it has magical properties, even if the humans here don’t. He’ll build up to it, make a show of it, to get the highest price.”

Waiting feels like torture. My eyes glaze over at the bidding as each item is unveiled. Unlike Daeza’s tributes, the items here don’t need to be soaked in humanity. Instead, they only need to prove their rare provenance. And unlike Daeza, Mikael does not seem to care how the items and artifacts were acquired—and whom they belonged to first.

Nick’s fingers are tapping so quickly against his knee that by the time we reach the thirteenth item—a scepter uncovered in a recent excavation—I have to cover his hand with my own so that I don’t get nervous too.

Then, a warlock wheels in the fourteenth box, and the energy in the room shifts perceptibly. The most eager Collectors lean forward, silent and focused as they wait for their cue to bid. Mikael’s eyes sparkle as he pauses before removing the velvet cover, ever the showman.

He whips the drape away—and reveals the Shadow King’s crown.

The crown I’d seen had tall spires circling the gnarled black metal like daggers reaching for the sky. The crown before us now has uneven obsidian spikes, torn and twisted in varying lengths. Still a nightmare, but tortured under centuries of arcane, experimental spellcraft.

Mikael has let us look our fill. “Behold the ancient crown of Arawn, a truly ageless and priceless piece said to have originated in Annwfyn, the Welsh otherworld.”

Arawn?

Mikael circles the crown, explaining its appearance for the Collectors’ edification. “The crown was once circled by tall black spires, but, alas, these have been worn down over time.”

I can’t help but glance at Ava and wonder what she’s thinking. Based on what Nick shared, one fragment of the crown is embedded in her chest even now, just like one is embedded in Nick’s.

I look up to see Nick’s lips drawn tight, his fingertips resting lightly over his sternum. When I open my mouth to ask why, he shakes his head once, eyes straight ahead. A dismissal. A question I’ll have to reserve for later.

“There are rumors about this piece, of course. That if a demon were to even touch it, they would turn to dust.” Mikael smiles apologetically. “Thus, in the spirit of keeping these rumors alive, a human intermediary is not only recommended but required.”

The room’s quiet laughter rises again, and Mikael grins, pleased at his own joke at the expense of human ignorance. “As I said, priceless.” Mikael turns to the room. “Of course, tonight we seek the impossible. To name a price for such an artifact. Let the bidding begin!” Mikael claps his hands together and steps to the side as the auctioneer stands up.

“The bidding begins at one million,” the auctioneer drawls.

The next five minutes go by in a blur. Ava raises her bid card no fewer than seven times, but she is in competition with at least three other people—including a few of the suits Nick has been meeting with. The bidding slows down as people drop out, until it is only Ava and another man going back and forth.

In the end, the man drops out before Ava does. The auctioneer calls it. “To the young woman in red, for nine point eight million.”

Zoe whistles low. I have to agree.

Ava’s smug smile is visible even beneath her mask. My muscles tense for action, though I know we have to wait. She walks to the front of the room and begins to converse with the warlock who has been retrieving the winners’ lockboxes and phones to coordinate payment.

“And now for our final item.” Mikael takes the stage again. “Or should I say ‘items’?”

The room shifts, another wave of low, knowing laughter.

Mikael approaches the last pedestal.

“These items are unique in that their power is not solely in what they are, here in this room, but what they represent—or, rather, whom they represent.”

The velvet-draped box on top of the pedestal is larger than the rest, five by five feet at least. But what “items” represent a “whom”?

No. It can’t be.

The reasons Mikael can’t possibly be auctioning off Rootcrafter girls flow through my head, down my veins, turn desperate. Turn flashing. Like broken lightbulbs exploding beneath my skin.

Those reasons are so good and so strong and so logical and humane that I can almost convince myself to believe them.

That is, until Mikael unveils the final box—revealing four clear, decorative three-foot-tall crystal vials filled with glowing gold smoke.

Root, stoppered and captured, on display before our eyes.

The root in each of the four vials shifts and churns within its glass. Living power in slightly different hues.

Deep butter yellow, rich and smooth.

Brilliant honey gold, sparkling.

Canary, flickering with streaks of shiny chrome.

And a shade I saw a month ago in a dingy bar bathroom—reddish-gold root the color of a sunset.