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T HE DAY OF THE RAID CAME AT ONCE TOO SLOW AND TOO FAST.

Levan spent the most of his time after returning from Port Ouran in Nalezen Zares’s cell, subjecting the necromancer to Saints knew what, but he was adamant that he didn’t want Saffron to be alone and unguarded.

Nor, for some reason, did he want her to witness what he was doing to Zares.

Perhaps he wanted to preserve the sanctity of the charged moments they had shared on the boat, or perhaps he simply performed better without an audience.

He also seemed newly concerned that she was not safe in the mansion—whether because of Segal’s sinister new status as a Risen, or because of the kingpin’s fierce and unpredictable anger over Vogolan’s death, Saffron was not sure.

Regardless, Levan conjured a series of protective wards around her bedroom, the bath chambers, and the library, so that Saffron might rest and soak and read in peace.

She was free to come and go through the wards as she pleased, he was quick to explain, but if she needed somewhere to feel at ease, she had it.

At first her pride had bucked indignantly. She was a Silvercloak, trained in the art of self-defense. She was built for this—she did not need his wards.

Yet something about the act warmed her. Something had shifted in him since that first night in the alley. It wasn’t just that he trusted her, now that she’d saved his life—it was also that he cared .

Saffron was getting under his skin. That much was good.

It was not so good that he was beginning to get under hers.

They were moving toward the prophecy, that much was certain.

Their cart rattled merrily, dangerously, along predetermined tracks.

And yet Saffron was grappling with it more than she ought to be.

She found herself wishing the cart would slow down, so that she’d have more time to peel back Levan’s layers, to find the truth at the very core of him.

For the mission, she told herself.

Liar, said her heart.

She spent her remaining time before the raid in Miret’s library, reading everything she could find on necromancy—as though absorbing every single word of theory would somehow unlock the truth of who Levan was planning to bring back.

She was angry with herself for asking him such a woolly question back on the boat.

Why had it felt, in the moment, more important to understand his psychology than his goals?

In any case, his answer had given her nothing, and she had no idea when he’d next let down his guard.

Over those quiet days, she also devoted a substantial amount of time to replenishing her well in case the raid went south.

She devoured a frankly irresponsible quantity of pastries and hot cocoa, relishing in the feeling of her body’s edges softening once more.

She took rose-scented baths surrounded by riotous greenery, raked her gaze over every painting and mural she could find in the mansion.

In bed, and in the baths, and sometimes even in the library, her hand found the peak of her pleasure—the pleasure that bloomed beneath the memory of Nissa’s forked tongue, and the thought of Levan’s firm stomach above his leather belt—and coaxed it to new heights.

She longed to pursue said pleasure with another body, another mage—not just to fill her well, not just to feel good, but to feel in control, to wield some kind of power in a world where she often held none.

And yet she couldn’t bring herself to frequent a pleasurehouse, because what if her lover became another pawn in the Bloodmoons’ game?

What if proximity to her was becoming more and more fatal?

She couldn’t put another life at risk, and so her own hand would have to suffice.

The gamehouse’s thrills called to her like a siren, but she refused to answer.

She knew lox was a false god to pray to.

She knew that such pleasure was not real or lasting, that it would be disastrous to spend another week feverish and dizzy from its aftereffects.

And she did not trust herself to play polderdash without caving to the lure of the blackcherry sours.

Still, the reckless side of her—the side that Levan lured to the surface—craved the release of gambling.

It didn’t make logical sense, that someone as patient and calculating as her could want such a thing, but if her time on the streetwatch had taught her anything, it was that people were inherently contradictory.

The killer was a great mother. The arsonist did volunteer work.

The innocent victim was a compulsive liar.

The kingpin’s indomitable son was a lox addict.

Saff could not stop thinking about how Harrow had found Levan near ruin from an overdose. It frightened her, that someone so strong, so in control of himself, could fall victim to it.

What hope did the rest of the city have?

It was a steadying, validating thought. After this raid, she would be celebrated for saving innocents—not just from the Bloodmoons, but from the dark, addictive claws of loxlure.

Would tonight be the night the prophecy finally came to pass?

It had to be. Because if all went well, this was the last time Levan would ever be free again, the last time either of them would ever wear their scarlet cloaks. Which meant she was mere hours away from kissing him—and killing him.

How wrong would all of this have to go for her to kill him?

Surely taking him alive was the best way.

Surely.

On Elming evening, Saff was lying on her bed, struggling to concentrate on a Lost Dragonborn spinoff, when there came a knock on her door.

Levan stood on the other side, his jaw shadowed with stubble, his eyes tired and more lined than usual.

At the sight of him, something dipped in Saff’s stomach.

She remembered the moment he’d tucked her hair behind her ear, ran his finger along her jaw, looked at her with life in his eyes for the first time since she’d met him.

The feeling in her belly was akin to hunger, to nerves, but the good kind of both of those things.

A slight rumbling as you’re lifting a pastry to your lips.

But she had to remind herself who and what they both were.

What she was about to do.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked, oblivious to her wandering thoughts.

“Where?” she asked, though of course she already knew.

“The docks.” He shifted, and Saff caught a scent of the potent clove-anise tea she’d found in his desk drawer.

“More needless torture?”

“A shipment.” She couldn’t parse his tone. It wasn’t flat, exactly, but it was stilted, jaded. “Need to make sure the operation doesn’t spring any more leaks. None of us want a repeat of Kasan.”

Saff nodded. “You look tired.”

He shrugged. “I ran ten miles this afternoon, then did combat training with Miret. He’s a lithe old bastard.” He rubbed at his shoulder, as though a bruise was forming there. “We meet at the same time every day. Keeps us both sharp.”

The same time every day. Those compulsions might not be as potent as they once were—unless he kept his most obsessive rituals to himself—but he still made sure never to stray from his strict routine.

She raised her brow. “Why do you need combat training? Can’t you just sever all your enemy’s extremities?”

“You never know when you’ll be caught without your wand.”

Saff snorted. “You sound like my old commanding officer. Ma’am, yes, ma’am.”

Judging by the hard look on his face, the joke did not land.

She pulled her cloak tightly around herself. It was starting to smell like her, and that was perturbing. She didn’t want it to become an extension of herself. She wanted it to be an ill-fitting impostor cloak.

“So is that all you do in the Bloodmoons?” she asked, knowing this could be her last opportunity to gather intel. “Train and brood?”

“No, I oversee a lot of operations. The gamehouses, recruitment, discipline.” The latter sent a shiver down Saffron’s spine. “But finding a necromancer has been my priority for a while.”

She stuffed her feet into her leather boots. “I note you don’t object to the accusation that you brood.”

The corner of his lips quirked at last. “I may be prone to such things.”

She followed Levan from the room, pulse uneven despite her best efforts to keep it in check.

Everything came down to tonight.

“How’s it going with Zares?” she asked, as they descended the ascenite staircase and strode toward the warded tunnels. The vast chandelier cast fractal shards of broken light all over the black marble atrium, and there was the distant sound of piano music playing in the minor key.

“Not well. She’s resisting my usual tricks. Her hands have spent more time off than on.”

As they slipped into the warded tunnels, Levan’s gaze drifted to the timeweaving carvings, a misty expression on his face.

“Then I suppose you need a Compeller,” Saff suggested.

“We brought one in, but it didn’t work. The sheer force of will, the innate desire, has to come from her.

Compelling alone isn’t powerful enough to wake the dead.

” There was a sort of reverence to his tone when he talked about magic, similar to Auria’s fascination with the intricacies of it, but with a darker underpinning.

As though Levan loved and feared it in equal measure.

But that wasn’t what Saff’s brain snagged on. “You have a Compeller working in the Bloodmoons?”

“They’re not in a scarlet cloak, but they’re in our back pocket.”

“Like Harrow.”

“Are you making a joke about back pockets? I thought you were above crude innuendo.”

Saffron couldn’t help the spluttering laughter. “Certainly not. I practically invented it.”

Levan looked over at her with a kind of bemused smirk. “You’re different than how I thought you would be. Different than the night we first met.”

“It’s hard to be your true self when killing curses are being fired at you. Although it would be very Killoran of me for my final words to be a vock joke.”