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I tuck my emotions into a careful box in the back of my mind and harden my stare.

“Where is she now?” I ask.

All the other members have fallen perfectly still at the table.

Beatrice’s eyes have fluttered shut, and a tear streaks down her cheek.

Amelia has her hands pressed to her temples.

The two younger men are silent, but their eyes flick from each other to me to Oskar.

Cora is too deep into her spell to realize what’s happening around her.

“Hard to say,” Oskar says.

He smiles. He fucking smiles at me .

It’s not mocking or taunting. It’s gentle and kind, as if he’s done nothing wrong.

Maybe he hasn’t , I remind myself.

It’s a useless, pathetic hope.

“Oskar,” I say. My voice booms through the silent courtyard, and his eyes spark. I’m giving him exactly what he wants, but I can’t control myself for another second. “Tell me where she is or I’ll rip your fucking head from your body.”

“Go ahead then,” he says. He rests his elbows in front of him, leaning toward me. “Rip my head off, Master. See where it gets you.”

I suck air into my lungs, clenching and unclenching my fists.

“Oskar, if you don’t?—”

“See, but that’s your problem,” he interrupts. “Your only way to threaten me is with my own life. You can torture me, starve me, kill me…but that’s where your options end. I have only ever loved one person in this world, Master, and you stole her from me.”

“This is about your fucking wife?” I ask. I’m seething, vibrating with coiled fury and tension. “She died by the witches’ curse, not my hand, and it’s been twenty years. It’s too late for petty revenge.”

“Not revenge,” Oskar says. He shakes his head, drawing a deep breath and closing his eyes. The final word is spoken on a breath of relief. “Justice.”

“So what, this curse kills your wife and now you’re damning us all?” Beatrice demands. Tears leak down her face, and her fangs extend as she glares at him. “Ruining all of our lives, just because you’ve suffered. As if we all haven’t?—”

“It is not about you,” Oskar says gently. He speaks as if she’s a selfish, petulant child, as if she’s too young to understand. “It is about him .”

His eyes are back on me. I search them, searching for each splinter of evil within the grey.

“His selfish behavior took my one love from me,” he says. “And now, my selfish behavior will take his from him.”

“Where is she?” I roar.

I’m on the other side of the table before he can blink. Before anyone else so much as moves, I have him pressed to the glass window, my nails digging through the flesh of his throat. Blood leaks over his pale skin, but Oskar only smiles at me.

“Horrible, isn’t it?” he wheezes. “You found the most beautiful thing in the world, and someone else stole it away.”

I close my fist, slowly crushing his windpipe. The life drains from his eyes, but he loses consciousness with a smile on his face.

“She’s alive,” Cora says.

She sits in Oskar’s usual place at the stone table. The other inner circle members remain in their seats. I don’t think any of them were involved in Oskar’s treachery, but I’m not letting them leave. They’ll stay here until we know what happened. Where she is. How to find her.

I glance over my shoulder at Oskar. He’s tied to my statue, rope tight enough he won’t be able to move. For now, he’s still unconscious, crushed windpipe healing with agonizing slowness. I wish he was awake to feel it.

I focus on the table again. Cora has one hand over Grace’s electronic. The other clenches a fistful of amber herbs, hand pulsing in steady rhythm. She’s exhausted. It’s been an hour of this, and her eyes keep rolling back, skin paling every time she attempts a spell.

“It’s getting less cloudy,” she says after some time. “Now that I can sense her…”

“Where?” I demand. “Tell me where.”

I stand with one leg on my bench, shaking it so hard the cobblestone beneath it cracks. I can’t stand still. I can’t do anything but imagine what he’s done to her. Is she beaten? Bloodied? Left for dead in one of the far-reaching vampire clans?

Cora goes back to muttering, her eyes rolling to pure white. I pace the courtyard as she works, only pausing to kick Oskar in the shin. It’s not the first time I’ve done it, and even as his throat heals, I make sure his legs don’t. Lest he gets any ideas about trying to run.

A heavy thump sounds behind me. By the time I’ve turned, Amelia and Milas are already knelt at Cora’s side. She’s prone on the ground, blinking absently toward the darkened sky.

“Did you find her?” I ask, shoving the others out of my way. I crouch beside Cora’s head, tilting her so she’s resting against the stone wall, rather than the floor.

“Yes,” she says. Her words tremble as she looks at me. “She’s with them, Master. My people.”

I stagger backward. My heart seizes, pulsing too fast, squeezing like it might explode. I clutch my chest, as if to hold it in place. I’m being shredded from the inside out, and I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know how to fix it.

“No,” I whisper. My voice is hoarse, cracking like a child’s.

Oskar has doomed us all. He is punishing our entire kind for showing him and Freja mercy. For giving them a chance.

I am back in front of him, kicking his shins until both legs are shattered. Blood trails from his pant legs, and still, I don’t stop. I scream as his body breaks at my touch, as a piece of my soul shatters for the man I thought I knew.

I force myself to stop. With a hand on my statue, I take ragged breaths and close my eyes. I’m wasting time—time Grace doesn’t have.

“Don’t let him leave,” I say, turning back to my followers. They stare with wide, stunned expressions. “Restrain him by any means necessary.”

“Yes, Master,” Beatrice says. Then, “What are you going to do now?”

I look between them, but I don’t know who to trust. Before tonight, it would have been Oskar. He was always the easy one. The loyal one. Understanding, dedicated, reasonable.

A fraud. A fucking fraud.

He always did have a way of surprising me.

“I need to negotiate a deal,” I say. I step toward Cora, holding my hand to her. “Will you come?”

Her dark brows lift in surprise. She hasn’t returned to the Day Realm since crashing into me all those years ago. She’s made it clear she doesn’t want to. I’ve made a point to never ask…until now.

“Yes, Master,” she says, dipping her head. “Bring Milas. He knows the Echo better than we do.”

It’s a logical choice, unless they’re secretly against me. Then it’s a trap.

“No,” I say. “We’ll take Beatrice and Theo. Amelia and Milas, you stay here. Keep Oskar alive. Grace alone deserves the honor of killing him.”