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“And what if they do? What, like we can’t say no?

” I shake my head. “I helped connect two fae—one of whom has been helping our efforts for years—with a pack that was specifically created to help people like them. And why shouldn’t I?

It’s our fault the high fae got through.

It’s our fault he hasn’t been caught and kicked back through the veil. ”

The Huntsman narrows his eyes, and his glamour flows away all at once, leaving him blinking strange black eyes at me. “Is that what you think?”

“How is it not the truth?”

He stares at me for altogether too long, and everything in me is screaming, telling me to run, but I will face this.

I know I am right—or on the path to being right.

What he built wasn’t wrong when he built it.

There was no cohesion to any of the supernatural creatures back then, not on a grand scale, at least.

Now? Now they’ve organised. Now they’re re-evaluating and fixing the things they put into place hundreds of years after the Huntsman began bringing us together.

And there’s a thought tickling at the back of my mind, one I don’t like at all. What if this was what he truly wanted? What if he wanted to be the only high fae able to freely pass from our world to the Otherworld and back again? What kind of power does that give him ?

He watches me like he is reading each thought laid bare on my face, and there is every chance that is the case. Maybe he needs to see it.

“I told you that there would be consequences for disobedience, Maurice,” he says, and his voice is soft in the same way it was at the beginning of our conversation: somewhere I cannot see, a blade is poised, ready to strike.

“You did.” My voice remains steady.

He doesn’t say anything else. Doesn’t apologise, doesn’t attempt to explain himself. Why would he? He gave me the gift; it is his right to take it from me.

Still, I can’t help the scream that escapes me when his magic reaches inside and tears my blessing away. It did not hurt like this when he gave me my magic back, and I do not think it needs to hurt like this now.

I think he is angry.

I think he is disappointed.

He pulls and pulls, draining all the fae magic from me—and with it, my own. I am on my knees, and I hear someone banging at the living room door, and sweat is pouring down my spine, but I am shivering, somehow feverish.

“You will survive this, Maurice,” the Huntsman says.

There is no care in him. No empathy. He stands over me and I do not look up.

I have been effectively and sufficiently cowed.

“You may rest here today. I do not mean to kill you. Tomorrow night, you leave. I care not for where you go, but you may not interact with the Hunt again.”

That invokes a different kind of pain, one that I am not expecting at all. I spent years without seeing the others before my return to London, of course.

And yet… The thought of not being allowed to see them chafes, but we both know I will obey because even though I am not bound to the Hunt any longer, there is an implicit threat behind the Huntsman’s words.

He can still kill me, but more importantly, he can still tear his blessing away from someone else.

The Huntsman walks past me without another word, and I hear the door open behind me, hear the cry Grant lets out. I flinch when he lays a hand on my back, and he quickly removes it, murmuring to me, but I’m not listening.

I’m listening to the low vibration of Vlad’s voice from the hall. I can’t focus on the words. Everything hurts too much.

“Can you stand?” Grant murmurs, head too close to mine. He was asleep, I remember, and he still should be. How loud was I to wake such a young vampire when the sun is up?

“I—Yes.” I manage it, clinging to the furniture, and Grant doesn’t try to touch me again, but one arm hovers, stuck out so that he can catch me should I stumble.

It feels as though it takes an age to make it to the sofa, and Grant’s face twists in sympathy when I let out a faint whimper as I sit down. Everything hurts and I don’t know why.

More importantly, my magic is gone . The death magic that powers us is beyond my reach—it is beyond the reach of any vampire—and so I feel empty in a way I never did in life, in a way I only experienced after I was first turned.

The front door closes, and Vlad appears in the doorway, face stricken as he looks us over.

Grant does not move from my side. “What are you going to do?” he asks Vlad.

“I—” Vlad looks at Grant, then at me, helplessly. “Nothing.”

“He’s your friend!”

“There is nothing I can do, Grant.”

“You were awake, weren’t you? You knew he was here. You knew what he would do!”

“I—”

“He almost killed him!” Grant shouts it, something wet and earnest in his voice, and I reach out, catching his wrist. It hurts less to touch him now. It is a feeling I can endure.

“There is nothing he could do,” I say, and Grant shakes his head, not looking at me. “There is nothing you can do. Not if you want to live.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Things are not—” Vlad begins, but Grant cuts him off with the fiercest look I’ve ever seen on a person’s face.

“Why not?”

Vlad swallows. He opens his mouth and frowns like he’s thinking, then closes it again. He doesn’t have an answer.

Neither do I.

Grant knows things are not fair, generally speaking. He is an adult. That is not what he is arguing.

It is the same thing I argued with the Huntsman just minutes ago, but with different words.

Why can’t we make things fair?

“Go to bed, Grant,” I say, and when he turns on me with betrayal in his eyes, I shake my head. “I will be fine, and you need to rest, too.”

“You’ll be here tonight?”

I don’t want to lie. “For a little while.”

He nods, eyes suspiciously watery, and when he stands, my hand drops from his wrist. He doesn’t even look at Vlad as he pushes past him, and the bereft look Vlad sends after him tells me they’ve never fought like this before.

“You have to leave tomorrow,” Vlad says once Grant’s door firmly shuts above us.

“Yes,” I say.

“Where will you go?”

I laugh without humour. The pain is beginning to ebb, though I’m still raw and empty at my core. “Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t,” I say, mostly because I have no idea what I’m going to do.

I would go to the clan, but with Njáll still missing…

I need to find him. I might be a weaker vampire than I was earlier today, but I am still a vampire, and an old one at that.

I know a lot about the fae. “We weren’t friends before this, Vlad, no matter what your turn might think. ”

Vlad glances behind him again as though he’s afraid Grant will pop up and shout at him for a second time. “Did you ever wonder why we were told not to turn anyone?”

I shrug and regret it when pain radiates down my shoulder and arm. “Not really.” The urge has never struck me, and I sincerely doubt it ever will.

“I know Grant is… different,” Vlad says. “To other vampires, I mean. I don’t know if that’s why we were told not to do it.”

“What are you thinking then?” I ask.

“That we’re not supposed to be as tied together as we are. Which makes it strange that he would do this to you at all.”

I shake my head. I can hardly think. Exhaustion is nipping at the heels of the pain still coursing through me, and if this is the last night of good rest I’m going to get for a while, I’ll gladly take it.

“Maybe it is,” I say, “and maybe it isn’t. But I know one thing to be true.”

“Which is?”

“It really is not my problem anymore.”