Then it faded, the dark metal stark in the gray light.

  “What now?” Ithan rasped, barely able to speak.

  Connor had been here, and now he was gone. Forever.

  “I have Reapers to sort out,” Hypaxia murmured, staring off into the distant mists, to where the hissing was growing louder.

  Ithan mastered the hole in his heart enough to ask, “What about Sigrid?”

  Hypaxia said carefully, “What would you like me to do with her?”

  “Just, ah …” Fuck, he had no idea. “Tell her I want to talk to her.” He clarified, “I need to talk to her. But only once I’m back from the Eternal City.” If he ever came back.

  Hypaxia nodded solemnly. “If I encounter her, I will convey the message.”

  “The Reapers won’t take the power shift well,” Jesiba warned Hypaxia.

  “Then I appoint you my second in command and order you to help me,” Hypaxia said flatly.

  “Happy to oblige,” Jesiba said, examining her red-painted nails.

  “You can’t kill them,” Hypaxia warned the sorceress.

  Jesiba gave the witch a wry smile, and nodded to Ithan, who pulled himself from his grief long enough to meet her steely gaze. “Get your ass to Pangera, Prime. And get that bullet to Bryce Quinlan.”

  * * *

  Tharion didn’t speak, barely breathed, until he and Sathia were back in the open air. It had taken a few hours to coordinate with his former colleagues about how they’d conduct the exodus from the city, how they’d get the message around without alerting anyone to the plan. Word was bound to leak at some point about the Blue Court harboring refugees, but hopefully by then they’d have a good number of people Beneath. And then the Blue Court would go into lockdown, praying that the River Queen’s power could hold out against the brimstone torpedoes of the Omega-boats docked in the river. It was risky … but it was a plan.

  Only when they’d ducked for cover in a shadowy alley did Tharion say to Sathia, “We did it. We fucking did it—”

  She smiled, and it was beautiful. She was beautiful.

  But a voice crooned from the shadows of the alley, “Isn’t this an interesting turn of events?”

  It was all Tharion could do to draw the knife at his side and step in front of Sathia as the Viper Queen emerged into the light, her drugged-out, hulking Fae assassins flanking her.

  “I don’t have any quarrel with you,” Tharion said to the Viper Queen, who was clad in one of her usual jumpsuits—ocean blue this time, with high-top sneakers in an amethyst suede with maroon laces.

  “You burned my house down,” the Viper Queen said, her snake’s eyes glowing green. Like a Reaper’s eyes. The Fae assassins behind her shifted, as if they were an extension of her wrath.

  “Colin?” Sathia blurted, and Tharion found her gaping at one of the Fae males. “Colin? I thought you …”

  The Viper Queen glanced between the towering Fae male and Sathia and said to the latter, “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Sathia Flynn, daughter of Padraig, Lord Hawthorne.” Sathia’s chin rose, pure disdain in every word. “I know who you are, so don’t bother to introduce yourself, but I want to know why my friend is in your employ.”

  It was a different face from the one of courtly grace she’d poured on for the River Queen. This one was imperious and icy and a little bit terrifying.

  The Viper Queen snorted.

  Sathia bared her teeth. “Colin. Get away from this trash and come home.”

  The towering Fae male stared blankly ahead. As he had this whole time. Like he didn’t hear her.

  “Colin,” Sathia said, voice sharpening with something like panic.

  “McCarthy won’t respond unless I give him the order,” the Viper Queen drawled, walking to the male and running her manicured hands over his broad chest. Her metallic gold nails glinted against the black leather of his jacket. “But let me guess: Childhood friend? Handsome, poor Fae guard, spoiled little rich girl …” Her purple-painted lips curved in a smile, and she patted the male’s cheek, purring to him, “Is that why you came crawling to me? Would her daddy not let you court her?”

  Tharion’s heart stalled at the pain that washed over Sathia’s face as she breathed, more to herself than to anyone, “Father said you had found a new position in Korinth.”

  “Padraig Flynn has always been an excellent liar,” the Viper Queen said. “And a better client. He introduced me to McCarthy, of course.” She gestured to the blank-faced assassin.

  Sathia paled. “Come home, Colin.” Her voice broke. “Please.”

  Tharion had no idea how anyone, the drugged-out male included, could resist the pleading in that voice. Her face.

  “It’s too late for that,” the Viper Queen said, and nodded to Tharion. “But you and I have unfinished business, mer.”

  “Leave him alone,” Sathia snapped, teeth flashing as she stepped closer to Tharion. “Don’t you dare touch him.”

  Tharion’s fingers slid toward hers, squeezing once in warning to be quiet.

  “And what authority do you have, girl, to order me away from him?”

  “I’m his wife,” Sathia spat.

  The Viper Queen burst out laughing. And Tharion could have sworn that something like pain shown in McCarthy’s bright blue eyes—just a glimmer.

  “You leave him alone,” Sathia said again, and vines curled at her fingers. “Him and Colin.”

  “That’s not an option I’m interested in, girl,” the Viper Queen said, and inclined her head to one side. The assassins, Colin included, aimed their guns. Did he imagine it, or was McCarthy’s weapon trembling slightly?

  Tharion sheathed his knife and held up his hands, again stepping in front of Sathia. “Your business is with me.”

  He’d accomplished what he needed to with the River Queen. And if Sathia became a widow … she could remarry, by Fae law. Maybe even find some way to save that poor bastard McCarthy and marry him. So Tharion said, “Let her walk out of here before you put a bullet in my head.”

  “Oh, I’m not going to kill you that quickly,” the Viper Queen said. “Not a chance, Ketos.”

  She advanced a step, her assassins flowing with her.

  “You take one more step toward my friend,” said a familiar female voice, “and you die.”

  Tharion’s knees wobbled as he glanced over a shoulder—and found Hypaxia Enador striding in from the quay, Ithan Holstrom bristling with menace at her side.

  84

  “I don’t take orders from former witch-queens,” the Viper Queen said. Her guards didn’t back down an inch. But Colin McCarthy’s gun was definitely trembling, like he was fighting the order with everything he had.

  “What about from the Head of the House of Flame and Shadow?” Hypaxia countered. Tharion’s knees gave out abruptly at the greenish light that flared in her eyes.

  Sathia caught him around the waist, grunting as she held him up.

  Tharion whispered, “Pax?”

  But his friend—this female who had been his friend from the moment they’d met each other at the Summit, who always seemed to see the real male beneath his veneer of charm—only glowered at the Viper Queen. “You touch him, or his friend, and you bring down the wrath of Flame and Shadow upon you.”

  Holstrom stepped up to her side, brimming with power—with magic, cold and foreign—and added, “And the wrath of all Valbaran Wolves.”

  There was only one person who could claim that.

  The male before him was Prime. There was no doubt about it. But that strange power rippling from him … what the Hel was that?

  The Viper Queen stared long and hard at Ithan, then at Hypaxia.

  “Power shift,” she murmured, pulling a cigarette from her jumpsuit pocket and putting it in her mouth. “Interesting.” The cigarette bobbed with the word, and she lit it, taking a long drag. She fixed her snake’s eyes on Tharion. “Your bounty still stands.”

  “Drop the bounty,” Ithan ordered, pure Alpha echoing in his voice.

  “I won’t forgive or forget what Ketos did to me and mine. But he’ll walk out of here today—I’ll allow that much.”

  Hypaxia gave her a look dripping with disdain. “You will walk out of here today. We will allow that much.”

  The Viper Queen took another long drag of her cigarette and blew the air toward Hypaxia. “Give a witch a scrap of true power and it goes right to her pretty little head.”

  “Fuck you,” Ithan snarled.

  But the Viper Queen stepped back into the alley, whistling sharply to her assassins before striding away. They turned as one and marched after her.

  Colin McCarthy didn’t so much as look back.

  “What the fuck?” Tharion exploded at Ithan, at Hypaxia. The Prime of the Valbaran Wolves and the Head of the House of Flame and Shadow. “What happened?”

  “What happened to you?” Ithan countered. “Where are the others? Is Bryce here?”

  “Bryce? No—she’s in Nena. She …” Now wasn’t the time for a catch-up.

  But Ithan said, “Nena?” He dragged his hands through his hair. “Fuck.”

  “Why?” Tharion asked.

  Hypaxia said gravely, “We need to get to Bryce. Immediately.”

  “Okay,” Tharion said. “I’ll see if I can reach her or Athalar.”

  Hypaxia and Ithan began walking, and Tharion followed, Sathia a few feet behind. When the door to the House of Flame and Shadow loomed before them, Hypaxia lifted a hand and it swung open silently. Hers to command.

  Ithan walked right in. But Tharion at last mastered his shock enough to ask Hypaxia, “How did you wind up—”

  “It’s a long story,” she said, tucking a dark curl behind her ear. “But get inside first. It’s the only safe place in this city.”

  Tharion glanced back at Sathia, who was pale-faced at the open door before them. “Give me a minute,” he said, and Hypaxia nodded and walked into the gloom.

  “Hypaxia is a friend,” Tharion explained softly to Sathia. “No harm will come to you in there.”

  Sathia lifted her gaze, bleak and despairing, to his face. Like she’d seen a ghost.

  And maybe she had. “It was my Ordeal.” Her lips were so, so white. “I only realized it afterward,” she murmured. “After Colin … left. Losing him was my Ordeal.”

  Tharion laid a gentle hand on her back, surprised by the strange tightness in his gut, and eased her toward the doorway. “I’m sorry,” he said, and led his wife into the gloom.

  It was all he could offer her.

  * * *

  “The reception in Nena is shit—there’s some weird interference happening right now,” Tharion announced. They stood in Jesiba Roga’s office, of all places. “But from the few words I managed to make out, they’re heading for the Eternal City immediately.”

  “Good,” Holstrom said, pacing in front of Roga’s desk. “That’s what Jesiba told me earlier. But where do we rendezvous?”

  “That’s the tough part,” Tharion admitted, sliding into one of the chairs. Sathia sat quietly in the other one, lost in thought. “The reception cut off before we could get to that. I tried calling him back, and Quinlan, and her parents, but … nothing.”

  “Maybe they got the Rift open,” Hypaxia mused. “Magic pouring into Midgard from Hel could be disrupting the connection. Demons cause power outages sometimes with their presence. Imagine what a lot of them all at once might do.”

  “It’s possible, but doesn’t change the issue at hand,” Holstrom said. The wolf had changed—somehow, in the span of a day, he’d gone from lost to focused. From lone wolf to Prime. Tharion had gotten a vague story out of him about facing Sabine, and Hypaxia taking on the Under-King to become Head of the House of Flame and Shadow, but even beyond that, they seemed like they’d leveled up. Majorly.

  Especially Ithan. Even the most powerful of wolves only had shifting abilities and super strength—not actual magic. And yet Holstrom, suddenly, had the ability to wield ice. Like the power had been locked in his bloodline all this time. But Tharion put aside the thought as Holstrom added, “We need to figure out how to link up with them.”

  “I’m sure if the Rift is open, we’ll see them coming a mile off,” Tharion said.

  “We need to find Hunt and Bryce before they enter into any kind of confrontation with the Asteri,” Ithan insisted. He picked up a vial of clear liquid from the desk. “Hypaxia found a cure for the Asteri’s parasite. We need to distribute it to everyone we can.”

  Tharion blinked in shock. Sathia stopped her brooding to listen.

  Then Ithan pulled out a long, dark bullet from his pocket. “And we need to get this to Bryce as soon as possible.”

  “What is that?” Tharion asked as a strange, ancient sort of power thrummed from the black bullet.

  Ithan’s face was grim. “A gift from the dead.”

  85

  “Well, friends,” Bryce said to Hunt, to Declan and Flynn, to Ruhn and Lidia. They had all gathered in a nondescript white van—one of a fleet Ophion had kept stashed throughout Pangera should an agent on the run ever need an escape vehicle—on the edge of the Eternal City. And though Lidia was frantic with urgency to rescue her sons, this step was necessary. “Ready to change the world?”

  Jesiba had just sent over the footage of Micah’s demise.

  “Let’s burn this fucker down,” Flynn said, and Dec nodded, typing away on his laptop.

  “We’re recording in thirty seconds,” Dec warned Bryce, and she looked to where Hunt sat next to her, so quiet, so thoughtful. Terrified, she realized.

  He glanced up, bleak fear in his eyes as he said hoarsely, “The last time I took a stand like this, with the Fallen … it cost me everything.” He swallowed hard, but he kept his gaze on her. She could have sworn lightning sparked along his wings. “But this time I have Bryce Adelaide Quinlan at my side.”

  She took his hand in hers, squeezing tightly. “I’ve got you, sweetheart,” she whispered to him, and his eyes flickered in recognition. He’d said the same thing to her once—that day she’d had the kristallos venom removed from her leg.

  He squeezed her hand back. “Let’s light it up.”

  Declan signaled, and the red light on his laptop camera turned on.

  Bryce stared into the camera’s lens and said, “I am Bryce Quinlan. Heir to the Starborn Fae, Queen of the Fae in Avallen and Valbara, but most importantly … the half-human daughter of Ember Quinlan and Randall Silago.”

  Hunt barely seemed to be breathing as Bryce said, “This is my mate and husband, Hunt Athalar. And we’re here to show you …”

  It hit her, right then—a wave of nerves.

  Hunt sensed it and picked up her thread without missing a beat. “We’re here to show you that the Republic is not as all-powerful as you’ve been led to believe.” He lifted his chin. “Centuries ago, I led a legion—the Fallen—against the Archangels, against the Asteri. You know how it ended. That day on Mount Hermon, only one other group of Vanir came to our aid: the sprites. We all suffered for it, and those of us who survived are still punished to this day.” His throat worked, and Bryce had never loved him more as he continued, “But today we’re here to tell you that it’s worth it. Fighting back. That it’s possible to defy them and live. That their hierarchies, their rules … it’s all bullshit. And it’s time to put a stop to it.”

  Bryce might have smiled had she not finally found the right words. “What happened in Asphodel Meadows was an atrocity. What happened to those innocent families …” She bared her teeth. “It must never be allowed to happen again. We, the people of Midgard, can never allow it to happen again.”

  She looked the camera dead in its dark eye, looked at the world beyond. “The Asteri lie to you, all of you, every second of every single day. For the past fifteen thousand years, they’ve lied to us, enslaved us, and we haven’t even known the half of it. They use a parasite in the water to control and harvest our magic under the guise of the Drop. Because they need that magic—they need us, our power. Without the power from the people of Midgard, the Asteri are nothing.”

  She squared her shoulders. Hunt’s pride was a warmth that practically seeped into her side, but he let her keep talking, let her take the lead as she said, “The Asteri don’t want you to know this. They have schemed and murdered to keep their secrets.” Danika’s face, the faces of the Pack of Devils, flashed before her eyes. It was for them that she spoke, for Lehabah, for all those in the Meadows. “We’ve been told we’re too weak, and they’re too powerful, for us to fight back. But that’s just another lie.”

  Bryce continued, “So we’re here to show you that it can be done. I fought back, and I killed an Archangel who the Asteri used like a puppet to murder Danika Fendyr and the Pack of Devils. I fought back, and I won—I have the footage to prove it.”

  And with a flick of a switch from Declan, the video played.

  * * *

  Bryce peered around the small, bare-bones room in the safe house near the northernmost section of wall around the Eternal City. “Lidia’s certain this is secure?”

  Hunt, wings tucked in tight in the cramped space, nodded to the sliver of a bed. “Yeah. And I’m pretty sure all the five-star hotels would report our asses to the Asteri anyway.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Bryce grumbled, plopping onto the creaky, lumpy bed. More of a cot, really. “I mean, all of Ophion’s … dead.” She choked on the word. “Who’s to say this place hasn’t been compromised? Lidia’s not exactly in a calm state of mind. She might not be thinking clearly.”

  “Dec and Flynn are on guard,” Hunt said, sitting down beside her with a groan. “I think we’re good to rest tonight.”

  Bryce scrubbed at her face. “I’m not sure I can sleep, knowing that video’s going out soon.” And soon after that, Hel would begin its journey to the Eternal City. She could only pray the armies’ presence would remain unnoticed until the right moment. She’d taken steps to ensure that.

  Hunt waggled his eyebrows at her. “Want to do something other than sleeping?”