Great. Fantastic. He’d given me the case way too easily. I knew he would dig into my background, but I’d hoped all the roadblocks I had set up in the last few months would delay him long enough for me to stop the ma’avirim.

Damn this fucking face.

“I have a theory.” Nick’s voice cut like a knife. “Would you like to hear it, Dananu?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No. There are four and a half thousand miles separating Atlanta’s Pack and Ice Fury. So, I asked myself, what would the beta of Ice Fury, the guy who runs things on a day-to-day basis, be doing in Atlanta? They call him the wolf who rules in all but name. The Silver Wolf, the guy who managed to wrangle over five thousand separatists and misfits, half of whom have gone wild, into an actual working society, everything they had rejected, and they love him for it. Why would he come here? Why now?”

Oh dear gods. Here we go.

“He has to realize raiding the Pack is a logistical nightmare. They can’t possibly sustain a prolonged conflict. The Pack has the Keep and it’s a fucking fortress. They would know Ice Fury was coming, because Argent would have to move thousands of shapeshifters all the way through Canada and the Midwest to here. He must want something. The Pack has exclusive rights to panacea, which helps prevent loupism. They have a vault full of magical artifacts. Maybe he wants one of those. Or he wants to crush the Pack and take over. Maybe his people are tired of the north and the cold.”

“Can I say something?”

“No. I’m not done.” Anger flashed in Nick’s eyes. “Argent isn’t stupid. He wouldn’t be who he is otherwise. He knows all of this, but he’s here stirring the pot. He must be sure that he can get what he wants to risk it. That means he has a powerful backer. You.”

And now we had paranoia on parade with floats and marching bands.

Nick leaned forward. His eyes locked on me.

“You’re going to back his play. It’s a good plan. He has brawn and you have magic. A one-two punch. There was a time when Atlanta would have come together to stop you, but now is not that time. You and Argent, you must’ve hoped that the Pack would notice him by now. You need an excuse to start this war. Except, for some bizarre reason, the Pack hasn’t reacted the way you anticipated, so you leaked his name to Stella. You know of my connection to the Pack. You counted on me sounding the alarm to save the woman I love and our children.”

Oh Uncle Stupidhead...

“Tell me, what do you get out of it? What does Erra want? Is this about Kate? Do you think if you wreck the Pack, Curran will step in, and you and Argent can kill him? And then Kate, alone and grieving, will pick up her orphan son and return to her aunt like a good little prodigal daughter? Did you honestly think you people could hide your involvement in this? Or did you simply not care? Is this revenge for Roland?”

I opened my mouth again.

“I won’t allow it. This scheme ends here, with me. There won’t be a war.”

“Argent doesn’t want a war.” Yes! Finally got a word in.

Nick focused on me. He looked slightly deranged, and his icy voice just made it worse. “Enlighten me. What does Argent want?”

“He wants to find out who killed Pastor Haywood.”

Nick laughed. “You’re here for the same thing. How convenient.”

Strange bulges slid under his skin, like golf balls rolling along the muscles. The secret weapon my grandfather had grafted onto him.

Nick’s eyes told me I was about to die. Except it wouldn’t go the way he thought it would.

I couldn’t kill Nick to save Kate. It went against everything I stood for. Everything she stood for. She wouldn’t want that. If she knew I killed him on her account…

I’m so sorry, Kate.

“It’s Derek.”

Nick blinked.

“Darren Argent is Derek Gaunt. He’s here because Pastor Haywood asked for his help, but he arrived too late. He won’t do anything to endanger the Pack Curran built. As to nobody knowing about him, Ascanio has been chasing him around the city for the past three days. He probably doesn’t know Derek is Argent, but he must have recognized the scent.”

The words lay between us like heavy bricks.

Nick stared at me, speechless.

“You don’t have to kill anybody. There won’t be a war. There is no takeover. Desandra is safe. The kids are safe. Everything is okay. I won’t let anyone hurt Kate.”

Silence stretched.

“Julie?”

“Yes?”

Nick Feldman opened his mouth. “What in the fucking hell have you done to yourself?”

“You drank their Kool-Aid. You let them change you and twist you, and why? What was wrong with you before?”

I sighed. Nick hadn’t taken the whole Princess of Shinar thing well.

“I told you, I didn’t have a choice. The Eye changed me. I hadn’t realized the changes had happened until I woke up with a new face. All I wanted was to be like Kate and like Erra. I wanted to belong and to be strong.”

“That entire family is poison.”

That again. “There is nothing poisonous about Kate. Kate spent most of her adult life protecting this city and the people in it. If there is any kind of trouble, she runs into it, no questions asked. She cares. She always does.”

“Caring isn’t enough.”

Aha. “You worked for Roland. You let him change you. Your tentacles aren’t clean. Who are you to pass judgement on her?”

His face turned white. “I was undercover.”

“And she is Roland’s daughter. He loved her and he offered her everything, power, wealth, the family she desperately wanted, and she rejected all of it because it was the right thing to do. She’s the kind of person who lets the man she considers her brother call her an abomination to her face.”

“I have not done that in years.”

“You don’t get credit for not being an asshole, Uncle.”

“Fine,” Nick growled. “I don’t have that big of a problem with your face. You wanted to look like Kate, and I can understand that. I can even understand why you put the eye in. What I don’t understand is why you allowed Erra to indoctrinate you into being her puppet.”

“She didn’t indoctrinate me. I chose New Shinar on my own. I have my reasons.”