Some of the tension went out of Nick’s shoulders. Despite everything, he still worried.

We looked at each other.

“You almost killed me.”

“I didn’t know who you were.”

“You made up this huge crazy theory and nearly started a war. I thought you were better, Uncle. You seemed so sane until this morning, but you’re worse now than when I left eight years ago.”

A slow, crooked smile stretched his lips. “Insanity works for me.”

Eventually the Order and the Pack would come into conflict. It was inevitable. I didn’t know what he would do then, and I had a feeling neither did he.

“What’s your next step?” Nick asked.

“I’m going to drop my great uncle off at my house and then I’ll go after Mark Rudolph.”

“Use the badge,” he told me.

“I’m planning on it.”

“I want updates. Every day.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Don’t die.”

“Yes, Uncle.”

He waved his hand. The magic slithering along the floorboards died. I was free to go.

I was almost to the door when he asked, “The old man in Stella’s office, you said he was the highest-ranking minister.”

“Yes.”

“Minister of what?”

“Internal security.”

“He is a counter-spy?”

“He’s a royal assassin. The best in the Old Kingdom.”

Nick stared at me.

“Like I said, Shinar had its issues.” I smiled and escaped.

When I walked through the door of Stella’s office, she was on the phone. She had this flat expression on her face. Namtur watched her quietly.

Stella saw me. “She is right here.”

She held the phone out to me. I took it. Miraculously, the connection held.

“Knight Ryder?” Bishop Chao said into the phone.

“Yes?”

“Douglas had a stroke. I’m so sorry.”

Cold rolled over me. The world slid sideways. The memory of Douglas on the ground, his small, battered body smeared with blood. Don’t let them hurt me anymore… The words blended with a hoarse whisper from all those years ago that didn’t even sound like Kate. Want to…die…at home…

I heard myself say, “I thought he was improving.”

“So did we. They are working on him now. I will let you know if there is any change.”

“Thank you for everything you’ve done,” I said.

“We will pray for him,” she said.

I handed the phone to Stella. She carefully hung it up and looked at me.

“You should sit down,” she said.

“I have things to do.” My voice sounded light, almost carefree.

“Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not good,” she said. “I think you should sit down, take a breath, and reevaluate.”

I didn’t need to reevaluate anything. I was crystal clear on what I needed to do. “Thank you for your advice, Knight Davis. We will be going now.”

I walked out of the office with Namtur next to me. The groom was walking Tulip and Lady toward us.

“Who was he?” Namtur asked.

“A street child.”

“There will always be street children,” he said gently. “They will always get hurt. Some will die too early. You and I know this better than anyone.”

“This one was different.”

“How?”

“I saved him. He is supposed to survive.”

I took the reins from the Order’s groom and swung into Tulip’s saddle. She sensed my mood. Her ears went flat back.

Namtur mounted, and we rode down the street.

“You smell of murder,” the old assassin said. “It’s in your eyes.”

“I’ll take you to my home now, Great Uncle. I have something I must do this morning. Please wait for me in my house.”

He bowed to me slightly. “Yes, Sharratum.”

15

The guard stared at my badge and chewed the toothpick in his mouth. Middle-aged, but hard and fit, he didn’t look like your typical private security. Higher priced private guards made efforts to appear clean-cut. This man looked like he just came out of a rough bar—long, greasy hair tied back into a ponytail, old jeans, black shirt stained with sweat, and a jaw that had a one-night stand with a razor a week ago and hadn’t liked it.

Mark Rudolph didn’t just live in Mt. Paran, he lived in the Enclave, an area to the west, where individual houses sat on ten acre lots, each with its own fence and gate. My badge got me into the Northside, and now I was stuck at Rudolph’s private gate trying to deal with his hired muscle.

Ponytail had sent a younger guard “up to the house” to find out if they should let me in. That was fifteen minutes ago. Rudolph was likely running a background check.

Ponytail was staring at Tulip a little too hard. She stared back at him. He thought he spotted a horse he’d like to have if I didn’t come out of Rudolph’s house, and Tulip thought his face was nasty, but if he got close enough, she would bite him anyway.

A short dark-haired man came trotting down the driveway. With a sallow tint to his skin and heavy bags under sunken brown eyes, he had the dashing looks of a man fresh off a drunken binge. “Let her in.”

Ponytail stepped back into the guardhouse. Metal clanged, and the heavy wrought-iron gate slid aside about four feet, just wide enough for me to pass through.

“Leave the horse here,” Ponytail said.

I dismounted. He held out his hand for the reins. I snapped my fingers. Tulip took off down the road.

Ponytail gave me an ugly look. “You shouldn’t have done that. Not a safe place for horses here.”

“Don’t look for her if you want to keep breathing.”

Ponytail waved his fingers at me. “Ooo. Spooky.”

“Your funeral.”

I walked up the driveway toward the house.

On second thought, house was the wrong word. It was a mansion, one of those pseudo-Colonials one finds sprinkled in affluent neighborhoods all over the South. Two stories tall, red brick, white grout, a row of columns up front, and two rows of rectangular windows, shielded by bars.

The dark-haired man and I walked up the circular driveway, up the white stairs, and to the front door. He opened the door for me and leered as I went in. Inside, a double staircase curved upward from a round foyer. A tall blond man in his thirties waited for me between the staircases. He was built like a bear, with a thick, short beard and hair shaved to almost nothing on the sides and back of the head. He’d braided the hair on top into a skinny plait, and it hung over his shoulder, secured with a leather cord. A ragged scar carved the left side of his face, reaching up into his hairline. Something had clawed him. A large predator or, more likely, a shapeshifter. A modern gladius hung in a scabbard on his belt.