“Obviously. Be more specific.”

“Runa Etterson came to me for help because Diatheke killed her mother and kidnapped her sister. Diatheke had recruited Cristal Ferrer to produce warped killers capable of magic manipulation. Cristal Ferrer has a secret lab, where she’s holding Runa’s sister. Runa’s brother attacked Diatheke. Alessandro Sagredo, who has been working with me, went in to save him, and was teleported to that same lab.”

I paused for a breath.

“So far I fail to see how any of this is my problem.”

“I have to get Alessandro and Halle out of the lab.”

Victoria narrowed her eyes. “This Alessandro, what is he to you?”

“I love him.”

Alarm dashed down my spine. I had admitted it.

“I see. Where do I fit in?”

“Before I took the case, Augustine warned me away from it. His exact words were ‘I know exactly what you’re up against. Sometimes when you search the night, you’ll find monsters in the dark.’ I discovered later that Augustine’s agents caught one of Diatheke’s warped assassins in action. By now Augustine’s people would have extensively surveilled Diatheke. That’s how he operates. He knows where the lab is.”

“Most likely. Has Montgomery approached you with an offer? House to House?”

“Yes. I regretfully declined.”

Victoria raised her eyebrows. “Why?”

“Because House Baylor will not be a vassal House.”

She didn’t say anything.

I kept going, trying to stuff my desperation deep inside to keep it from showing on my face.

“Augustine never shares. He trades. When I rejected his offer, I told him that if I came seeking information, I would bring valuable information in return. I have to give him an item in trade.”

Victoria tilted her head. “You could just accept his offer.”

“I can’t do that.”

“But what about Alessandro?”

I closed my eyes for a second. It felt like I was being ripped apart. “I can’t. Not for him, not for Halle. This is about our survival as a House. If I put on Augustine’s leash, he would force us to compromise everything we stand for.”

“So you come to me, because you think I have information to trade?”

“I know you do. You approached Augustine when you were looking for Nevada. You would not have gone to that meeting empty-handed. Please help me.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m your granddaughter. Our House doesn’t bear your name, but we have your blood. We’re the only family you have. You don’t want to see us fail.”

I held my breath.

She stopped and pondered the delicate golden roses. “Your older sister failed me. She has my magic, but she’s too set in her ways. She’s inflexible and incapable of cruelty, and sometimes survival requires it. Arabella, adorable as she is, is too young and impulsive, and her magic makes her think she’s invulnerable. She’s rarely afraid, and the Head of the House needs to know fear. Failure is the best teacher, and fear is the best motivator. Of the three of you, you’re the most like me. You’re smart like me. You’re sensitive like me. The world cuts you deeply, and it will either kill you, or you will grow armor the way I did.”

When I thought of my father’s mother, sensitive was not a word that came to mind.

Victoria studied me. “I can work with you. But it will cost you.”

I raised my chin and waited.

“And that’s the difference between the three of you. Nevada would have told me she would give me nothing and stormed off to fight the war on her own. Arabella would have promised me anything. And you are . . . just waiting.”

I kept waiting. It seemed to be working for me.

“For the House to survive, the family needs someone to steer it. You can’t belong to two Houses at once; you have to choose. If you marry into a powerful House, you’ll choose your husband over your House the way Nevada did.”

I opened my mouth to argue.

“I’m not finished. My deal is this: I’ll give you information to trade to Augustine. And I’ll help you in the future with advice, knowledge, and influence. In return, you’ll dedicate yourself to House Baylor. You won’t dilute your bloodline. If you marry, your husband must be a Prime and he must join your House and renounce all ties to his other family.”

That was impossible.

“So, you can save your pretty Italian, you can fuck him, but you can’t marry into his House. I know that family; they’re old nobility, so wrapped up in their own blue blood, they can’t see past their noses. They’ll never let him go. You won’t be a countess. You will never go to Italy. Your place is here. Think very carefully before you say yes, because you might get out of a deal with the devil, but you won’t bargain out of a deal with me.”

With one hit she ripped my future away from me. I stood there frozen while my mind feverishly sorted through it all.

What did I want from my future? I’d never asked myself that before, but I always knew the answer. I wanted to find someone who made me happy and whom I made happy. I wanted to marry him. I wanted kids. I wanted a family. And most of all, I wanted to be myself, to be open instead of clenching myself into the tight fist of my will every waking moment. I wanted to be loved for who I was, and I wanted to love in return.

There would never be another Alessandro for me. Having sex with him wouldn’t be enough. She’d shattered the little fragile hope that I could pry him loose from whatever trap he was caught in and we could be together.

Even if I found another Prime immune to my magic the way he was, even if that Prime agreed to abandon his House—which would never happen—that Prime would not be Alessandro.

My life was over. In fifty years, I might end up just like her, alone, abandoned by everyone because of the things I had to do to keep them alive. If I somehow managed to have a child, would my grandchild stand before me fifty years from now and pass judgment on my life? Would he or she think I was horrible and didn’t understand what it meant to be young and in love?

This was the first step onto the path of my new life. There would always be hard choices, hard decisions to make, but none would be harder than this.

My future versus Alessandro’s life. Halle’s life.

I had to look my reflection in the eye at the end of the day.

“We have a deal,” I said.

“Ten years ago, another House attacked House Montgomery and murdered Augustine’s father and his younger sister.”

I knew everything there was publicly to know about House Montgomery. There was no record of that attack anywhere. Public record said Augustine’s father died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

“The attackers were killed, but the identity of their employer was never discovered. The hit was arranged through a middleman, Melvin Rider. Before the attack he disappeared. Hand me your phone.”

I unlocked my phone and passed it to her. She grimaced and showed me the crack in the screen. She typed exactly the same way my mom did, holding the phone in her left hand and pecking at the letters with her right index finger. Grandma Victoria handed the phone back to me.

“This is Melvin Rider’s new name and his current address. Make sure Augustine gives you the information first. Always make it seem like you are negotiating from a position of strength. Remember, you are my granddaughter. Chin up, shoulders back. Look them in the eye and make them cower.”

I walked back to reception. Arabella saw me and hurried over.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“You’re crying.”

I swiped at my eyes. My cheeks were wet. Weird. I hadn’t even noticed.

“I’ve got what I need,” I told her. “Let’s go.”

Montgomery International Investigations owned an entire building downtown. An asymmetric structure of blue glass and steel, it rose above its neighbors like a shark fin whose owner was about to surface.

Augustine’s office took up an entire corner of the seventeenth floor. I had walked on my own power across the lobby to the elevators and now to the office. I had fallen asleep again in the car. When I reached for my magic, I no longer felt a void. I wouldn’t be at full strength for another forty-eight hours or so, but it was coming back slowly. Sleep helped.

Augustine’s receptionist, a young woman with pale brown skin and lavender hair, saw us and picked up the phone.

“He’ll see you now, Ms. Baylor.”

“Thank you.”

I headed toward Augustine’s desk behind a wall of frosted glass. Behind me, Arabella chirped, “I love your makeup.”

“Thank you!” The receptionist’s voice warmed by at least ten degrees. “It’s the new Oksana palette.”

“The limited edition one?”

A section of the frosted glass slid aside with a soft whisper and I walked into Augustine’s office. He sat at a modern white desk in an ergonomic chair. Behind him two walls of cobalt glass met at a sharp angle, presenting a panorama of the city below.

Augustine looked up from his computer, a god in his palace of crystal and ice. The door slid shut behind me.