“I wasn’t asked where your father would be. You asked me where he was, and I told you exactly where he was at the time. Obviously, he was moved before you arrived.”

“Obviously.” I tried to keep the anger from my voice but failed miserably.

“Look on the bright side—at least you learned something.” He actually did smile that time, with lips the color of clotting blood. “You learned to act quickly, before the intelligence you paid for becomes moot, right?”

“Actually, the lesson I learned goes something like, ‘Never trust a hellion.’”

Ira laughed, a sound that felt more like an angry dog’s growl than a demonstration of joy. “I would have thought you’d learned that one long ago.”

I would have thought so, too. Which was part of the problem.

He leaned closer, over the blood on the floor, and it took most of my self-control to keep from backing away from him, which would have felt to both of us like an admission of fear. “But the fact remains—I did not lie to you.”

“But you did tie my friend to the ground with crimson creeper vines. Why?”

Somehow, Ira seemed even more amused by my question than by my belated wariness of hellions in general. “Are you surprised when a cat meows? Or when a siren sings her prey to sleep?”

“I’m surprised when someone who agrees to help me turns around and tries to kill one of my friends.”

He leaned back again, studying me from a different perspective, and I pretended that didn’t creep me out. “Little fury, I’m finding it difficult to express how very mixed-up you seem to be. First of all, I did not, nor will I ever, ‘help’ you. The information I provided was not a favor. It was a service rendered for payment. And, for the record, I’m only explaining that to you—with great patience, I might add—because I can feel you growing angrier with every word I speak. Which means that so far, I’m profiting from this little encounter without putting forth any effort whatsoever.”

“You’re...vile.” I’m not sure where the word came from, but it felt like a good fit.

“Why, thank you. And to continue, I did not try to kill your friend the mara. Had I wanted her dead, I would simply have bitten her head off and sucked out the tasty filling. But the fact is that in most cases, death of the victim means an end to its anger, thus an end to my meal. You are the happy exception. Well, the angry exception, in this case.”

“The exception?” Why am I always the exception?

“Typically, the undead quickly start to lose touch with their human emotions, including anger. At first I thought you were simply too recently dead for that to have happened yet. And that could be the case. But upon subsequent study, I’ve discovered that you, little fury, are not the average dead girl. You are a dead girl imitating life, which means that you didn’t lose your connections to the human world when you died. You still love,and regret, and hope, and wish, and you still anger. So you still have use to me.”

I frowned, trying to untangle his words and rearrange them so that they made sense. “Was that your long-winded way of saying you poisoned Sabine to piss me off?”

He nodded. “Succinctly put. In fact, my original intent was to kill her. However, when I took a taste of her anger, both past and present, I found you prominently displayed among her grievances, in spite of the fact that she was obviously in the Netherworld in an ill-fated attempt to help you and your assorted collection of playmates. Which told me that hurting her would likely anger you.”

“So, should I assume that if you catch any of the rest of my ‘playmates,’ you will hurt them, too, to piss me off?”

Ira’s mouth twitched, and I got the impression he was silently laughing at me. “That is a distinct possibility. It is also the last bit of information I will give you without compensation.”

“Fine. I don’t need anything else from you anyway.”

His dark brows rose in a skilled imitation of human surprise. “That tastes like a lie, little fury. And the fact that you haven’t yet dismissed me from the human plane seems to support my theory. What could you possibly need?” He crossed both arms over his chest, waiting, but I didn’t answer. I couldn’t without giving him as much information as I’d be asking him for.

“Information, again?” He was guessing. He was a good guesser. “I think you need more information, but I do look forward to the day you write my name in blood and ask me to take action on your behalf.”

“That won’t happen.” In part because I couldn’t afford it. And in part because dealing with Ira was dangerous, and the more I saw him, the more likely I was to forget that. To see him as just another Netherworld resource, like Harmony’s herbal remedies.

That kind of casual disrespect would lead to things worse than death.

“Oh, I think it will. Based on the escalation of your rage in the few days since we officially met, I would say our relationship is building toward a sharp crest. You will need something soon. Something beyond information. And when you become angry enough to pay the price...that will be a day to remember, surely.”

I stayed silent, well aware that every second I didn’t swipe my hand through the bloody letters on the floor was another second confirming his theory that I still needed something from him.

“But just information for now, am I right? You want to know where your father is?” His brows rose again. “Will you pay twice to have the same question answered? Far be it from me to offer unsolicited advice, but if I were you, I’d ask something new. Perhaps you’d like to know the whereabouts of your uncle and your lover’s mother? An attractive pair of bean sidhes. It would be a shame to see them devoured by the jungle, as it were.”