I woke curled in a ball on top of a pile of laundry and lollipop wrappers, certain I’d just snapped out of a terrible nightmare. It was still night, and a quick glance at my phone told me I’d only been asleep for a half hour. In fact, I was still wearing my rumpled miniskirt.

I rubbed my eyes, flicking on my phone’s light.

It took me nearly a full minute to remember what had happened earlier, and then it all came crashing down on me like a storm wave. The vampires, the spell-slayers. The disturbing and unfamiliar feeling of being helpless, my body pinned against a wall. The threat that I could either join them or die.

Something about the night—maybe the magical spell they’d applied to my neck—had exhausted me so much that I’d just collapsed as soon as I’d returned home to my East London shithole, completely disoriented.

I scurried over to my bug-out bag, rifling through my last medical supplies and road flares until I found an iron knife with a leather sheath. I strapped the sheath around my thigh.

Now, adrenaline pumped in my veins, and I yanked open the door, heading for the communal bathroom. Rufus didn’t pay me much, and until I saved up, I was squatting with ten other people in an abandoned apartment.

I shared the bathroom with all my house-mates, including a fifty-year-old man who called himself Uncle Darrell and a woman who permanently wore a bathing cap and asked anyone within earshot if she could borrow hand lotion. I donated a bottle to her at least once a week, though I’d rather pull out my own teeth than learn what she did with it.

At the end of the hall, I slammed through the door into the bathroom. I tried to ignore Uncle Darrell, who was hanging out in a towel and flip-flops on the edge of the bathtub. I often found him here in the middle of the night.

“Have I ever told you what I do on the weekends?” he began.

Please don’t.

“I connect to the power of the earth,” he went on. “Bury my manhood in the fresh forest soil.”

Vomit. “How about we don’t have this discussion?”

“My shaman says it’s gotta be the whole ballsack and not just the shaft. It’s quite the commitment, going out into nature.”

“Could you not just use a potted plant in the comfort of your own living room?” No idea why I was prolonging this conversation.

He scratched his chin. “I’m not sure that would work, but I’ll try it.”

Again—how had these people survived an apocalypse?

I rummaged around in the cabinet below the sink, while Uncle Darrell relayed the mild embarrassment he’d felt when a badger caught him balls-deep in Mother Earth. At last, I found a hand mirror, and I pulled it out.

I turned around, using it to look at the back of my neck. And there, glowing on my spine, was a faint, golden rune—a fae mark that I couldn’t read.

My hands shook as I dropped the mirror on the side of the sink. I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but if I had to guess, the spell-slayers would use it to track me, and it might explain my weird fatigue. So, the Wraith hadn’t been kidding when he’d said I’d have to join them or die.

I wouldn’t give them the chance.

“You ain’t listening, are ya’?” yelled Uncle Darrell.

“Scrotum. Dirt. Got it.”

I raced back to my dark room. My heart thumping, I slammed through the door.

My emergency backpack lay by the door, and I frantically unzipped it. I retrieved the headlamp, clamping it on my head.

Then, I found my sharpest knife. I was quickly developing a plan. I’d cut off the tracking mark, then I’d escape London. Maybe I’d go to Edinburgh, take on a new identity, dye my hair black or something.

Kneeling on the floor, I pulled the silver dagger from my bag, and I brought it to the skin on the back of my neck, pressing the blade into my nape.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Cold fear shot through my blood. I knew that voice—the lilting aristocratic fae accent. A voice from my most violent nightmares. And the sweet sent of rosewater—a smell from my nightmares.

I didn’t think this day could actually get any worse.

I turned, and the light from my headlamp beamed over a man I’d hoped never to see again. Already, I was shaking at the sight of him. How had he even gotten in here?

Of course, he’d once been a spell-slayer, too. He knew how to move in the shadows.

Even though he was a member of the fae nobility, he’d cultivated a scruffy look. Baggy woolen trousers with thick navy and white stripes, a handlebar mustache, a bit of stubble. Pink cheeks, and eyes a deep copper, flecked with gold. He looked like an impoverished Victorian clown, but I knew the truth. He was actually a noble fae who viewed himself as king of the miscreants. Lord of the monsters. He’d created a world for himself where he was treated like an emperor. Like a god, even.

It was all part of his act. He wanted everyone outside the arena to underestimate him. I’d never make that mistake—which is why I didn’t try to jam my knife into his eye socket right then and there.

“What are you doing here?” I spat out. The bastard already haunted my thoughts. Now he’d invaded my room?

He shrugged. “I’ve been watching you, of course. I’d never let anyone as valuable as you out of my sight. A delicate beauty and a ruthless killer in one perfect package. The Amazon Terror. I’ve missed you terribly.”

My jaw clenched. He was already getting to me. “I’m not a ruthless killer anymore. Those days ended when the spell-slayers shut down your arena.”

He arched his eyebrows. “Not ruthless? Then what did you do to those two poor vampires?”

I fell silent. I had no desire to engage with his mind games. He obviously wanted something, and I just needed him to get to the point.

He frowned at the mess in my tiny room. “Well, it certainly appears that you’ve made the most of your life since you left my care. Impressive what you’ve done with the place. And I very much like the look of you in a headlamp.”

I narrowed my eyes, still gripping the knife. “Funny,” I purred. “I must have missed out on a few housekeeping lessons when I was living on a dirt floor underground. The conditions in my cage never seemed to bother you. In fact, I thought you liked me surrounded by filth. Keep the monsters in their place, right?”

Okay. He was definitely getting to me. Of course he was. He was Baleros.

“What do you want?” I barked, eager to get this over with.

“I have a task for you,” he said.

I took a deep breath to calm myself. I wouldn’t let him see that he was rattling me.

“Why would I do anything for you?” I pressed the point of my knife to my fingertip, twirling it. “How about I stab you in the throat instead, then run your body full of iron nails?”

“I don’t think so, Arianna.” His face still betrayed no emotion. “You know better than to attack someone who would slaughter you within moments. But I must say, I’m surprised you’re not living with Ciara. Wouldn’t she be safer in your company?”

My stomach dropped. Why was he bringing up Ciara? He didn’t give a shit about Ciara. As my helper, she’d been a servant to a slave—the lowest of the low. I was surprised he even knew her name.

“My dear Arianna,” he said. “I know you’ve internalized all my laws. All of them apart from the second one: Caring for others makes you weak. You have a pathetic tendency to grow attached to anyone who shows you the smallest bit of kindness.”

My blood turned to ice, and my legs started shaking. I could no longer control my voice. “What have you done with Ciara?” Fury snapped through my nerve endings. It was taking every ounce of my restraint not to lunge for him right now. “What do you want from me?”

He rose, towering over me. Then, he pulled out a mobile phone. He swiped the screen, and an image came up—Ciara, tied to a chair in a bare room. At the sight of her, icy dread tightened its grip around my heart.

A light shone on her, and tears streamed down her face. She looked like she was screaming, rattling the chair in her panic, but a gag bound her mouth. Her vampire shirt was torn at the shoulder, as if she’d struggled.

Rage shook me.

Baleros shoved the phone back into his pocket. “She’s in my care until you get me what I want.”

“What the fuck do you want?” I gritted out through clenched teeth.

“Something called the World Key.”

Wrath spiraled in my mind. “The what?”

“You met a few spell-slayers tonight, didn’t you? Of course, they recruit anyone who fights well enough. I knew you’d fight well, my little monster.”

Understanding crashed into me like a freezing wave. “You turned me in, didn’t you?”

A slow shrug. “I need you to join their ranks. I need the World Key, and the Institute has it. Those two slayers you met marked you, didn’t they? They’re going to recruit you. And you’re going to go with them willingly. Find the key and steal it for me. A spell-slayer known as Ruadan possesses it. It’s a simple task.”

It was taking everything in my power not to attack him right now. “You set me up. You set all of this up.”

My rage didn’t faze him. “If you don’t give the key to me within two weeks, I will feed sweet little Ciara to my dragon. When you have it, send a message through one of the Tower’s ravens. I’ll come find you.”

He didn’t have a dragon, but that was beside the point. He’d kill Ciara brutally, and he’d send me the photos. I knew that much.

Violence simmered in my blood, and I gritted my teeth. “What do you want this key for?”

He cocked his head, studying me. “A state of chaos is like unmolded clay, ready to be shaped by our wills. Anarchy is the opportunity to remake the world the way we want it.”

I was in no mood for his lessons now. “Just don’t do anything to Ciara, and I’ll get you your bloody key.”

He wagged a finger in my face. “But do not cross me, my Amazon Terror. I have eyes within the Institute, and if you betray me, I will destroy Ciara. Then you will die with the knowledge that you killed her.”

I’d get him his key. But as soon as Ciara was safe, I’d find a way to kill him. The more power a man like him had, the worse the world would be.