She sat in the back of a windowless van. Her captors were not intelligent, but they were stronger than her. They tried to torment her by forcing skin contact—no doubt thinking it would have a detrimental effect on her psyche—but Prija didn’t react. She stared straight ahead and tried to give every appearance of being unaware.

Silent.

She was good at being silent.

But of course she was aware. She was aware of everything.

They were in Myanmar now. She could hear the language change when they stopped for petrol. Feel the roads grow rougher. They spent one night at a Grigori outpost, but the men there wanted nothing to do with these combative sons of Arindam and the Irin scribe who skulked in the background.

“We don’t traffic in our own,” one said. “They are untouchable.”

Prija smiled when she heard that. Untouchable. She liked the label.

“That’s not what we want her for,” her captor said. “That’s not why our father wants her. She’s something different.”

“Then we really don’t want her.”

“She’s powerful.”

“All the more reason she’s not welcome here.”

So her captors knew her lethargy and blank stares were an act. Not surprising. What was surprising was the case in the corner. They’d stolen her instrument from her cottage and taken it with them, even though they didn’t let her play. Did they know? Perhaps what had happened to Tenasserim wasn’t as much of a secret as she and her brothers had thought.

What do you want with me?

“She’s an offering,” they told another outpost, “for our father. She will please him.”

Why would she please Arindam? She had nothing but contempt for the Fallen angel. She had even more contempt for Arindam’s sons, who had dishonored Kanok’s memory with their cowardice. He’d sacrificed his life only to have them back out of their bargain. He’d sacrificed his life, and now Prija was alone.

On the third day of traveling, Prija decided to kill the scribe.

He’d sat in the back of the van with her. He sat on the opposite bench and looked at her with greedy eyes. He’d taken out her saw sam sai and run his filthy tattooed hands all over the wood.

“Beautiful,” he’d said. He looked and sounded Indian, but she didn’t know enough about India to identify his accent. She knew it was a big country with many languages, but the man spoke English. “Your violin is beautiful.”

It isn’t a violin.

He tapped the blue jewel attached to the skin of the instrument. “This is valuable, isn’t it? It’s not a fake.”

Of course it wasn’t. Kanok had stolen the jewel for her. It was the last gift he’d given Prija. The scribe had no idea how valuable it was.

“Why do you hold your instrument in such high esteem?” he asked. “Is it your voice?”

She met his eyes and knew that the scribe understood.

“It is, isn’t it? I kept wondering why they called you dangerous. I kept wondering what it was that made you the one we needed to take. I voted for the little one. She’s a genius, isn’t she? A prize like that one could be very valuable if one could make her compliant. The right angel would have to—”

She knocked him to the ground with a lob of power aimed at his forehead. The scribe started bleeding from the corners of his eyes.

He blinked and droplets of blood scattered across his face. “How—?”

Prija punched her power out again, catching her instrument as the scribe slumped to the floor of the van. She set her saw sam sai delicately in the case and closed it before she moved back to the scribe.

He was dazed and bleeding. It was the only reason she had been able to break past the tattooed armor he covered himself with. His magic was far superior to hers, but he’d looked at Prija’s slight body and seen weakness. He’d believed her silence was defeat.

A foolish mistake. The surprise was hers, and he would die.

She saw him reaching for the intricate spiral of ink on his left wrist, and she slammed her foot down on his hand, blocking him from activating more magic as she thrust more power at his frontal lobe.

“Can’t… do this.”

I can do anything I want. She smiled. I am untouchable.

She felt a twisting black power grow around her. Prija ground her foot into the scribe’s wrist. He was bleeding from the ears now. She had no subtlety in her attack. Prija’s power had been fine and fierce once. Now it was the equivalent of a brick to the skull. She kept battering his mind over and over and over. Eventually his eyes rolled back in his head. He went limp. Then she knelt over him and put one hand to his windpipe and the other over his nose and mouth.

As the car wound farther into the mountains of Myanmar, she smothered the Irin scribe who had taken her. She took his own dagger from his waist—a small curved saber—and stabbed him in the back of the neck as she’d been shown. Irin and Grigori called themselves different, but they died the same way.

She opened a window to let the scribe’s dust swirl out of the van. The black shadow that settled in her mind didn’t dissipate. Killing the scribe had felt good. Satisfying. She wondered if she’d be able to kill the other men who had captured her.

She secured her saw sam sai in its case, sat back on the bench, and waited for the next stop, the silver dagger tied into a corner of her dress.