He drums his fingers on the steering wheel, his tics slowly beginning.

“Emit not only offered to go on this hunt with me, but he organized it and handled a replacement for his short absence to keep things from getting murky at home. He acted more like the alpha he’s supposed to be than he has in too long for me to remember. Killing as many as wolves as we did has alleviated some of the misery.”

He fixes his hair at last, smoothing the dark blond locks into place, until he looks as perfectly polished as usual.

“The only stipulation was that you come as well. Why is it he was convinced you should be there?”

“I have no idea,” I tell him honestly.

“He’s searching, Violet. He’s found something that feels right. He seemed more like himself these past couple of days than he has in centuries. He needed you there for that, and I know this because I know him. I know all of them. Arion is the only unpredictable factor.”

He tugs at both of his long sleeves and drums his fingers again, though the rapping sound is so quiet I barely hear it.

“Though I don’t know Arion’s motives, he’s certainly not wrong when he says we do need you. Damien alone is proof of that. He grows more virile daily, and is increasingly turning back into the alpha I could really use right now. I can’t put Dorian in line. It’s not my place. I need Damien to do that.”

“How in the hell does that involve me?” I ask on a sigh.

“Because Emit is putting wolves in line at last. He’s already launched investigations into mutinies, stopping them before they progress for a change. Damien is griping at me for stepping on his toes with two kills, something he hasn’t bothered to concern himself with in ages. And Arion is sticking to his fucking corner and focusing on his own House, instead of making my life ten times harder than it already has to be. Retaliation may come yet, but for now, he’s fucking content to go on with this notion of getting the forbidden gypsy girl and playing nice,” he explains…like it makes all the sense in the world.

The drumming on the steering wheel stops, and he doesn’t touch his hair. He sits perfectly still.

“The burden is easing just enough for me to focus on my hunts. I took care of two forgotten and happenstance hunts along the way without getting a single drop of blood on my nice clothes,” he says tightly. “And you didn’t bat an eye when you heard the story. I don’t know if you’re a godsend or the final blow that will render us all pointless and mad. I’ve spent more time than I care to admit trying to find a way to turn you immortal.”

I’m…surprised.

It’s now I realize what a bottled up bag of emotions Vance really is.

He seems so stoic, so dignified and condescending at the same time. I never pegged him as the internally struggling type.

It’s sort of heartbreaking.

“You stayed quiet during that entire attack,” he goes on, not making any move to look at me, as though this has all been incredibly hard to say and he hates me a little for making him say it. “Damien loses control on you, yet you don’t break. He knows something I don’t, because of all his little cryptic mutterings that just tease me with something he wants to tell me but can’t.”

He gives me a sidelong glance, as I exhale and slink back in my seat.

“Emit slaughtered a roomful of wolves in front of you, and still, you invited him into your body near the full moon, never once feeling pain, from what I observed,” he adds, adjusting himself very noticeably, which is super un-Vance-like and weirdly sort of wrongly hot.

The distraction is brief.

“A flower pot cracks your bloody head open and makes you bleed,” he goes on, sounding disbelieving and maddened at the same time. “You don’t die when the cursed Morpheous loses his spend in you—”

“Can you not word it like that? That whole situation is still a little surreal. I mean, cursing a guy’s junk to be a tool of death is serious overkill. I hate overkill,” I tell him, rambling a little, as I chew on my thumbnail and start tapping my foot.

Now I’m the one with the nervous tics, because I get the gist of where he’s going with this. He’s told me his secrets; now he’s about to ask me for all of mine.

“You know about the cult hunting you, but not the Portocale Council.”

“I’ve met the cult. Not the council,” I explain.

“Portocale gypsies don’t meet the fucking cult, Violet. They simply die when the cult comes for them. Idun’s handpicked betas are leading and training the ones hunting for you, even though it technically defies her official order.”

“What’s her official order?”

“Never kill a Portocale gypsy. Same as all our number-three orders—we don’t want it to look like the most important,” he explains. “But Idun’s unspoken orders are top priority, and we never know—”

“She’s hit with the curse too?” I ask, a sinking sensation hitting me with a painful distraction.

“Violet, I’m losing my mind trying to figure out how you seem resilient and fragile in the same breath, and how—”

“Were the Simpletons hit with this same curse?” I ask a little urgently.

He frowns. “I don’t really know, to be honest. It’s not like I sat around jawing with them. They were a little…different. It’s hard to carry on an intelligent conversation with that sort. They didn’t play a part in the sacrifice, but—”

“That sacrifice was also done in their name. Did all the Neopry family members suffer the curse?” I ask, getting sicker by the second.

“The skin walkers, yes. But the Simpleton monsters—”

“Simpleton monsters?” I ask on snort. “Isn’t that a bit hypocritical to say?”

He bristles once more, sitting up like he’s feeling defensive. “There wasn’t another label for them. The ones who weren’t skin walkers were the original monsters, Violet—the larger men, anyways. They were soft, gentle, and very simple-minded people who sometimes bordered on…stupid,” he says like he’s hesitant to use any words right now.

“Yeah,” I state dryly. “They sound exactly like monsters.”

He gives me a slight side-eye, before turning his attention back to the road, as a muscle jumps along his jaw. “It’s possible they received the curse,” he says, giving up the endeavor to dig himself out of the hole he’s made.

“What sort of monsters were they?” I prompt, needing to know why they were so horrible in his eyes.

“Bobo was probably the nicest, simplest man I ever knew, but his speech was slurred when he spoke. He was large and had a slight hunch on his back. Being who he was in those times painted him a target. When a cruel, unchecked group of Portocale children almost stoned him to death one day, he panicked and arose a man of indescribable strength, and he ripped them apart.”

I try really hard not to have a reaction to that, as he exhales again.

“He sobbed and rocked on the ground when he came to his senses, crying out that he just wanted to make them stop, and apologizing over and over and over.”

I’m almost surprised when we pass a sign warning us that Shadow Hills is coming up, because we made it back a lot quicker than we made it out there.

It’s only momentarily distracting me from the recapping of a horrifying tale.

“He was mortal then, and the Portocale gypsies ensured he hanged for what he’d done to those children. As an immortal, he could rip apart ten or so immortals and handle any wounds he sustained, unless you knocked his head off.”

“I thought he was hanged,” I say, confused.

“It was after the altar,” he lets me know. “They all died and came back, even Bobo. The Neopry skin walkers and Simpletons are the only ones who can’t die for even a little while. But the Simpletons were gentle-hearted monsters with savage strength beyond comprehension when their hearts stopped beating,” he adds, delivering the final bomb that seems to come out of nowhere.

My chest gets heavier, because I realize Emit would have already probably deduced this. Damien too.

They’re keeping it a secret from me…

“My mother once told me I didn’t want to be the ribbon girl,” I say quietly, tears teetering on the edges of my eyelids.

“What?” he asks, turning on another road.

“It was such a short, dark, convoluted tale with seemingly endless possibilities. The only tale that truly suited me,” I go on, glancing out the window. “She told me that above all else, to keep my secret. Now I see why,” I add very quietly.

“You’re not making sense,” he says in a worried tone that suggests he’s keeping a wary eye on the semi-unnerving girl in the seat next to him.

“Do the Simpletons feed on lightning?” I ask, hating the punch to the gut.

I ruled this possibility out so very, very long ago when I was marking off the types of monster I could be. I got too wrapped up in the myth that didn’t align well enough to my reality.

“Yes, they do, but what does—”

“Let me see if I’ve got the gist,” I state, interrupting him as my chest only grows unbearably heavier. “Bobo was dead before the second sacrifice. For quite a while. All the others were already dead as well. The only natural thing powerful enough to grant life to the dead was the lightning,” I go on, letting my eyelids flutter shut.

I wasn’t creative enough to have ever come up with this scenario for myself.

“Why in the bloody hell do you insist on knowing everything there is to know about the Simpletons? What’s come over you?” he demands, doing his best to keep his patience, but letting me know it’s strained.

“Even the movies portrayed them as monsters with no name. They were someone else’s monster—Frankenstein’s monster. The laughing stock of all the monsters, really. Portrayed in some lights as a dopey fool with childlike temper tantrums,” I say as I slowly cover my face with one hand and softly shake my head. “In truth, they’re the Neopry Simpleton monsters, the laughing stock of all the monsters—as they rot underground for crimes they didn’t commit, and suffer a curse from my mother’s side of the family because of their surname.”

“Violet, I’m not sure why we’re still discussing the Neopry Simpletons. As tragic as it is, we can’t raise them without raising Idun by default. She won’t remain locked up if they’re free. She’s not weakened like a normal immortal. At most, she’d be up within a week, and we would be—”

“They’re awake, Vance,” I say quietly, letting those words really sink in. “Arion awoke when a Portocale died, and I’m sure they did too. They’ve been up for a helluva lot longer, if so.”

“They can’t be awake.”

“How could you possibly know that?” I ask him, admittedly growing increasingly agitated, my emotions swelling.