I lay curled up on the stone floor by Ruadan’s bed, pretending to sleep. No blanket. No pillows.

I felt ice-cold, inside and out.

It must have been around midnight by the time he returned.

When he snatched the blanket off his bed to cover me with it, my breath caught in my chest. For just a brief moment, warmth sparked in my chest, my glacial resolve cracking….

Then, I extinguished it again. Like everyone said. I was ruthless. And the blanket was just another gods-damned butterscotch sweet.

I wasn’t going to let my emotions rule me. I watched through a slit in my eyes as Ruadan pulled off his shirt. I swallowed hard, my gaze roaming over his perfect body. I practically sighed. What a waste of a beautiful man. I wished it could have been different. I wished I’d gotten to hear him speak, to learn his secrets….

Kill, or be killed.

I watched as he crawled into bed, my body seeming to grow colder as I contemplated what was coming next. For what seemed like ages, Ruadan lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. His muscles looked tense, just as he had when I’d shared a bed with him.

At last, his eyes closed. I waited until his chest slowly rose and fell. The dark pulsing of shadows that always surrounded him began to ebb, as if they, too, were falling asleep.

Silently, I reached underneath my body, where I’d hidden two blades. I had to act quickly. Every extra second was another second he could wake up and discover me.

I rose, my chest aching with a yawning emptiness.

This was it. This was who I was. A ruthless killer, but a survivor. Baleros might have been the worst person I’d ever met, but he’d taught me how to stay alive.

The lumen crystal glowed over my sternum, and I shadow-jumped. I landed on top of Ruadan, my arm raised, gripping the knife—

His violet eyes opened, and time seemed to slow down. I was hesitating, and hesitation meant death.

I twirled the knife and started to bring the hilt down hard—I could knock him out, then decide.

But as my hand descended, he caught my wrist. He snarled, baring his canines.

In a blur of night magic, he flipped me over, pinning me to the bed. The move took my breath away, and I stared up into his darkening eyes.

His animalistic side was coming out. If I didn’t get out of this, I’d become executed novice number three within the next few moments.

Inwardly, I cursed myself for hesitating. I should have just stabbed him.

Was he hesitating, too? I wasn’t going to wait around to find out. I thrust my hips upward, knocking him off balance, and I rolled, yanking one of my wrists free.

I didn’t hesitate this time. Just as it had so many times before, a desperate, wild will to live consumed me. I slammed my fist again and again into Ruadan’s face. Then, I snatched the silver blade off the bed.

I brought it down hard into his chest, piercing his heart.

Blood poured from the wound. I’d stopped his heart completely, and he wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon. But as soon as someone pulled the weapon out, he’d start to recover.

I was shaking, trembling with the cold, and for just a moment, tears pierced my eyes. Panic was ripping through my mind. I’d failed.

I’d used the silver blade. Not iron. He’d have a hell of a hangover, but he’d live.

Apparently, I’d gone soft since he started giving me blankets and pillows, and I couldn’t bring myself to end him. The first thing he’d do when he woke up would be to hunt me down and yet….

The fucking blanket. That stupid fucking blanket.

I was letting my emotions rule me, and it was a problem.

A hot tear spilled down my cheek, and I wiped it off with the back of my hand. I hated myself right now, my inability to do what needed to be done.

I started pacing the room, my mind racing.

Hesitation is death.

I hated Baleros with every fiber of my being, but his teachings had been my salvation. Without them, I’d be dead now.

Get in your enemy’s head. Knowledge gives you power over a person.

And yet….

The fucker had become so deeply embedded in my head that I sometimes couldn’t figure out where his ideas ended and mine began. Almost as if our minds had melded.

And that meant I knew how he thought, too.

Confuse your enemy by utilizing the unexpected.

My fingernails were piercing my palm, drawing blood, as I frantically tried to think of a way out of this.

Baleros claimed he had eyes within the Institute—that if I betrayed him, he’d kill Ciara. But that was just the kind of bullshit Baleros would say. If he truly had forces working for him here, then why didn’t he know what the key was in the first place? If he’d known already it was a part of Ruadan’s body, he would have sent me on a kill mission. He hadn’t. He’d sent me to steal.

Of course Baleros had lied, because that’s what he did.

I clenched my jaw tight. What if I could kill Baleros and save Ciara?

I had to find him first, but if I knew how he thought, I might be able to puzzle it out.

I glanced at Ruadan’s body, relieved to find he wasn’t moving.

What did Baleros believe about himself? He viewed himself as a sort of god among monsters. That was what he used to call us gladiators—the monsters. He liked to drive that word into us, until I’d believed it myself. Maybe I still believed it. Maybe that’s why I’d just driven a knife into the chest of my new mentor.

Baleros had studied us, manipulating us all the time like a puppet master. But we scared him, too. There was some dead philosopher he used to quote. Something like “whoever fights monsters needs to watch out that he doesn’t become a monster, too.” Then something like, “When you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss gazes back at you….”

“Well, fucker,” I said out loud. “I’m gazing back at you. I know how you think.”

Baleros’s eighteenth law of power: When you achieve greatness, cling onto it with all your strength.

Baleros had thrived during the anarchic period between the apocalypse and the reconstruction. Practically singlehandedly, he’d rebuilt the old Roman gladiatorial ring under London’s city streets. He’d employed a legion of slave masters, each of them making money off their fighters, but he’d pulled all the strings behind the scenes.

The Shadow Fae and the reconstruction ruined all that for him. All the gladiators—except me—were sent into the supernatural realms.

If I closed my eyes, I could envision Baleros, haunting the old amphitheater, looking regal and shabby at the same time. He’d mentally relive his glory days, when the monsters had treated him like the emperor he was supposed to be. Baleros had adopted the old Roman ways, encouraging his veneration. Within those stone walls, he felt not just like an emperor, but like a god.

I touched the lumen crystal at my throat.

I could shadow-jump, now. Baleros couldn’t do that. I could take him.

I glanced at Ruadan again, my whole body trembling. His body was still as a grave. He looked completely dead, even though I knew he wasn’t. Perhaps I could have convinced him to come with me if I hadn’t stabbed him in the chest. But that would be a risk, too. Ruadan would be going on a kill mission. I was going on a rescue mission. Totally different objectives.

My mind whirled frantically, and I felt like I was coming undone. I willed my heart to slow down.

My plan was to get Ciara out of Baleros’s clutches—ideally, to kill him, as well, but Ciara’s rescue was the priority. Then, we’d have to flee London. Both of us would be living like fugitives, hiding from the Shadow Fae for the rest of our lives. There was no way out of that. We’d just have to get used to it, and eventually, maybe the Shadow Fae would forget about us.

Whatever the case, I had to get the fuck out of here, now. I honestly had no idea how long a demigod would stay down for. It wasn’t like I’d fought them in the arena.

I was still shaking when I crossed to Ruadan’s wall, and I pulled another knife from his arsenal. A silver blade, just like the one in his chest. But I had a different purpose for this one.

I brought it to the nape of my neck, where Ruadan had marked me with the tracking spell days ago.

Wincing, I carved the blade into my skin. I gritted my teeth as the pain speared my neck. Melusine would probably have a magical way to handle this, but all I had was brute force on my side.

At last, I’d cut it off. Blood dripped down my fingers, pooling on the floor.

If I didn’t staunch the bleeding, Ruadan would be able to track me within moments of waking. Situations like this were exactly why I carried the bug-out bag with me. You never knew when you’d have to carve magical tattoos off your body. I pulled out a bottle of water, gauze, and my other medical supplies, and I washed the blood from my hands. I spread some antiseptic on the wound, grunting as it stung the open flesh. Then, I taped it tightly with thick layers of gauze. And one more layer of duct tape, for good measure.

When that was cleaned up, I pulled off my bloodied shirt, crumpling it in a ball. I pulled on a fresh black shirt.

Suitably cleaned up, I snatched a piece of paper out of my bag, along with a pen, and I hastily scrawled:

SORRY FOR STABBING YOU.

Then,

THANKS FOR THE BLANKET.

I cringed. That sounded sarcastic, like I was taunting him, but I actually meant it.

“Fucking butterscotch sweets,” I grumbled, aware that I was sounding increasingly like a lunatic with every minute that passed.

In any case, writing pretty things wasn’t my strength, and I didn’t have time to obsess over the exact phrasing. I left the note by his side for when he woke up.

I crossed back to his arsenal, selecting the finest-looking sheath, and I tightened it around my waist. I picked up the iron knife from his bed and carefully slid it into the sheath. Even Baleros had a weakness. And as a fae, that weakness was iron.

I crossed to one of the windows and lifted it until the chilly night air spilled into the room. Shadows claimed the courtyard. Perfect for jumping.

I was pretty sure the halls were lined with magic that could track our every movement, and maybe it would set off alarms. Keeping to the Tower Green was safer. And with the lumen stone, I might be able to get out of here before any of the Shadow Fae got a chance to react.

Ruadan was the only incubus in here, the only one who could naturally shadow-jump. And I’d laid him out cold with his own silver knife. A twinge of guilt flickered through me, but I shoved it away again.

Glacial night magic whispered over my skin, surging in my blood. I gripped the straps of my bug-out bag. Living in a castle had been nice, but it was time for me to take my leave before someone killed me. I sucked in a shaky breath, stared down at a far corner of the courtyard, and I jumped.