I careened down the stairs, not stopping until I caught sight of Cranfel napping on the sofa in the study, coffee cake crumbs littering his overalls and the sounds of his snores shaking the china.

“Cranfel!”

The goblin sat up with a jerk and rubbed his bulging eyes. “Wha-whaa?”

I didn’t have time for this. I needed to find out where Lilah was. Needed to know she was safe.

“Where is she?”

“Where’s who?” Cranfel appeared dazed from whatever dream he’d been having.

Hurt him. Make him tell! The demon prodded me to strike the goblin into remembering, but I stayed my hand.

“The girl. Lilah. Where is she?” I bit out, though it took every ounce of willpower I had not to shake Cranfel until the answers came tumbling out of him.

Awake and aware now, the goblin’s look changed from sleepy to shifty.

“I believe we agreed upon a payment?” The goblin jammed a crooked finger up his nose.

A cold wind eddied around Cranfel, who suddenly stopped digging for gold and focused on my face.

My eyes had gone fully demon, and I was close to unleashing the incubus. “You tell me what you know right now or the gods themselves won’t be able to save you from my wrath.”

The goblin cowered on the sofa. “She-she went to the weapons shop. And-and-and—”

“And what!” I roared, my voice shaking the house and causing plaster dust to fall from the ceiling.

“And then she went to Istanbul.” The goblin covered his face with his hands.

“After that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. But I found out she’d been there before. Had visited an outfitter in town to get ready for a trip to Thrace about a year ago!” he shrieked as I glowered at him.

The goblin’s words sank in. It was as if I had the wind knocked out of me. For there was only one thing in Thrace, only one reason to ever visit those godforsaken lands. Ares, the Bloody One.

I dropped into an armchair, my fury subsiding into a slow understanding. No, not her.

But the words I’d overheard that night when Lilah was telling Apollo about her service to Artemis came to my mind. She said she’d do anything to get back to her sisters. I supposed that included convincing an incubus she cared for him and then turning him over to the sadistic god of war for endless tortures. I kicked the dainty coffee table, sending it flying into the wall. The vase full of flowers broke and spilled piles of roses and peonies all over the floor. Cranfel, still in the room, woke from his paralysis of fright and ran screaming.

Find her!

“She’s gone!” I yelled in frustration, for the first time wishing I could see the incubus in flesh and blood so I could pound it into nothing.

Mine, the demon said resolutely.

The thought of her silky hair flowing through my fingers, my name rolling off her lilting tongue—it all cut into me like a barb I knew I’d never remove. Every second she’d been with me had been one leading to betrayal. It was all a ruse to ensnare me into a deadly trap.

I could guess the arrangement—Ares had convinced Lilah to come after me, likely with a promise of reuniting her with her sisters and Artemis. A lie of course, for Ares was hated by all the gods, Artemis not the least among them. The Bloody One would never be able to give Lilah what she sought, yet still he convinced her to do his dirty work. She was that desperate to return home, to try and make amends for the wrongs perpetrated by Farrow. She was a fool to believe Ares’s lies just as I was a fool to believe Lilah’s.

I cursed the incubus and myself for ever laying a finger on Aphrodite, Ares’s obsession. It had been years ago, but it was like the blink of an eye to the gods, and the god of war never forgot a slight. And now Ares had convinced Lilah to pretend to care for me. I wanted to feel disgust for her, but all I felt was an emptiness in my heart where she belonged.

Gave herself, the incubus reminded me, trying to temper my anger. This was a first, the incubus trying to tame me.

But the demon was right. Lilah had given herself, all of herself, to me. I’d felt her need for me, knew she cared. And I’d fallen for her, still desperate for her touch, her face, even as the thought of her betrayal scorched my heart.

No betrayal, the incubus whispered.

I ignored the incubus’s words, but it softly repeated them over and over again. I thought I’d go mad from the incubus’s broken-record routine and was on the verge of tearing the chateau down room by room to shut out the sound until the full import of the incubus’s words hit me.

Lilah failed Ares. She hadn’t turned me over. Instead, she had gone to that evil valley of Thrace without her prize, and the Bloody One would be none too happy with her. When Ares found out she’d failed, he would surely… I hitched in a breath, the thought falling like the Sword of Damocles on my head. When Ares found out that Lilah did not complete his task, he would surely kill her.

Any thought I had after that was blotted out by the cacophony of every piece of glass in the chateau freezing and shattering into a million pieces.