My doorbell screamed, tearing me out of a very pleasant dream about running barefoot over the enchanted cherry blossom floor of Laelia. I shuffled my sleepy feet across the room, my stomach roaring in hunger. Reason number two for being cranky: I hadn’t eaten anything since the ice cream pancakes yesterday, and I was positively famished.

Father hadn’t come home yet. He’d left me a message on the refrigerator that he’d probably be away for a few days as he finished up his job. I guess he hadn’t found a way to free the person from the golem suit yet.

I opened the door to find Aaron on the other side, dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of jeans. He looked so easy, so casual. I considered slamming the door in his face. It was too early in the morning to deal with him. But he was my client.

“Come in,” I told him with a sigh.

He walked in, carrying a basket filled with croissants. They smelled like heaven, and there were bagels too. There was also a small bottle of raspberry jam in the basket. Aaron might have had a world-class ego, but he sure knew how to feed a girl. As soon as he set the basket on the table, I dove right in. I ate a bagel and two croissants generously smeared with jam before I said another word to him.

“Any updates?” I asked.

“Yes.” His brows lifted in amusement—or maybe surprise—as I grabbed my third croissant. “My tech guys are going through the data we got off Veronica’s computer. They’ll call me when they have anything. Until then…” He watched me reach into the basket again. “How can you even eat that fast?”

“Next time, I will slam the door in your face.” I licked jam off my fingertips. “The breakfast is not worth your critique.”

“I’m not critiquing. I’m in awe. I’ve watched starving men eat slower than that.”

“Haha.” I peered into the basket. “You wouldn’t happen to have any chocolate on you, would you?”

He tossed me a slim chocolate bar wrapped in gold foil. It looked expensive. I nibbled a piece off the corner and just about fainted from excitement. It was so good.

“You’re not taking very good care of yourself,” he commented.

Munch-munch. “Sure I am.” Rich, thick sweetness exploded in my mouth as the chocolate melted into my tastebuds.

“Ok, then when was the last time you ate?”

“Yesterday morning with you and Ethan…I think.”

He shook his head in disapproval. “Come to dinner with me.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t like you.”

He laughed.

“Do you have any other relevant information for me about our mission, or did you just come to laugh at me?” I asked him.

“I came here,” he began, taking a bagel from the basket. “…to spend some time with you, of course. We always have so much fun together.”

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?” he asked, his face pure innocence.

“Stop acting like things are ok between us. Stop acting charming, fun, and whatever else you do to get women to sleep with you.”

“It’s not an act. I’m like this all the time. Even to Lord Adrian,” he said. “And he certainly doesn’t want to sleep with me.”

In spite of myself, I laughed. “Your pocket is buzzing,” I told him.

Aaron grabbed his phone out of his pocket. His gaze shifted from me to the screen and, as if by magic, his shoulders tensed. Flicking his finger across the screen, he read for a long time. Minutes came and went, and still his gaze didn’t lift from the screen.

“Aaron?” I finally said, almost afraid to ask.

He looked at me. All charm and joy were gone; all that was left was a hard, sullen shell.

“What is it?” I asked.

“My people have looked into what Veronica’s been up to,” he said.

I waited, but he did not continue.

“And?” I asked. “What did they find?”

“The traitor, Lady Cassandra’s co-conspirator, is not Veronica,” he said, pushing out each word as though it pained him. “Veronica has been…” He cleared his throat. “Well, it turns out that she knows about the traitor. She’s been tracking him for years, cataloging his every move and transgression. The file she’s accumulated on him is pretty damning. She had Moonswallow following him, at least until Moonswallow ended up dead.”

“Who is it?” I asked.

All color drained from Aaron’s face. “Ethan.”

“No.” I shook my head, at first slowly—then, as the meaning of his words really soaked in, with vehement fury. “No. He can’t be. It doesn’t make any sense. He wouldn’t do this. He is not a spy for the witches. He’s my friend.”

“He is my friend too.” The sting of betrayal burned in his eyes. “Not only is he my friend, he’s family. I’ve known him my entire life. At least, I thought I did.”

“He wouldn’t do this,” I said again. “He is not in league with the witches, not after all they’ve done.” Killing my mother, enslaving the fairies for centuries.

“The evidence states otherwise.”

“I don’t give a damn about your evidence!” I screamed at him. “It’s wrong. Ethan is being framed. Evidence can be fabricated.” Dread cracked my voice. “Can’t it?”

“Yes, sometimes. But not this much evidence. Veronica has been tracking him for years. Years. This has been going on for years.”

He shook his head, as though he couldn’t believe it. Well, neither could I. Not only couldn’t I believe it, I didn’t believe it. Ethan was a good man.

“He didn’t do it,” I muttered, my hands shaking.

“I wish that were true, but the evidence against him is simply too strong.”

“No.”

“I have to go,” he said, and without further explanation, he hurried out of my apartment.

* * *

I trailed Aaron to an old cannery in Lear, taking care to stay out of sight. I knew what he was going to do, what he felt he had to do. Well, I had to do something too. I wasn’t going to allow the Diamond Edges to execute my friend, no matter what he’d done. Ethan could be redeemed. I refused to believe otherwise. I didn’t give up on my friends.

Aaron had gathered two dozen of his most trusted soldiers to apprehend Ethan. They were meeting here because Aaron still believed there could be spies in the vampires’ upper echelon.

Ethan had realized he’d been exposed and fled. But like all vampire soldiers and intelligence officers, he had a tracker implanted inside of him. The Diamond Edges knew where he was, and they were going after him.

“I’m going with you,” I declared as I stepped out from behind a truck parked in the loading bay.

Aaron motioned to his soldiers, and they lowered the guns they’d pointed at me the moment I’d announced my presence.

“You followed me,” Aaron said.

“I won’t let you kill Ethan.”

“You know the Selpe Empire’s punishment for traitors.”

My heart thumped. “I know.” The punishment was death.

“But we’re just taking him in for questioning to start,” Aaron said.

Questioning. He meant torture.

“I’m going with you,” I told him again.

“Go home, Terra,” he said, pity in his voice. “You don’t need to see this. Your job is done. You found the traitor.”

“I am not done.”

Aaron looked at his men, a smug smile hiding the turmoil I could sense whirling inside of him. “I get the feeling she can’t stay away from me.”

The vampire soldiers laughed.

I swiped my finger across my phone. “Check your mail.”

His phone buzzed. “What is it?” he asked me.

“Read it.”

He pulled out his phone and glanced at the screen. “There is an official document from King Halo, high king of the mages, laying claim to the traitor Ethan Frostwater.”

I’d messaged Davin while following Aaron here. My brother had written up that document for me.

“The high king wants Ethan sent to him to answer for his crimes against Elitia.” Aaron looked at me. “Ethan is accused of treason against us, not against the mages.”

“Ethan is half-mage and as such, his actions reflect on Elitia and endanger the alliance,” I said. “The treaty my brother and your uncle signed stipulates that Elitia is responsible for capturing and punishing mage criminals.”

The vampires had put that into the treaty to force my brother to hunt down any rogue mages who openly rejected the treaty. Like Jason and his people. Well, now those terms were working for us.

Aaron had realized that too. “Clever.” He looked at me like he was impressed.

“King Halo has ordered that Ethan be brought to Laelia for his trial,” I said. “Alive. You can punish him as you see fit as long as it doesn’t interfere with the sentence the high king gives him.”

Which meant the vampires couldn’t kill him. A dead man couldn’t serve a life sentence.

“Why are you going through all this trouble to save Ethan’s life when he betrayed and lied to you too?” Aaron asked me.

“Because he’s my friend.”

Aaron closed the distance between us, leaning down to say, “Mine too.” He spoke in a low whisper, so his men didn’t hear. “And my family. But that’s also why it stings so much. We’ve been friends since we were kids.” He stepped back and addressed the soldiers. “The alliance must be upheld. We’re bringing Ethan Frostwater in alive.”

* * *

We followed Ethan to Earth—to Pacific Sunrise, California, where this had all begun. Where I’d first met Aaron two years ago.

Ethan was in the woods outside of town, in the grove of old-growth coastal redwoods. There was a portal to the witches’ territory around here. We had to make it there first and cut him off, or we’d have a hard time capturing him. My last trip to the witches’ empire had not ended well.

As the vampires sprinted down the trail of lean, red-barked giants, moving like they weren’t wearing fifty kilograms of armor, I just struggled to keep up. I wasn’t as fast or strong as they were, but I refused to allow Ethan to die. Vampires took a hard line against traitors.

Davin’s letter was all well and good, but without me there to remind the soldiers of it, they might just let their hands slip and accidentally shoot Ethan in the head. And what could Davin really do about that ‘accident’? Ethan’s chances of survival were higher if I was there when the vampires confronted him. Which meant I couldn’t let them get ahead of me. I had to keep running.

We were closing in on Ethan. I could already see his long, black hair rippling in the air as he ran. The Diamond Edges picked up more speed, circling around to cut him off from the portal. Ethan came to an abrupt stop and turned. His eyes, hazel speckled with gold, met mine, but he said nothing.

“Take him alive,” Aaron reminded his soldiers. Then he turned his attention on Ethan. “How long?” His voice was dangerously low. “How long have you been selling our secrets? How long have you been betraying your own people?”

“My own people?” Ethan spat, anger swirling in his eyes. “I was never one of you, Aaron. I wasn’t truly a vampire. You spat on me, looked down on me.” His gaze shifted to me. “And I wasn’t truly a mage either. I didn’t have your magic.”

“Ethan—” I began.

“But the witches have a place for me.” His words cut through my protest like a hot knife. “They are my true friends.”

A force of witch soldiers emerged from the trees behind him. There had to be over forty of them, each one wearing a hard suit of high-tech power armor. The Spirit Reapers, the witches’ elite soldiers, their equivalent to the vampires’ Diamond Edges. And they had us outnumbered two-to-one.

“This is a trap,” I realized. “They led us here.”

Bullets tore through the woods from every direction. Aaron slammed into me, tackling me to the ground and shielding my body with his. The Diamond Edges were all wearing armor too, but no armor was completely impervious. Screams echoed in my ears, a note of wretched torment that called out beneath the explosive booms of continuous gunfire.

Finally, the screams and bullets stopped. Someone lifted Aaron off of me, tossing him aside. I looked up into Ethan’s hazel eyes, eyes so cold and cruel, so foreign to me now. He yanked me roughly to my feet. I looked around in horror. Black, armored bodies covered the ground. Aaron’s Diamond Edges were all dead—and they’d taken most of the witches with them.

“Bring them,” Ethan said to the five remaining Spirit Reapers.

Aaron’s eyes gleamed with quiet calculation.

“Don’t even think about it,” Ethan said, pressing the tip of his gun against my chest.

Aaron’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t move as the witches cuffed him and me. They pushed us toward the portal.

“I will not talk,” Aaron told him coldly.

Ethan laughed. “You seem to be confused, cousin. This isn’t about you.” Ethan turned his dark smile on me. “It’s about her. And, yes, you will talk. Sooner or later.”

Then something hard hit the side of my head, and I blacked out.