Not if I find the murderer first, Emma thought. I’ll deliver his dead body to you, and that had better be good enough.

“First you swear,” said Julian, his blue-green eyes bright and hard. “Say, ‘I swear that when the terms of the bargain are fulfilled, Mark Blackthorn will make his own free choice whether he wishes to be part of the Hunt or return to his life as a Nephilim.’”

Kieran’s mouth tightened. “I swear that when the terms of the bargain are fulfilled, Mark Blackthorn will make his own free choice whether he wishes to be part of the Hunt or return to his life as a Nephilim.”

Mark was expressionless, unmoving as he had been all this time, as if they weren’t discussing him but someone else. He looked as if he were seeing through the walls of the Sanctuary, seeing the distant ocean perhaps, or a place even farther away than that.

“Then I think we have an arrangement,” Julian said.

The two faeries looked at each other, and then Kieran walked over to Mark. He laid his white hands on Mark’s shoulders and said something to him in a guttural language Emma didn’t understand—it was nothing Diana had taught them, not the high, fluting speech of the Court fey or any other magical speech. Mark didn’t move, and Kieran stepped away, looking unsurprised.

“He is yours for now,” he said. “We will leave his steed for him. They have become . . . attached.”

“He won’t be able to use a horse,” Julian said, his voice tight. “Not in Los Angeles.”

Kieran’s smile was full of contempt. “I think you’ll find he can use this one.”

“God!” It was Arthur, crying out. He lurched forward, his hands cradling his head. “It hurts—”

Julian moved to his uncle’s side, reaching to grip his arm, but Arthur threw him off, rising to his feet, his breath uneven. “I must excuse myself,” he said. “My headache. It is unbearable.”

He looked horribly unwell, it was true. His skin was the color of dirty chalk, his collar sticking to his throat with sweat.

Both Kieran and Iarlath said nothing. Neither did Mark, who still stood swaying blindly on his feet. The fey watched Arthur with avid curiosity burning in their eyes. Emma could read their thoughts. The head of the Los Angeles Institute. He is weak, unwell. . . .

The inner doors rattled, and Diana came in. She looked cool and calm as always. Her dark gaze took in the scene before her. Her glance brushed over Emma once; there was cold anger in it. “Arthur,” she said. “You are needed upstairs. Do go. I will escort the convoy outside to discuss the bargain.”

How long was she out there eavesdropping? Emma wondered as Arthur, looking desperately grateful, limped past Diana and toward the door. Diana was as quiet as a cat when she wanted to be.

“Is he dying?” Iarlath asked with some curiosity, his gaze following Arthur as he left the Sanctuary.

“We’re mortal,” Emma said. “We get sick, we age. We’re not like you. But it’s nothing that should be a surprise.”

“Enough,” Diana said. “I will lead you from the Sanctuary, but first—the translation.” She held out a slim brown hand.

Kieran handed over the near-translucent papers with a wry look. Diana glanced down at them. “What does the first line say?” Emma said, unable to stop herself.

Diana frowned. “Fire to water,” she said. “What does that mean?”

Iarlath gave her a single cool look and moved to join her. “It will be the task of your people to find out.”

Fire to water? Emma thought of the bodies of her parents, drowned and then crumbling like ashes. Of the body of the man in the alley, scorched and then soaked in seawater. She looked at Julian, wondering if his mind was following the same paths as hers—but no, he was looking at his brother, unmoving, as if frozen in place.

She itched to get her hands on the papers, but they were folded into Diana’s jacket, and Diana was leading the two faerie men toward the Sanctuary exit. “You understand that we will be investigating this without the knowledge of the Clave,” she said as Iarlath fell into step beside her. Kieran walked behind them, scowling.

“We understand that you fear your government, yes,” said Iarlath. “We fear them too, the architects of the Cold Peace.”

Diana didn’t rise to the bait. “If you must contact us during the investigation, you’ll need to take care in doing so.”

“We will come only to the Sanctuary, and you may leave messages here for us,” said Kieran. “If we hear that you have spoken of our bargain to anyone outside these walls, especially one who is not Nephilim, we will be most displeased. Mark, too, is under orders of secrecy from the Hunt. You will find he will not disobey them.”

Sunlight speared into the Sanctuary as Diana opened the doors. Emma felt a flash of gratitude for her tutor as Diana and the two faeries vanished outside. Gratitude for sparing Arthur—and for sparing Julian one more second of pretending he was all right.

For Jules was looking at his brother—finally, really looking at him, with no one to see or judge his weakness. With no one to, at the last moment, take Mark away from him again.

Mark raised his head slowly. He was thin as a lath, so much narrower and more angular than Emma remembered him. He didn’t seem to have aged so much as sharpened, as if the bones of chin and cheek and jaw had been refined with careful tools. He was gaunt but graceful, in the manner of the fey.