“I’m sorry, Nate.”

Her words were spoken absently, as if she were unaware he was still in the room. As if she were unaware of where exactly she was.

“I have to go,” she blurted.

“Go where.”

“Out for a walk. I can’t stay inside right now—I need some air.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, I have to be alone. I won’t go far, I swear unto you.”

With rough kicks, she pushed her feet into the boots she’d been given by the Luchas House staff, and then she walked to the front of the house. After a moment, he heard the door open and close quietly.

“Shit.”

Nate looked around, and wondered if he should call the social worker. She was due back along with Shuli and two potential boarders to the house. They’d gone to stock up the cupboards and the fridge.

Anxious and unsure what the hell to do, he pulled his laptop over. Signing in, he went into the search function. He told himself he was violating her privacy, but he couldn’t stop himself. Something was up. Something . . . had probably been up the whole time. He was just a simp, though, and he worried that he—

The name she had searched came up right away because she hadn’t closed out the database.

Sahvage.

Sahvage was the name she had looked for.

• • •

Back at the Brotherhood’s training center, Rehvenge pushed his way out of the office and strode down to the clinic. There were a lot of people gathered outside one of the exam rooms, and no one was saying much. Then again, there were a lot of injuries, all kinds of bumps, bruises, and welts marking the faces of the Brothers and other fighters.

“Jesus, you guys got tore up,” he remarked.

Their grids registered one by one for him, and the sorrow was so overwhelming that even though he was a symphath and had sociopathic tendencies, it was impossible not to sink into the suffering.

Well, and then there was the fact that these were his people. His community. His . . . family.

The door opened and Vishous stepped out. “Smoke inhalation. But she’s going to come through. She’s conscious and we’re trying to get her to stay, but she’s insisting that she wants to go home.”

“I thought her house burned down,” Rhage said as he rolled his bandaged shoulder.

“’Nother one. There’s a cottage somewhere.”

“What happened to Sahvage?” Rehv asked.

V lit up a hand-rolled and on the exhale said, “He saved the day—night, whatever. That female in there said the brother somehow came back from a catastrophic neck injury, locked onto the demon, and dragged her right back into an inferno. They died together in the fire.”

“Fuck,” someone said. “Guess he wasn’t a warlock after all.”

“And the Book was with them,” V concluded.

“Thank God.” Butch made the sign of the cross. “We don’t have to worry about either of them anymore.”

Rehv glanced to the exam room door. “Is it okay for me to go talk to her? I won’t upset her or anything.”

“It’s okay with me.” V took another drag. “There’s no medical restrictions, and anyway, Ehlena’s in there right now.”

Rehv pushed his way into the exam room. The instant he saw his shellan, he felt his body respond, and his female smiled from over at the sink where she was washing her hands.

“Mae, this is my hellren.”

From over on the bed, the soot-covered female was in sad shape, the oxygen mask obscuring a lot of her face—but none of her emotions.

He read those all too easily. And that was why he’d wanted to see her.

The suffering was so awful, so deep . . . it reminded him of himself.

After he greeted his shellan with a kiss, he looked at the patient. “I’m sorry I lied to you,” he said roughly. “About what I knew.”

Over on the gurney, the female nodded. Coughed a little. Kept her bloodshot eyes on him, and yet she was not angry at him. Then again, she wasn’t feeling anything but the pain.

“I just wanted you to know that,” he said. “And I wish there was something I could do.”

Ehlena dried her hands. “She would like to go home. Maybe you could drive her where she’d like to go? There are so many injured here.”

The female on the hospital bed pulled her mask down. “What happened to them?” she asked in a hoarse voice. “The Brothers.”

Rehv answered that one. “The shadows came for them. It was an epic fight downtown, like the demon needed them to stay where they were at the Commodore. Fortunately, there were no casualties. There might have been, though—except all of the sudden, it stopped. The enemy just up and disappeared.”

“Sahvage,” she said in that rough way. “When he pulled the demon into the fire. As soon as she was killed, her power disappeared. He saved the Brotherhood.”

Rehv nodded and glanced back at the door. “Well, that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Why all the fighters in this household are outside your hospital room.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand—”

“You’re Sahvage’s female. So they honor his memory by taking care of you.” Rehv lowered his voice. “You’re not as alone as you think you are. Not anymore.”

There was a long period of silence. And then she said, “You are so wrong about that. Without him? I will always be alone.”

Two hours later, as the Mercedes’s headlights washed across the front of Tallah’s cottage, Mae felt the agony in her chest ramp up again—and she had a thought that her pain was like that house fire the demon had started, suddenly exploding in intensity.

She closed her eyes and wondered if she would be able to go in at all, much less spend the rest of the night inside.

“You know, you can stay up at my lake house instead,” the Reverend said next to her. “It’s safe. There are Chosen there. It’s a good place to heal.”

Mae refocused on the front door. “No, this is my new home. I might as well get used to it.”

And yet she didn’t get out of the warm car. Instead, she stared at all the darkened windows, the overgrown bushes, the ragged trees.

“A wonderful female lived here once,” she remarked sadly.

And now she could see the pathway to her becoming what Tallah had been, an old female who lived in those four walls, tottering around the oversized furniture, forever resolving to tidy things up a bit better.

“Thank you for the ride,” she said as she popped her door.

As she went to get out, the Reverend touched her arm. “You can always call the training center. There are resources there for you. I gave you the number.”

“Thank you,” she said, even though she knew she would never phone in.

“Anything you need, you come to us.”

She nodded, but only to get him to stop talking. She honestly did appreciate what he was saying, but she couldn’t think about anything other than the aching present and the four hundred years in the future when all this was done. All the suffering over. When she finally died herself.

Getting out, Mae said some stuff to the male, and he nodded like whatever it was had made some sense. Then she walked over to the cottage’s front door. As she opened the way in, she took a deep breath and only smelled smoke.