The road to the top is paved with bodies.

Sloan often marveled that he could have been a Sunai—that whatever invisible hand cast their shapes had given him this instead. Perhaps because there were no innocents in the room that night.

Or perhaps fate simply had a sense of humor.

The wounded Malchai was losing steam. A rasping sound escaped his throat, followed by a wet gurgle as the creature collapsed to his knees. His blood dripped in thick clots, staining the floor, and Sloan kicked the Malchai back, out of the path of Callum’s mark.

The girl was still on her knees, pinned down by the second monster, who stared at the black blood pulsing from the other Malchai’s throat, his skeletal face a mask of shock.

Sloan tugged a dark swatch of cloth from his shirt pocket.

“Go,” he said, wiping the gore from his fingers. “And take him with you.”

The Malchai obeyed, releasing the girl so he could haul the other monster toward the door.

But the moment her captor’s grip was gone, the girl was up, ready to flee.

Sloan smiled and dug the heel of his shoe into the rug, jerking it toward him. She staggered, fighting for balance, and in that beautiful moment before the girl could either fall or find her feet, he was on her, forcing her back against the floor. She fought beneath him, the way Kate had fought in the grass and the gravel. She clawed at him with bound hands, raking too-short nails across too-hard skin, and for a moment he let her fight, as if she hadn’t already lost. And then his fingers tangled in her straw-blond hair, forcing her head back, exposing the line of her throat, and Sloan pressed his mouth to the curve of her neck, relishing her rising scream.

“Katherine,” he whispered into her skin right before he bit down, pointed teeth sinking easily through flesh and muscle. Blood spilled over his tongue, surging with power, with life, and the scream died in the girl’s throat. Some part of her was still trying to fight, but every blow was weaker, her limbs growing sluggish as her body slowly, haltingly surrendered.

She shuddered beneath him, and Sloan savored the perfect seconds when her limbs stopped but her heart struggled on, the blissful stillness when it finally gave up.

His jaw unclenched, teeth releasing with a wet slick. He drew his fingers from her hair. Gold strands clung like cobwebs until he shook them free. They settled over her face, as thin and fine as old scars.

“What will you do,” said a dry voice in the doorway, “when you run out of blonds?”

Sloan’s teeth clicked together. The intruder’s shape hovered at the edge of his vision, a ghost of the girl beneath him, a shadow, familiar but distorted.

Alice.

He dragged his gaze toward her.

She was dressed in Katherine’s old clothes, scraps Katherine had left behind, black jeans and a fraying shirt. Her hair was more white than blond, chopped at a violent angle along her jaw, and blood—dark arterial sprays—coated her arms from elbows to pointed nails. From those bloody fingers hung a handful of patches, each printed with three letters: FTF.

“We each have our tastes,” said Sloan, rising from his crouch.

Alice tilted her head, the motion slow, deliberate. Her eyes were ember red, like Sloan’s, like all Malchais’, but every time he looked at her, he expected to find them blue, like her—he almost thought father, but that wasn’t right. Callum Harker was Katherine’s father, not Alice’s. No, if Alice was born of anyone, it was of Katherine herself, of her crimes, just as Sloan was born of Callum’s.

“Did you succeed?” he asked. “Or simply make a mess?”

Alice drew something from her pocket and tossed it toward him. Sloan plucked the object from the air.

“Four caches down,” she said. “Three to go.”

Sloan considered the soft cube in his palm. A small quantity of plastic explosive. A very small quantity.

“Where is the rest?”

Alice shot him a mischievous grin. “Somewhere safe.”

Sloan sighed and straightened, the blood settling in his stomach, the high of the kill so woefully brief. In death, the girl at his feet looked nothing like Katherine, which was terribly unsatisfying. As for the body itself, he’d have someone throw it to the Corsai. They weren’t picky when it came to a pulse.

Alice followed his gaze down to the corpse, its appearance a vague echo of her own. Her eyes shone, not with anger or disgust, but with fascination.

“Why do you hate her?”

Sloan ran his tongue thoughtfully over his teeth. He didn’t hate Katherine, he simply loved the thought of killing her. And he resented her for taking the one life that should have been his: her father’s. He’d never know what Callum’s blood tasted like. But as long as Katherine was out there, somewhere, he could imagine hers.

“Does a predator hate its prey?” he asked, dabbing a stray drop of blood from the corner of his mouth. “Or is it simply hungry?”

Alice’s attention remained fixed on the girl. “She’s out there, somewhere.” Her red eyes flicked up. “I can feel it, in my bones.”

Sloan understood. Every day of their shared existence, he had felt the threads of Callum’s life, thin, invisible, impossible to be rid of. And he’d felt his maker’s death like a sharp pair of scissors cutting him free.

Alice flexed her fingers, and the last clinging beads of blood dripped to the floor.