“I’m trying to grab the light before it’s completely gone,” she said without looking up. “It’s hard to capture the sky when it keeps changing.”

“Looks like you’re doing a good job of getting each stage.” Careful with the edges, I picked one canvas up. It had been finished just before dusk, the sun a globe of light at the edge of the world, the sky just beginning to blush.

“This is gorgeous,” I said, and wondered—not for the first time—what it would have been like to see a sunrise or sunset from beginning to end.

“Thank you,” she said, frowning as she switched to a buttery yellow, began to place highlights among the clouds. “I’m only going to have a couple more minutes before it’s gone.”

“I’ll wait,” I said, and stared quietly across the lake. Watched the waves move hypnotically toward the shore, and let myself relax. It might have been the first time on this not-vacation that I’d done that. But my mind didn’t slow. Not just because of everything that was going on here, but because of the decisions I knew I had to make when I went back.

I’d grown up with martial arts classes, piano lessons, tutors. In Paris, I’d started school again, had lessons. My life had been scheduled, regimented, and I’d liked it that way. Graduation, then service to the House of vampires; my nights had still been ordered around my obligations.

Now I was the guest of a friend, a temporary Ombud, and a woman—for the first time in her life—who didn’t really have a mission.

“I need a hobby.”

“Well aware,” she said as the sky darkened, orange flaming against purple.

“Maybe I could learn to paint.”

“No.”

Her answer was just fast enough to be insulting. “Why not?”

“Because you’re literal. You like rules. Art—even realistic art—is about pushing past boundaries, perception, concepts.”

I didn’t like the answer, even if I found no basis to disagree with it.

“I also need a new mission,” I said.

“There we go,” she said. She dabbed the brush in liquid I knew was mineral spirits, then wiped it on a towel. “I knew this trip was going to help you start asking questions.” She glanced up at me. “Before now, you were waiting.”

“For what?”

“To make peace with the life you thought you’d have so you can move on to the next one. We’ve already discussed that you shouldn’t be a bureaucrat. Speaking of the OMB, did you know Theo can juggle?”

“I did not. He gave you a demonstration?”

“Accidentally. It’s a long and cat-vomit-filled story.” She waved that away. “But that’s a road trip tale for another time. We’re discussing your ennui.”

“I don’t—,” I began to argue, then realized she was right. She’d been right when we talked in Chicago, even though I hadn’t liked hearing it. “I still don’t know what comes next. How do I figure that out?”

“If it was me, I’d start with what doesn’t come next. You don’t like working for the OMB. Why?”

“I don’t not like it. But I wouldn’t call it fulfilling.”

She smiled, as if pleased by the admission. “Good. You seem to enjoy supernatural drama, as much as I detest it.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.”

“It’s neutral. But the OMB, from what you’ve told me and approximately two hundred complaints from my father, is about ten percent drama and ninety percent paperwork. So you need a job that tips that scale.” She looked at me. “Have you had fun on this trip?”

My instinctive reaction was to say no, to protest that there’d been too much violence, too many people hurt, too much frustration. But that wasn’t the full truth.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s been . . . thrilling. Even with the bad parts, I’ve liked being out here with him, digging into this crisis.” Watching people, I thought silently. And deciphering what I saw there. “But there’s no alternate career path for fixing magical drama. That’s just the OMB.”

“You could be a supernatural special agent.”

“I think I need a covert government agency for that.”

“You could create one.”

“I’m confident, but not ‘I am my own country’ confident.”

“You know what I mean,” she said. “Look, you care about Supernaturals. You care about what happens to them. And apparently you’re pretty good at figuring out why something is wrong and fixing it.” She shrugged. “You just need a title and a client willing to pay your rate structure. Which will be very, very generous.”

“So your solution is I should invent a job for myself and find people to pay me a lot of money.”

“I mean, in a few words, yes.”

There were footsteps behind us. We both glanced back, found Connor on the path.

“Did they find the hideout?” I asked.

“No, but Beyo’s awake,” he said, eyes narrowed in purpose. “Let’s go see what he has to say.”

* * *

* * *

Another cabin, another round of shabby decor. We found Alexei standing in front of the open fridge, back to us as we came in.

“Suspect security,” Connor said. “You can’t even be bothered to lock the door?”

“I’m the one who told you to come,” he said, closing the door and turning while he unsealed a soda bottle. “And I knew you’d opened the door, because her magic’s different.”

Connor just humphed, because he couldn’t really argue with that. “How is he?”

“Looks like shit. Had a sports drink, some aspirin.”

“Any flashbacks?”

“Not so far. But we haven’t let him shift.”

“You can do that?” I asked, brows raised.

Alexei took a drink, nodded. “Shifting takes magic. We have a method to block that.”

“The Apex can do it alone,” Connor said. “But without the Apex, it takes a few.”

“And there are at least a few of us on the side of right and justice these days.”

“Anyone else come by?” Connor asked.

“Everett and a couple of others came by earlier, looked like they were in a fighting mood.” He gestured to the shotgun on the table. “I told them they were welcome to come in if they wanted.”

“Did they want to talk to him?” I wondered. “Or did Cash tell them to come?”

“That’s the question,” Alexei agreed. “Cash hasn’t been here yet.”

“We are,” Connor said.

Alexei gestured toward the hallway. “He’s in the bedroom. I’ll stay here.”

Connor squeezed his shoulder, and we walked down the hallway. A bookshelf had been moved in front of the back door, presumably so Alexei only had one door to guard. A door to the left was open, and we looked inside.

Beyo lay on a bare mattress in a room empty but for a stack of boxes in one corner. His arms were extended at his sides, cuffed to the steel supports of the bed frame.

Alexei had been right. Other than his skin having a little less gray pallor, he didn’t look any healthier than he had the night before. He wore jeans and a T-shirt that bagged on his gaunt frame, raw scrapes and bruises visible where cotton didn’t cover.

His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. He jerked when Connor knocked on the doorframe, lifted his head before dropping it back again.

There was misery in his face, mixed with what I thought was guilt. Feeling guilty was probably his first good decision in a very long time.

“Beyo,” Connor said. “You know who I am.”

“Yeah.”

“I take it you’re one of the Sons of Aeneas?”

Beyo’s head popped up again, surprise in his eyes. “You know.”

“We have pieces,” Connor said. “The Sons, the spellseller, Loren. We don’t have the full story. And you’re going to tell me, right now, or we’re going to have an even larger problem than we already do.”

Beyo swallowed, lay back again. “It started with Paisley. Or she was the first time we got serious.”

“Got serious about?” Connor asked.

“Making changes. Fixing things around here. Cash, Loren, Everett, the rest of them. We’ve been pissed for a long time and tried to get someone to pay attention, to do what needed to be done around here. But they’re living in the past. And then Paisley happened.” He looked up again, and anger was a fire in his eyes. “He killed her.”

“You have evidence of that?”

Beyo muttered something. “How the fuck were we supposed to get evidence? You think Loren didn’t fix things? Didn’t arrange things just so to cover his tracks? He was the last one to see Paisley alive, and then she was dead. He has a reputation around here, you know. For getting whatever he can from the women of the clan and taking what he can’t get willingly.”

Connor didn’t ask for evidence this time, presumably because he had expected the same answer. “So you decided to get even,” he said.

“We decided to get stronger,” he said. “Cash, Everett, Loren, they’re all old. Their time is done. We were going to work together, take the lead.”

“Because none of you were strong enough to take him individually. None of you alpha enough to challenge him for the clan. So you decided to cheat.”

Beyo rose up, strained against his bonds with enough force to make the metal creak in protest. “What the fuck do you know about it? You’re in Chicago, living it up. We’re out here. Pack but not really, right? Barely making it.”

“We are Pack,” Connor said, each word bitten off as his anger and frustration grew. “Pack takes care of Pack—if we know there’s a goddamn problem. You could have come to us. You could have come to me.”