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There was nothing else I wanted to remember. Nothing. Not even my mother’s face, or her perfume, or—

But Christophe was pitiless. “That was why Anna came to see you at the reform Schola.” Patient and calm, like a teacher with a slow student. “You were so close, Dru. So close to remembering. But you didn’t, not yet. It was so long ago, and you were so young.”

I did remember, but I wasn’t going to tell him. “Shut up,” I whispered.

“This isn’t necessary,” Bruce said. “The evidence—”

“It is necessary.” Christophe’s words cut across his as if he was the one in charge here. For all I knew, he probably was. It certainly looked like he was from here. “You won’t believe me. You may even hide the evidence or lie about it. But the word of a svetocha . . . who can stand against that?” The words were nasty, each one a ragged bullet of rage. They scraped against the inside of my skull like a nosferatu’s glassine hatred.

Did Christophe have any idea how he sounded? He sounded like his father.

I wanted no part of any of this. I just wanted to be left alone, so I could figure out how to escape this place. “Shut up,” I whispered again. “Shut up.”

“You’ve made your point, Chris.” Augie’s arm tightened around me.

Christophe whirled away, the fury around him smelling of burnt insulation, broken glass, pain, and the colorless fume of fury. His boot heel made a black mark against the marble floor. “I don’t think I have. How many years has it been since the Order has been able to save a svetocha? We find them, certainly. We even find them before they bloom. But the nosferatu snatch them, sometimes mere hours, a half-hour, before we do. Why? Why is that?”

Kir moaned again. “God in Heaven. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

I wondered if he was trying to convince them or himself.

“Shut up, Kir,” Hiro said quietly. “Or I will kill you myself.”

He sounded like he meant it, too.

Sounds of papers being shuffled. “These are legitimate.” Alton sounded as sick as I felt. August swayed again.

I opened my eyes and tried to brace him. Under the bruising, blood, and dirt, he looked gray. It wasn’t good. “Augie?” I sounded as small as I felt. “You okay?”

“Marvelous.” His split lip leered as he tried to give me a smile. “It’s been a rough week, Dru. Been chased by every nosferatu on the planet, feels like, since my pad was blown. Was a real trick to get to the dropoff and get the information Dylan—”

“Dylan?” The breath left me. “He’s alive?”

“I hope so.” August’s pained expression told me everything I needed to know. “He sent it ’fore the other Schola was broken, Dru. Figured he could trust me, I guess.”

“Of course they are legitimate,” Christophe snarled. “I ask again, why have you been unable to save other svetocha?”

“Wh-wh-why? Marcus actually reeled and dropped down into his seat. It creaked a little under him. “Dear God. Why?”

The assembled djamphir whispered to each other.

I had a very bad feeling about this.

“Because,” Christophe said finally, as if he was answering a question in class, “the Red Queen thinks we only need one svetocha.”

Someone laughed. It was a high, feminine titter, bouncing and echoing off all the stone and glass. Every head tipped back, and there, high above everyone, on one of the carved stone railings girdling the bottom of the dome, stood Anna.

Why?” she yelled. “You want to know why? Ask Reynard! Ask him what he knows! He made me do it!

The careening echoes made me feel even sicker. Between August and me, we were having a hard time standing up. Either he was swaying drunkenly, or I was, or the world was tilting underfoot like a carnival ride.

None of this would have happened without him!” Anna screamed. Even as far up as she was, the hate contorting her face was visible. Her hair was a wildly curling mass of reddish-dark, and she wore red silk, too. Another one of those old-fashioned dresses, fluttering as she hung over the railing. “She stole him from me! He was mine and she stole him!”

Christophe inhaled sharply. “I never loved you!” he yelled, and the force of the cry rocked me back on my heels. The aspect burned through him, his hair sleeking back, and he looked pissed enough to try to jump up to the dome.

I was betting he’d make it, too. I wouldn’t put anything past him right now.

A hideous, dark, burning laughter boiled up inside me. The butt of August’s gun was between us, and it wouldn’t take much to jerk it free from the holster. I’d have to pick my shot, and I knew just how fast she was now. My palm itched for the gun, and my fingers curled. “You would have, if not for that bitch!” Anna’s face contorted again. “You would have loved me!” Was she crying? It was hard to tell. The nausea crested, the sound of wings filling my ears, and I gasped.

Anna made a quick movement. The assault rifle jammed solidly against her shoulder, and Christophe let out another yell.

DRU!” he screamed, spinning and tensing, about to leap on me. Anna yelled one more time, a wordless cry of loathing and frustration, and pulled the trigger.

Echoes shattered the air inside the dome. Djamphir exploded into motion and a hammer blow smashed into my left shoulder. I lost my balance.

August’s knees buckled. He went down hard, and I tried to stop him. But he was heavy, and I didn’t have a good grip because my left arm suddenly wouldn’t obey. My knees hit hard, and I let out a short bark of surprise, trying to keep his head from bouncing off the stone floor. He ended up half in my lap, and his eyes fluttered closed. He said something very low that I couldn’t hear over all the noise. Stone chips flew as bullets dug out little divots.

Something else hit me from the side, and I ended up plastered on the floor. The pain came in a huge tsunami wave, my shoulder grinding and screaming. Hands on me, and a familiar wave of apple-pie scent, drenched with copper wetness.

It hurt. It hurt so much, the spot at the back of my throat where the bloodhunger lives slammed shut, closing the aspect away from me.

What? I thrashed, caught between August and Christophe. Augie lay on the floor, head tipped back, throat working as he tried to move. Christophe crouched over me, his arms steel bands. “No!” he yelled, almost in my ear. A long string of vile-sounding syllables I guessed were curses in another language before the pain hit again, swallowing me, and the world went a funny gray color, color bleeding away.

Shouts. Screaming. More gunfire. Cover. Get under cover. I tried to move, succeeded only in flailing a little bit. Christophe was still crouched over me, ranting, and I realized he was protecting me. More chips of stone flew, and the gunfire reached a crescendo. Christophe’s body jerked, and he hissed.

August suddenly jerked back into motion. He rolled to the side, and my head was tipped the right way to see the aspect boil over him. White streaks slid through his dirty hair, his fangs came out, and his eyes suddenly blazed, clear yellow instead of dark. I could see that through the haze coming down over me, though the rest of the world was slowly draining of its color, turning into a charcoal sketch.

He curled himself up like a pill bug, then was somehow kneeling, the gun yanked free of its shoulder holster and pointed up as he took his time with the shot. He exhaled, squeezed the trigger, and the gun spoke, its voice lost inside the cacophony.