Okay, what the heck? We tried and tried to close those doors. Who closed them, how and when?

“Recently you neglected to mention details of significance. If the environ at the abbey or either of the princes’ lairs alter in any way, no matter how small, you will report it to me instantly.”

“Understood.”

Papa Roach waits, and when another demand isn’t forthcoming rustles, “Our servitude is nearly up. If you wish to renew our contract again, it will cost you more. There are others who value our services now.”

“For the first time in millennia you can walk among humans in your natural state, only because the Fae have come out and the world thinks you’re one of them. Piss me off and I’ll drive the Fae from this world, sending you back into the cracks and crevices and trenches of war in which you’ve scrounged for rotting carcasses since the dawn of time. You will renew your contract for the same terms. I have always seen to your needs.”

I blink, stunned. Papa Roach isn’t Fae? What the hell is it, then? What a vast, complicated world Ryodan manages!

Then I have a worse thought: Criminy, have all roaches since time immemorial been spies? Or only certain ones, and that’s why every now and then you find one in your bathtub that just won’t die no matter how much hair spray you coat it with or how hard you try to squish it?

Papa Roach makes a dry, grinding sound deep in its throat that’s creepy as hell.

“Our needs have increased.”

“You enjoy parasitic relationships with humans that were never permitted before.”

“We wish it to be required that all humans host one of us.”

I shudder.

Ryodan picks up the dark blade and toys with it. “We will discuss it at your next contract renewal.”

Papa Roach’s round eyes fix on the black blade, and its beak parts, revealing rows of tiny sharp teeth.

I suddenly think I know what the blade does. Kills whatever Papa Roach is.

“As you wish.”

When Papa Roach leaves, Lor walks in.

Dressed.

I decide to stay a little longer and leave with Lor. Who knows what I might learn next?

“Sit,” Ryodan barks.

Lor moves to the desk and drops down into a chair, shoving his blond hair back with a hand, looking wary. I don’t blame him. Ryodan is unpredictable as hell. They don’t call his way of dealing with things the “gavel effect” for nothing. He’s famed for biding his time, gathering information, processing it, then when he makes a decision, the gavel falls and everyone that pissed him off or offended him or just breathed wrong dies.

“What’s up with Dani?” Lor says.

Ryodan lays the knife on the desk. “Remember Fade telling us he’d found a kid who could move like us and was blowing through the streets, pretending to be a superhero.”

Lor laughs. “Fuck, yeah. We all accused each other of breaking covenant and making her. Skinny redhead with balls the size of mine. I’d go watch her even when it wasn’t my turn just to see what she’d do next. Kid’s better than Netflix.”

“I didn’t give her a second thought until I found a warded house where Rowena did her dirty work. Old woman kept journals Hitler would’ve enjoyed. Book after book of notes about the experiments she performed. Dani wasn’t her only unwilling subject. She recorded every detail. The drugs, the black arts, the manipulation and coercion, how she caged her, dehumanized her, turned a child into an animal, watchdog, fetch-it girl, assassin. Made her grateful for any crumb of kindness. Completely controlled her mother until—” Ryodan breaks off, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

Lor growls, “Until what?”

“Doesn’t matter. Point is, the headmistress was in Dani’s life long before she remembers it. There were a dozen volumes, filled cover to cover. When I finished reading them, I went hunting.”

Ryodan—an avenging angel? Knock me over with a feather.

“What happened? Mac killed the old bitch.”

Now that I’m hearing this, I’m sorry I didn’t kill her sooner. And make it last longer.

“Not Rowena.” Ryodan says. “I went hunting Dani. It was the kid I meant to kill. First.”

There goes the feather. This is the man I fight with incessantly.

“That’s fucked up, boss. That’s beyond fucked up.”

I nod vigorously, scowling.

“You went hunting Dani instead of Ro? You don’t kill the victim. You kill the perp.”

“I thought the kid’s life was like that of another child I knew. Grown men can withstand things children can’t. For centuries I took care of Barrons’s son while he searched for a way to end his torment. For an eternity I shared their fucking pain. I couldn’t put my nephew out of his misery, but I could spare the girl a hellish existence.”