“You can go now. I don’t want you anywhere near me. Go, fly off to your Sanctuary. Or have you exiled yourself on my behalf, just like Phaedra did?”

“Hardly. The mystical walls that kept us locked inside our world fell away when the new sorceress’s blood was spilled. If the others knew this, they might try to leave, thus putting themselves in danger with the fire Kindred on the loose. So Timotheus is keeping it a secret.”

Jonas’s jaw tightened. “Go away, Olivia.”

“I know you’re angry about Lysandra. I’m angry, too. But we can’t change it. It’s done. I couldn’t have saved her anyway, even if I’d gone against Timotheus’s orders.”

“You could have damn well tried.”

Her expression tightened. “You’re right, I should have. But I was afraid. I’m not afraid anymore. I’m back, and I mean to uphold my duty to Timotheus—even if it means I must occasionally break the rules.”

“So you’re back to stay, to keep me safe for some unknown future event.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t care about the future. All I want is for you to leave me alone right now.”

“I can’t do that.” He shot her a look of outrage, and she shrugged. “I will redeem myself in your eyes.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“I will stay and protect you whether you like it or not, Jonas Agallon. But it will be much easier for us both if you don’t try to fight this arrangement.”

She was utterly exasperating. But now, standing right before her and staring into her determined eyes, he found he couldn’t hate her for flying away when she had. If Kyan really was what she said . . .

. . . Then they were in worse trouble than Jonas already suspected.

And the fact that there were three others out there like Kyan made the wrath of King Gaius’s evil seem no more serious than a stubbed toe.

If Olivia was telling the truth about the current state of the Sanctuary, that meant her magic was just as strong as ever, not fading the way an exiled Watcher’s did. And that certainly seemed to be the case: she could shift into a hawk at will; she had healed Jonas’s fatal wound with earth magic.

“If you stay, we do things my way,” Jonas said. “This time you’re not only protecting me. You’re protecting me and all of my friends.”

“You’re asking for a promise I don’t have the authority to make. You are the only one I’m assigned to protect.”

“I never asked for a personal guardian. You can tell that to your precious elder if he makes a fuss. This isn’t negotiable. If you want to stay, you will commit yourself to protecting everyone I care about.”

“But how am I supposed to—?”

He held up his hand. “No. No arguing. Yes or no?”

Her eyes flashed. “You’re lucky that I even came back to protect you, mortal! And you dare to act as if you have any say in this?”

“But don’t I? You can watch me from above, flapping your pretty wings while I throw rocks at you and lead myself into danger, or you can stay down here on the ground and fight with us. What’ll it be?”

Olivia glared at him, challenge in her eyes. “Fine.”

He cocked his head and challenged her right back. “Good.”

Then she flung off his shirt and, in a quick blur of gold, bare skin, and feathers, transformed into a hawk and took off into the air, squawking with displeasure.

Jonas watched as she perched on the edge of a neighboring rooftop.

Felix had wanted another chance at life, to redeem himself for his past mistakes and set forth toward a brighter future. Jonas was sorry he hadn’t given his friend that chance.

He’d give it to Olivia instead.

CHAPTER 24

FELIX

KRAESHIA

He didn’t scream at all during his first day in the Kraeshian dungeon, but that resolve didn’t last long. He wasn’t that surprised when the howls came forth. As a Cobra, he’d quickly learned that enough torture would break anybody. Even him.

Especially torture meted out by prison guards faced with a Limerian accused of killing their royal family.

After a week in the dungeon, his back had been lashed into raw meat. A hundred, five hundred, a thousand kisses from the whip. He didn’t know anymore. He hung limply from the chains bolted to the ceiling as the blood oozed down his ruined back.

“Go on,” a guard taunted him. “Cry out for your mama. It’ll help.”

Felix didn’t know the guard’s name, but in his head, he called him the demon.

“Hey, remember this?” The demon threw something onto the dirt floor right in front of Felix. “Now you’re looking at yourself.”

A filthy eyeball stared right up at Felix.

How much simpler things had been earlier today, when it had been in his head, before the demon-guard took a dagger to his left eye socket.

“Why don’t you get on with it and kill me,” Felix sputtered.

“Where’s the fun in that? I have to work here, with you stinking, disgusting murderers, day in and day out. Why would you deny me a little joy?”

“Your joy is wasted on me. I didn’t kill Emperor Cortas and his sons.”

The guard smiled thinly. “Of course you didn’t. You’re completely innocent—just like the rest of the scum in this prison.”

“That bitch you call a princess framed me for her crimes!”

“Oh, not this again. Beautiful, sweet Princess Amara, killing her father and brothers? Why would she do something like that?”

“For power, of course. Trust me, there’s nothing sweet about her.”

The demon-guard snorted. “She’s nothing but a woman, what use would she have for power?”

“You’re so stupid, I almost feel sorry for you.”

The demon-guard narrowed his eyes and rose to standing. He took his dagger out and used the tip of his blade to poke the wound where Felix’s tattoo used to be.

Felix cried out at the sharp, sudden pain.

“Aw, does that hurt?” the guard asked, grinning.

“I’m going to kill you,” Felix gritted out.

“No, you’re not. You’re going to hang there in chains and let me keep hurting you until it’s time for you to die. And then I’m going to beat you some more before I finally eviscerate you.” He scraped at the flayed patch of skin again. “Yeah, we know all about you and your Cobra Clan here. You lot think you’re so tough, so elite. Well, you were right to slice your meaningless tattoo off. Because now you’re nothing. Can you see that? Can you see you’re nothing?”

“Go kiss a horse’s arse.”

The guard trailed his blade up Felix’s arm, along his shoulder to his neck, and up over his chin and cheek until the sharp tip came to rest right beneath his right eye. “Maybe I’ll take this one, too. Maybe I’ll take your tongue and your ears, too, and leave you blind, mute, and deaf.”

He thought about reminding the moronic guard that taking his ears wouldn’t make him deaf—he’d witnessed someone in the Clan make this mistake before—but he said nothing.

There was a knock at the door of his cell. The demon-guard answered it, speaking to someone through a small window.