You’re the one Mrs. Bethany will blame.”

Then Courtney cried out and clutched at her chest—with the point of a stake sticking between her fingers.

I gasped. For one terrible second, I thought Lucas had thrown the stake at her, but no—the blow had come from behind. Courtney staggered two steps forward, then fell face down into the street with the stake protruding from her back. Behind her stood Charity.

Balthazar stared at his sister, not in horror but in wonder. Charity wore jeans that had faded to gray and showed the black tights she wore through half a dozen rips and holes. Her dingy sweater had frayed at the neck. She smiled at him sadly. “The girl would have hurt you,” she said, nudging Courtney’s inert body with her silver-slippered toe. “Couldn’t let her do that, could I?”

“Charity. You shouldn’t have—but you wanted to help, and for that—thank you.” Balthazar reached out one hand, but Charity skipped back a few steps.

“She asked good questions, though.” Charity’s dark eyes darted toward Lucas. “Why are you spending so much time with Black Cross?

Especially while they’re hunting me?”

I turned toward Lucas. “You said they weren’t hunting her any longer! You promised!”

“We aren’t! At least as far as I know, we aren’t!” Lucas protested. I was starting to wonder if “as far as I know” wasn’t just a dodge, whether Lucas simply chose not to know anything that would inconvenience him.

Every bit of the fear and upset I’d felt in the past several minutes was swirling around inside me, desperate for someplace to go, and now it was all being drawn toward Lucas.

“They’re trying to kill me,” Charity said. “My brother helps them.

How would you feel, if you were me?”

Balthazar shook his head. “Lucas promised me they’d stop hunting you if I found you instead.”

“So you only meant to be a good big brother? To drag me off kicking and screaming to Evernight again?”

“Charity. Please.” Balthazar’s voice was only a rasp. “It’s been thirty-five years since we’ve been together.”

“Since we lived together, maybe. But I’ve seen you around long before this, long before Albion. I’ve been paying attention.” Charity hugged herself. “I want the hunter’s weapons.” Lucas’s jaw set. “Oh, hell, no.”

“Lucas,” I whispered. “Come on. She doesn’t trust you.”

“I don’t trust her either!”

“We’ll all get rid of any weapons we have,” Balthazar said, trying to be reasonable.

“You’re vampires,” Lucas said. “You guys are your own weapons.”

Charity held out her hands. “Then keep all your weapons but one.

Give me just one. That large knife you held on me in the hospital, maybe. I’d feel safe then.”

“I wouldn’t,” Lucas said.

“I’ll be okay,” I promised him. Charity looked so young and so cold; she was shaking as she stood there, her little hands outstretched and begging. “Lucas, please.”

Lucas gave me the dirtiest look I’d ever seen, but he reached into his coat and pulled out his broad knife. Instead of handing it to Charity, he let the blade clatter onto the pavement. He and Charity kept their eyes locked as she knelt to retrieve it, and he put one hand to his belt, where I knew he kept a stake.

Maybe we should’ve turned to Courtney before any of this, but we all knew that a stake through the heart doesn’t really kill a vampire—at least, not permanently. Withdraw the stake, and the vampire revives, none the worse for wear. Already I was thinking that eventually we’d have to pull the stake out of Courtney and deal with the fact that she’d be even angrier when she regained consciousness.

Lucas said, “We good?”

“Yeah.” Charity gave him a very strange smile. “We are. At least for tonight, hunter, you’re safe from me.”

For some reason, Lucas took this as a sign that he was now the best person to get through to her. “You need to listen to your brother. I don’t run Black Cross, not by a long shot. If you want to be safe from the hunt, you better play by his rules.”

“I’ve learned the rules to play by,” Charity said. “And you’re the ones who ought to worry about being safe.”

“What have you done, Charity?” Balthazar took her arms in his hands—not like he was about to hug her, but instead as though he were going to shake her. “Answer me.”

“I’ve made new friends. They’ve taught me the way. You should come with us, Balthazar. You’d be so much happier looking toward the future instead of remaining trapped in the past.”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded.

Charity wrested herself free from her brother. “I mean that there’s only one real way to be a vampire, and it doesn’t involve longing for things you don’t have or spending time with people you knew when you were alive or ironing your Evernight Academy uniform every morning.

It means wanting what you’ve got. Taking what you can take. Embrac-ing what you have become.”

“Killing,” Lucas said. “You mean, the only real way to be a vampire is by killing.”

Charity smiled at him as she knelt beside Courtney’s limp body.

“You’d know all about killing, wouldn’t you?”