I never made it back to the dining room, though. On my way up the stairs from the sunroom I ran smack into a pretty young witch with white-blonde pigtails. She was wearing an intimidating-looking camera on a strap around her neck, and when we collided it hit me in the chest. The blow was softened by my bulletproof vest, so we were both looking at the camera first, checking for damage, before we met each others’ eyes and I realized who I had just run down. We were frozen for a long moment as I put some puzzle pieces together, and her gorgeous blue eyes widened with apprehension. Almost without my knowing, my hand darted out and grabbed her upper arm. “You and I need to talk,” I snapped.

“I’m sorry, have we met?” she asked nervously.

“Knock it off, Runa.” This was not what I needed right now, but I couldn’t just ignore it, either. “Are we talking right here in front of everyone, or do you want to step outside?”

The blonde witch looked around for help, but I’d managed to keep my voice low, and no one had noticed us. Finally she nodded, resigned, and pointed toward the sliding door in the sunroom. “Let’s go out back.”

I followed her through the glass doors and down a little hill to Kirsten’s wide backyard. I hadn’t actually been back there before, but even in the dark I could tell it was just as landscaped as the front. Runa sat down on a little bench next to a birdbath. I grudgingly perched myself on the other side.

“How did you know who I was?” she asked.

“I saw a picture on Jesse’s phone,” I said, fury in my voice. “I’m guessing he doesn’t know you’re a witch.”

Her voice was low and miserable. “No.”

Anger was making my head swim. I took a deep breath of the cool night air before I continued. “Please tell me you’re not dating him just because Kirsten ordered you to. Tell me you’re not part of some half-assed undercover thing to keep an eye on Jesse Cruz.”

Her shoulders hunched down, but she looked up to meet my eyes. “I wish I could. But that’s how it started. Then I—”

I held up a hand. “Stop. Spare me the then I fell in love with him crap. Of course you did, because he’s a good and honest man. And you’ve been lying to him this whole time.” Okay, I admit it. Part of me was rejoicing inside, because this meant Jesse wasn’t taken after all. He can be with me now, the voice said. But this wasn’t how I wanted to win him over. And I’d seen the goofy look on his face whenever he talked to this girl. I suddenly wanted very much to hurt her. “You know, you’re just proving everything he hates about the Old World,” I spat out. I was working hard to stay away from name-calling. “He doesn’t do this political crap, with the secrets and the backstabbing. He’s better than all of…this.” I’d almost said all of us.

“You don’t understand,” she burst out, her face hardening with passion. “Kirsten, she’s my cousin. She brought me to LA, let me live here for months while I figured things out. I owe her everything. I couldn’t just say no! And she was so worried, after you brought him into our affairs—”

“Wait, stop,” I interrupted. “She called you because of me? Because I brought him into the Old World?” I really, really wanted to be yelling at Kirsten. I’d known she was powerful, and I’d known she was capable of playing politics with Dashiell and Will. But I hadn’t expected something so underhanded. Not from her.

Then I thought of her and Jesse going off to San Diego that morning, and how her attitude seemed to have changed. “Wait,” I said. “What happened yesterday? Why did Kirsten suddenly want to work with him?”

“He passed a test,” Runa answered, her voice almost a whisper. “He erased my crime-scene photos from the car accident. Then we—then Kirsten knew he was for real.”

Of course he was for real. Kirsten just hadn’t been willing to take my word for it. I thought of how she’d guilt-tripped me into partnering up with Jesse for the investigation and felt my hands clenching together. I took a deep breath and tried to relax them.

“Why you?” I said. “You’re not powerful, so what’s your specialty? Seduction?” Believe it or not, that was the more polite version of that question.

Her lovely face soured. “Locator spells. I’m great with finding people or things. If I know the person or I’ve handled the object, I can even do it without a focus.” She straightened herself with pride. “Not even Kirsten can do that.”

“I get it. You’re human LoJack, which—wait, can you find Olivia?” I asked, momentarily distracted.

She shook her head. “Kirsten had me try months ago, when Olivia attacked you. But I’d never met her, so I needed a focus, and everything we could find of hers was from when she was human. The magic…stalled out at finding her as a vampire.”

I sighed. Of course it couldn’t just be that easy. “But you knew Jesse, so you could keep track of him. Which made you a great spy. Did you give any thought to how this might affect him?”

“More and more every day,” she said softly. Tears slipped down her cheeks, and all of a sudden the fight went out of me, and I couldn’t hate her anymore. I just felt tired. Dammit.

She bit her lip, and then asked, “You’re not going to tell him, are you?”

I smiled grimly. “Nope. But you are. Right now.” I stood up. “He’s parked in front of the house.”