I must’ve charged for so long that my poor brain had developed hallucinations.

“There she is,” Cornelius said quietly, nodding at Matilda.

The panthers stared at me with golden eyes. I braced myself for the inevitable clash between Bunny and the panthers. It never came. The three beasts studiously ignored each other.

I rocked forward, trying to get on my feet. My butt and legs had fallen asleep and tiny electric needles of blood flowing back into the muscles stabbed into my thighs.

“Please, don’t get up on my account,” Cornelius’ sister said.

Cornelius stole a metal mesh chair from the security desk and rolled it over to his sister. “Please.”

She carefully swept her dress with her hand and sat. The panthers settled at her feet.

“Just so we’re all on the same page, everyone sees the panthers?” I asked quietly.

“They’re real,” Cornelius’ sister said. “Although mostly there for the sake of appearances. I attended a business event before I came here, and I wanted to remind the other parties involved that I’m a Prime. I couldn’t leave them in the car. They get snappish without supervision and claw at leather upholstery. If you’re really in need of protection, dogs are best. Medium to large size, nothing too bulky. You want an athletic dog that can charge and jump but with enough mass to knock an attacker off their feet. Dobermans, Belgian sheepdogs, Rottweilers . . .”

She stroked the head of the left panther with her fingertips. The massive beast raised his head just like an overgrown house cat and leaned into her hand. “Dogs will die to protect their owners without a moment’s hesitation. Cats have to be convinced it’s their problem.”

She glanced at Bunny. “My brother was always the most pragmatic of the three of us.”

Cornelius smiled. “I have someone besides myself that I have to protect, Diana.”

She glanced at Matilda. A shadow crossed her face. She seemed ill at ease. “Why does she lie like that?”

“Nari was an empath.” Sadness saturated his voice, threatening to roll over into despair.

“I didn’t know that,” Diana said.

“Her magic was weak. She never bothered registering. Still, it helped—whenever she had a trial or a jury selection, she’d spend the night like this, in the circle. Matilda missed her, so she would come and sleep next to her.”

I looked at Matilda’s hand, stretched to the circle. So tiny. Her mother was gone forever, so she’d come and slept next to me because it was familiar and for a few seconds when she was between the dream and reality, she might think I was her mother, alive and waiting for her in the circle. Someone reached into my chest and squeezed all the blood out of my heart.

Diana shifted in her seat. “This isn’t what we do, Cornell. Rogan, Howling, Montgomery—those are the big names. Harrison doesn’t belong among them. You’re asking me to sanction something that would put all of us in danger. It won’t bring your wife back. She was . . . a spouse.”

“Disposable,” Cornelius said.

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you meant it.”

“She was a human,” Diana said quietly. “I never understood your devotion to her. It is—”

Matilda sat up and stared at me, blurry eyed.

Oh no. Please don’t cry, little one.

Her lower lip trembled. She turned to look at her father and her aunt. Diana blinked, suddenly taken aback. Matilda rose, walked over, and climbed into Diana’s lap. Prime Harrison sat utterly still. Her niece hugged Diana, snuggled up close, and rested her head on her aunt’s chest.

Diana swallowed and wrapped her arms around the little girl to keep her from sliding off. “What is this?”

“Your niece is grieving,” Cornelius said. “She feels your magic and it’s familiar. She knows you’re family and a woman, and she misses her mother. She wants comfort, Diana.”

Matilda sighed quietly. Her body relaxed.

“This is almost like . . . binding.”

“It’s more,” Cornelius said. “When an animal binds with us, there is a simplicity to their needs. Meet them and you earn devotion. With a child, it’s infinitely more layered and complicated, but it is wonderful, because this love is freely given. There is no bargain. Sometimes, if you’re very lucky, you’re loved and the one who loves you expects nothing in return. She trusts you, Diana, and she doesn’t even know you.”

Diana looked at Cornelius. “Why don’t we have that?”

“We did. Do you remember the strawberry syrup?”

She groaned and squeezed her eyes shut. “That was my favorite shirt. I loved that shirt.”

“But you didn’t tell Mother I did it.”

“You had enough to deal with. You had to spend your days with that little Pierce monster . . .” Diana sighed. “I suppose you’re right. We grew up.”

“And now we’re a family in name only.”

She winced. “That is surprisingly painful to contemplate.”

The clock on the wall showed quarter to seven. I needed to get dressed. I rose and stretched slowly. They didn’t notice.

“When was the last time you saw Blake?” Cornelius asked.

“In person?” Diana frowned. “He usually emails. Six months? No, wait, a year. I ran into him at that abominable NCBA dinner last December.”

I got the push broom and scrubbed the chalk lines off the floor.

“Two years for me,” Cornelius said.

“He lives half an hour away,” Diana said.

“I know.”

Diana craned her neck to glance at her niece. “Is she asleep?”

“Yes,” Cornelius said.

I headed for the door.

“Tell me about it again,” Diana said behind me. “About your family. Tell me about your wife.”

Two hours past sundown, Houston’s downtown showed no signs of slowing down. Ragged clouds drifted across a deep purple sky, framing a huge silver moon glowing above skyscrapers. The tall business buildings stretched to it, studded with lights as the office workers surrendered their evening to the electric glow of computer screens. The city was a turbulent ocean, its buildings rocky spires thrusting from the streets as the glowing rivulets of traffic wound among their base. And the asymmetrical triangle of the Montgomery International Investigations HQ, all twenty-five stories of it sheathed in cobalt glass, was a shark swimming through it all to bite at me with razor teeth.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go in with you?” Melosa asked. I had found her waiting by the car when I left the house. She’d insisted on coming with me and considering the hot water we were in, I would’ve been an idiot to say no.

“No. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” Her tone plainly said she didn’t approve but she couldn’t do anything about it.

I walked into the familiar ultramodern lobby and took the elevator to the seventeenth floor. The gleaming stainless tube desk that served as Lina’s workspace stood empty and her purse wasn’t on the chair. Augustine’s secretary was out. That was okay; I remembered the way to his office well enough. I walked through the vast space, a sloping expanse of blue windows on my left and frosty white interior walls on my right. I was in the corner of the shark fin, in Augustine’s lair, and House Montgomery spared no expense in creating its elegance. It always felt slightly sterile to me, too clean, too devoid of personal touches, but the view was breathtaking. During the day the glass tinted the office a gentle blue, as if you were at the bottom of a shallow sea, but at night the glass melted into the darkness, all but disappearing, and the city spread below, bottomless and glowing with lights.

Ahead a wall loomed, frosted with feathery white. A section of the glass had been pushed aside, and through the gap I saw Augustine at his desk, reading something on his tablet. I reached the door.

“Come in,” he invited without raising his head.

I stepped into the office and sat. He kept reading. Augustine was reminding me he was my boss.

Gently, softly, I let my magic out. It began to grow through the office, spreading in thin tendrils, branching and growing, like the roots of some massive tree. I held it back, letting it barely creep forward. I had to take my time.