It's Saturday morning and I'm slumped over the kitchen table with my third cup of coffee in hand. Last night hangs in my mind like a bad dream; after seeing the card and the bloodied photo, I ran to my room and tore it apart, hoping against hope Valentine had somehow made a copy, that he hadn't figured out a way inside the house. But I came up empty-handed, and half an hour ago woke up blinking at the sun, still in my trashed room and with half a shoe print on one cheek from inadvertently using a pair of sneakers as a pillow.

Gideon never followed me. I have no clue what he did for the rest of the night. I do know he's still here; when I opened all the windows this morning to get rid of the smell of lingering death and astringent medical equipment, I saw him on the porch, studying the card. Probably been out there since sunrise. I know he was pissed I kept him from going out as soon as we saw it. Might still be.

And there's no way he'll like the idea I came up with after realizing that fucker really took the photo. It's dangerous, rushed, and depends on what Laci told me to be anything near effective. But it's also all I have. If he can get inside the house, then I'm not safe even in places I can call mine.

When I feel awake enough to talk, I shoot off a quick message to Maria letting her know Gran's gone, finishing up just as the front door opens. A moment later, Gideon steps into the kitchen. He looks disgustingly awake, eyes alert and hair neatly combed back. Ink swirls along his arm in easy, uncomplicated patterns as he approaches the table, smiling a little. "Good morning."

"Sleep well?" I rest my chin in one hand. This will either end up okay or a complete disaster. I'm betting on the latter.

His smile turns wry before he glances over everything strewn across the table. My fingers tap against my mug as I track his gaze.

Nearest to him is a ceramic pot filled with water, waiting on a dish warmer spelled to keep the right temperature for brewing black tea. After digging a container of loose tea leaves out of a drawer, I set up everything necessary to steep and drink a cup, figuring he'd prefer that over the thick sludge I make for myself. I almost had a breakdown after finding Gran's small milk pitcher shaped like a cat, something from my earliest memories, but I blinked back tears long enough to fill it up and set it out. I even remembered to get a saucer.

"Tea?" Gideon looks up in surprise.

I manage a flicker of a smile. "For you. If you want it."

He nods. Then his gaze jumps to what's on my side of the table, and when he speaks again, his voice sounds very flat. "And wooden stakes."

My smile freezes. "For Valentine. Laci told me that's how he needs to be killed."

He scans my face for sincerity. When he finds it, his own changes into agent mode. "Phoenix, there isn't—"

"Wait." I need to get my say in now to have any chance of being listened to. "I know you don't believe he's a vampire, but I do. And I'm really bad at talking shit out, so for the last ten minutes I was this close to sneaking into his house while you were absorbed in that stupid card. But I kept thinking about what Frankie said, and some of it hurts enough to be true. I mean, you're not Elliot, obviously. But since we're in this together, I thought I could try being open and honest. That we both could. So I stayed and set this up, hoping..." When the rest of my words trail away, I gesture at the area between us.

"Hoping we could sit down and have a proper talk?" he finishes.

"Right. Before either of us does anything." Despite myself, I glance away. I had to think hard over insisting we talk on equal footing instead of letting him interview me like that day in Glimmer. Doing so might be a deal-breaker. But he's just as slippery with information in his own way, and if he knows something more about Valentine, I want to hear it. It's my damn life on the line.

For a long moment, he wavers, ink flickering. Then he pulls back the chair. "Very shrewd of you to use high-quality tea as a lure. The Glimmer branch division of INKtech is efficient in many ways, but the tea tastes like it's steeped with paint chips."

As he spoons leaves into his cup, I shift my own mug around, still nervous. "One of Gran's friends drinks it. She used to visit during our early days here, enough so that we kept stuff ready for her. I should call her. She'd want to know about Gran."

When he doesn't reply to that with more than a nod, I risk glancing over his face, hoping for clues on how seriously he takes this. He looks reserved, but I can't blame him. I did just admit I'm planning to kill someone with a stake.

I watch him reach for the pot of water, a little envious at how elegant and easy his movements are. To me, tea comes off as fussy and overly elaborate; nobody cares what your fingers do when you have coffee. But seeing Gideon in action makes it clear that in the right hands, tea can be a satisfying ritual instead of a lot of time for a little caffeine.

"You're pretty much perfect, aren't you?" I say, without thinking.

He looks up from the steaming cup, forehead furrowing, but seems more startled than offended by my words. "My superiors would disagree with your assessment. But thank you for the compliment."

It sounds so stiff and unnatural, I can't help smiling. "Well, I didn't say it was one."

For a moment, I think he'll retreat further, but then he relaxes back in his chair. "If I'm perfect, then you're unlike anyone I've met."

"Open and honest, remember?"

"I'm being both. I take it personal questions may be asked?"

I shrug. "Sure. Maybe I'll punch you over something really moronic, but that's all. And the only time I did that was when a guy asked if I wanted to play fetch with the balls in his pants."

There's a long pause. He plays with a ring on his finger, the same silver band I remember from that day in Glimmer. It makes me wonder if he's nervous. Suddenly, he says, "Your boyfriend. I believe his name is Elliot?"

Shit. Here we go. "What about him?"

He reaches for his steaming cup. "You've previously indicated he's the jealous sort."

"Um. He definitely doesn't like you, if that's what you mean."

I can tell by his expression that he's choosing his next words carefully. "If he were to see us together, how do you think he would react?"

I'm already regretting my promise. "He'd believe that I slept with you. See, that day in bio class made him decide you're a total womanizer, and that there's no way I can resist you."

The tea cup in his hand remains steady as he drinks from it, but the lines of his ink churn in roiling waves. Shit, he definitely didn't like hearing that. There isn't a noticeable change in his expression, but his ink begins flickering, and I have the feeling he's scrolling back through every second of that class. "There was a student two rows behind your seat who glared at me the entire time I spoke with you. He then later compared me to syphilis, which I thought unreasonably aggressive, considering Slake was the one to have failed his work."

I wince. "Yeah, that was him. I explained you weren't acting like that at all, but couldn't convince him. Sorry, but I think you're stuck being a total sleaze in his mind."

That gets him to look at me. Then he sets down his cup and leans forward, eyes intent on mine. "Phoenix, I don't care if he or anyone else believes me to be some fancy man. I'm concerned with what insecurities I might draw out in him, and how he'll treat you in response."

"Oh." Boy, I had it wrong. "So, you don't care if someone unfairly hates you?"

"I'm not responsible for what people think of me, only for how I act." There goes that stiff undertone to his words, the one that suggests there's a lot more he can say but won't.

I decide to let it go. "Then don't worry about it; Elliot treats me fine. Sometimes he acts like a jerk, but who doesn't?"

When he only continues to study me, I get edgy. Suddenly, his attention feels more like scrutiny. Shifting in my seat, I say, "What's got you on this kick, anyway? Frankie? Elliot's nothing like that. If he was, I never would've been friends with him in the first place."

The words are hardly out of my mouth when an idea hits me. "Yesterday. With Mrs. Kent. She said something to you, didn't she? I know she thinks I'm seeing you behind Elliot's back."

"She warned me you had a jealous boyfriend," he admits. "And she felt you were behaving, as she put it, 'as if reeling from the bad end of a fight.'"

Holy hell, he thinks I'm an abused girlfriend. The idea is so odd, I don't know what to say. Instead of answering, I drop my gaze to the table. My head's getting more and more mixed up about Elliot, anyway, and this is the last thing I want to talk about.

When I stay quiet, he leans forward. "Phoenix, is Elliot abusive?"

"Don't be stupid. He's barely an inch taller than me and skinny as a stick. I could push him through a wall if I wanted." My words come out sharp and fast. Not only because I'm angry, but because fear rises in my throat, and I don't know why. When it reaches my mouth like a bad taste, I lick my lips nervously, gaze darting everywhere but him.

"Abuse isn't always physical. Sometimes—"

"He's not an abuser!" My voice cuts through the air. During the silence afterward, my cheeks burn.

"All right," he says, quietly, and then I only hear the rattle of his tea cup settling on the saucer.

There's a spark in me that doesn't want to turn this into a fight, and that's what keeps me glaring at my coffee cup instead of him. "He's my boyfriend, we love each other, and I can handle myself around him just fine. That's all there is to it. And not that it's ever come up between us, but I can take on aggression no problem; there's a lot of it on my end already."

I expect that to shut him up—most people take one look at my teeth and change the subject. But it doesn't.

"I believe you; you're doing it right now. You feel cornered and ready to fight me if nothing else works. I'll wager plenty of people think you simply explode out of nowhere, but it's untrue. You're giving out plenty of warning, just through a wolf's signals instead of a human's." His voice sounds careful but fearless, and when I risk a glance at his face, I see his gaze is deliberately averted from my eyes. Non-threatening body language to a wolf girl.

"It's fucking inconvenient," I mutter, but there's no heat to the words. Even that small action on his part makes me feel better. "But at least it only gets bad when I'm really riled up. Otherwise, I can take open-mouthed smiles as friendliness and direct stares as attention without a problem."

When he only nods, my eyes drop to his ink, and I remember how it crackled over his skin while he fought with Frankie. It flickers at me now, lines coiling in sharp patterns that suggest tension.

"Why are you here?" I say, voice falling quiet.

He looks up, gaze settling on my lips. Still non-threatening, but another of those weird, fluttery feelings goes through me as he says, "I made a promise. Orders from my superiors be damned, I'll continue working with you to resolve this. Or, I had initially planned to. Yet if my presence will only cause more trouble..."

"What's the point?" I finish for him. "I get it."

The air between us feels thick, uncertain. It makes my shoulder blades itch, and I find myself talking to get rid of the feeling. "Look, I'm not stupid. I know how to take care of myself around guys. Hell, when I was thirteen, I had to deal with a creep who always hung around the bus stop my sister and I passed by on the way home from school. He was probably a few years older than me. I never saw him in classes, and no one knew him or anything, but all the girls who had to walk that street warned each other about him, about how he stared and whispered the filthiest things you could think of. He'd never move from his spot, but if you got close enough, he'd reach out for a grab. When he finally did it to me, I grabbed a nearby rock and threw it at him. I got a good aim, and he turned out to be a coward. After that, I stuffed my pockets with rocks every day before going home, and pretty soon, he learned to run away whenever he saw us."

When I look up to find Gideon staring at me in horror, body language forgotten, I quickly add, "I know it was horrible of me. But it meant keeping my twelve-year-old sister from being asked if she wanted to have her tits licked, so I can't say I'm too sorry."

"You had no one to go to? No one who would make sure the boy either behaved properly or wasn't let out unsupervised? If not a school official, then surely some branch of the local government?" At this moment, he seems completely a Kingsman, unaware of how a territory as big as this would be hard for even a competent government to manage, let alone the rundown one we actually have.

I shrug. "I didn't like the idea of telling Gran when she couldn't do anything besides worry about it. The guy never showed up at school, so there was no point in telling anyone from there. And telling someone like the cops would've made life even worse. What if they took it as a sign Gran couldn't look after us? She wouldn't have been the first Fivefield survivor to lose underage family to foster care after being ruled incapable of caring for minors. So, I had to deal with it. And I did."

There's a long silence, which I spend playing with a drop of spilled coffee.

"I'm beginning to understand why you find going to Valentine's house alone to be completely reasonable," he says, finally, and eyes the wooden stakes by my elbow. "You're used to fighting."

I clear my throat. "So? You say that like it's not normal to stick up for yourself. What's your operational mode?"

It's an offhand question, sarcastic more than anything, but his ink freezes for a full second. I just discovered his own sore spot. A line of guilt runs through me; it was a shitty move to use a phrase meant for androids on him. "Forget it. You don't have to answer."

"No, you asked." He folds his arms and looks at me. From the expression on his face, he's pissed off but ready to answer any question I throw at him. "I suppose I'm used to hiding."

It's an obvious lure for follow-up questions, but I'm not going to take it. He's giving me this chance only to make up for digging into Elliot. The thought is enough to make me puke. I don't want payback, especially with something he wouldn't give on his own. It'd be like how I offered Elliot a chance to take photos of me.

I drain the last dregs from my mug and say, "Yeah, so? You're there when it counts, or at least, you have been for me. I'm glad you're here, and I don't need to ask any personal questions to know that."

Without waiting for a response, I get up from the table, moving for the sink with my empty coffee cup in hand. But there's no room to drop it in, even though I didn't cook or eat at all yesterday. As I blink at the dirty dishes, stacked so high they rise past the faucet, a bitter smile twists my mouth. All those stupid support meetings emphasized how a death changes everything for the surviving family and caregivers. I clung to that idea, believing that no matter how bad it could get, everything would be better when Gran finally passed away. Everything ugly about her illness would be over, and I could be like Maria, having my own life instead of cutting it to fit around the needs of someone else.

Well, Gran's dead, and what do I have? Dirty dishes from three days ago staring me in the face. Figures.

The sudden, spiky feeling in my chest makes it hard to breathe, but I manage to turn on the faucet. I need distraction, and quick, so I glance back at Gideon, who stares like he can't figure me out. "It does drive me up the wall when you slip around things, though. You come back here despite what your bosses ordered, but you won't even explain how Valentine is connected to your other case."

The silence lasts long enough for me to wash two dishes. Then I hear Gideon's chair scrape back, and in a moment, he's beside me. When I glance over, I can tell by the look on his face that he made up his mind. After grabbing a clean plate and a towel to dry it with, he says, "I'm not allowed to tell you everything, and I mean that literally. What I can say is that there are signs Valentine may be related to a string of murders back in the Kingdom. The crimes were declared two days ago to be committed by a wolf witch who also works with blood magic, but I now wonder if that decision wasn't premature."

"A blood witch?" I frown while rinsing a fork, trying to remember everything I heard about that type of magic. A lot of people think it's evil, casting spells through blood, especially because when a blood witch goes bad, they use other people instead of themselves for the source. Living sacrifices and all that.

Gideon lines up each dried glass as neatly as if there's a ruler to guide him. "Edmund Scheer. Kingdom subject by birth, yet he spent much time in Necali."

I jerk with surprise, getting soap on my shirt. "Does this Scheer guy deny it?"

"We found him in his home here, dead from an apparent backfire of a dangerous spell. He was surrounded by enough evidence to link him to each of the crimes." Gideon sounds almost musing now, like the facts of the case pull him in. "Everything matches up very well."

"No blood left in the victims?" I say, grimly.

He clears his throat. "Right. And as a wolf witch, he would be able to hunt and overpower humans easily."

Not hard for a vampire, either. I hand him a bowl to dry. "But how do you know it's Scheer?"

"His blood was found at one of the last crime scenes. Under the victim's fingernails. Another blood witch working with the local law enforcement confirmed it."

"Kinda sloppy," I murmur, eyeing my distorted reflection in the back of a spoon.

"Yes. Though there is a theory that since the victim was a fellow wolf witch, she nearly overcame him."

God, so Valentine is used to killing wolves. I ignore the shudder going down my spine. "Still. Sounds like a really clear case."

"So clear it couldn't be true?" The tone to his voice suggests he's had similar suspicions, but then he adds, "It'd be a very intricate set-up. Years in the making. And no mistakes could be made."

I shrug. "If you're already dead, or undead, or whatever, taking years to carry out a plan won't seem like much trouble. Plus, you have all the time in the world to perfect how you do things, anyway."

"Mm. There are also signs that Scheer began a second murder spree here in Necali, perhaps with an accomplice. We looked into the backgrounds of every wolf witch in this area known to work with blood magic, and interviewed many of them, as well. There's still a spot on this knife."

So, that's why they brought him here; if INKtech had to interview people, then they had to understand those who only spoke the Chetli strain of Spanish. Why use an outside interpreter when one of their own can do it? As I take the offending knife back for a second scrub, an idea hits me. "Was Desmond Healy interviewed?"

His ink flickers, searching, and then he looks at me sharply. "Yes. Do you know him?"

"Just happened to meet him the day I was in Glimmer." With the sink empty, I turn off the water. Something's really odd about the way wolves keep showing up in this situation. "Were all of the victims wolf witches?"

"No. Only the last few. We're not sure why," he admits.

After that, neither of us knows what to say. Finally, I try a grin. "At least we're a great team while cleaning dishes."

He offers his own smile, but it quickly fades. "Phoenix, there's something else. After comparing the blood on the sympathy card with the information available from the Mercywing database, I can say for a fact it's not Laci's or Melanie's. It's yours."

I shrug. "Yeah, I figured that. He put a lot of thought into doing things that threaten me but look helpful or sympathetic to outsiders, so why would he implicate himself now? If he knows you're here, then he knows I went to authorities. I bet if I took that to anyone else, they'd think I forged it to make people believe me."

Gideon takes off his glasses long enough to rub at his eyes. "My point is, he took your photo and your blood without your knowledge."

"And my car," I remind him. That hurts a lot more than I thought; maybe it was a bucket of junk, but it was still mine.

"Yes, well—" Then he stops short, ink flickering. "Just a minute, did you ever bleed in your car? Perhaps from a paper cut or something similar?"

He asks as if the answer is the most important thing on earth, which shakes me up a little. "Well, yeah, I did." Once, when I was late for school, I skipped my shower and shaved my legs while driving there. Let's just say I don't recommend dry shaving in a moving car.

"Right. Your car was taken the night before the last, and your photo this past night. If Valentine did steal your car, and then was able to later steal your photo from a room he didn't access, then it's possible he's working spells through blood. Especially as you've seen his skill as a mech witch. That he can already perform magic increases the likelihood of him being a blood witch, as well."

Despite the situation looking worse and worse, I feel myself getting hopeful. Gideon now talks like he might believe me, or is at least considering my claims about Valentine. "He might've even found the blood in my car the same night he worked on it."

Gideon looks grim. "If he's doing all this, it means he might be able to do still more. Blood magic is a type of contagious magic; when you have something once connected to a person, you can affect many aspects of their life through it. It's impossible to predict what else he might do."

Hmm, that sounds like a first step toward telling me not to go into Valentine's house. "Okay, so why wait any longer? Why not just go inside and stake him?"

His ink coils with tension. "Because I'm incredibly concerned you're rushing into a trap."

I stare at him. "Of course I am. What should I do otherwise? Sit here so he can build one around me instead?"

From the look on his face, my answer isn't the one he expected. "Not exactly. Yet we're completely ill-prepared. I've only just finished mapping out the internal structure of his house with no chance to test the results for accuracy."

So, that's what he did for the rest of the night. "I bet they came out looking a lot like this house, except with the first story being underground."

He shakes his head. "It's been modified. If the results are correct, there's also a large basement, which isn't part of the blueprints in any housing model this community offers."

Then his inks flares, throwing lines of light into the air that quickly multiply and lock together. Within moments, I'm staring at a transparent, three-dimensional graphic of Valentine's house, the lines making up the basement blinking in orange instead of blue. "It appears to be divided into smaller rooms. Cells, possibly."

It feels like something just exploded in my chest. I find myself sagging back against the counter for support. "I didn't see any door when I was down there. Can you tell if anyone's inside?"

He hesitates. "Through the electrical activity of a beating heart, yes."

"Is there?" I can't drain the hope from my voice.

Gideon's gaze flicks from the graphic to my face. "No," he says, quietly.

"Right." I stare at my feet until I'm sure the burning in my eyes won't turn into tears. "If you only sense living people, then a dead body might be there right now. Or an undead one. I still have to go in and see."

I can tell by the look on his face that he really doesn't want to agree. "Well, I've no hard data on hand to classify undead or how to identify such a state, but—"

Then I glance up at him.

"—all right, no, I can't say whether there are bodies in the house." He eyes me and adds, "You won't be dissuaded, will you?"

Since he told me this much, I decide to reveal what I've held back out of reluctance. Still, my pulse picks up; the nightmares of that evening are bad enough. I don't want to stir up more shit by picking at the memory for details. "I know how dangerous it is. That fight Mrs. Kent saw signs of? It was with Valentine. He found me just after Zoe died. We fought, and I got away after he accidentally burned himself on my silver earrings. So I know firsthand that he's one sadistic motherfucker, and I'm still going back."

Gideon fell very still while listening to me. His eyes are fucking blazing, but his words come out calmly enough. "It's obviously not easy for you tell me even this little, so I won't ask to learn more."

Suddenly, it feels easier to breathe. "Thanks. But see, that's why I'm going back. Not just because of what'll happen to me if I don't kill him. I can't deal with the thought of Laci going through that, of anyone going through that, unless I try everything I can to stop him. You got that?" I want those last words to sound definite, even challenging, but instead they come out more as a plea.

His ink churns while he rubs the back of his neck, but finally, he looks at me and nods. "When do you wish to leave?"

I don't even have to think about it. "Immediately. I want my life back as soon as possible."