I waited for Kayla Cabel to say something, anything. She hadn't uttered a single thing in almost an hour, and after she'd been shunted through my front door by Telavar, she'd only said a handful of words relating to my condition. Nothing else. The ire radiating off of her was so thick I could hardly breathe through it. 

The vampire was now sitting on the back of my couch, watching with a steady gaze as the doctor mended my wounds. My left clavicle had been snapped, but according to Kayla, the break was clean enough to only require a standard brace instead of an operation. The bullet wound was sewn shut with some rather impatient stitches. My scars continued to burn cyan, the skin emitting a stubborn heat.

"Dr. Cabel?" I muttered, aware of the vampire's attention focused on the doctor. She said nothing as she moved around the dining chair I sat upon, tightening the collarbone's brace. Clavicle breaks didn't get a cast: they got a sling which immobilizes the afflicted arm across the person's chest. At least, that's what I hoped it was supposed to be, and that Kayla wasn't just tying me up for torture. She tightened the sling until I whimpered. "Doctor!" 

"I don't want to talk, Winters," she said, voice harsher than I'd ever heard it. "I really, really don't want to talk to you." 

I didn't blame her. I would've been furious if a vampire had come to my place of work and had basically kidnapped me. 

Oh wait. That did happen.

"I'm sorry—." 

"Are you?" 

She jerked on the strap over my shoulder, prompting a strangled hiss from me. Telavar rose but I shot him a look to stay his movement.

"People saw him come in and all but drag me from the clinic, Winters. There were coworkers there. Patients. People could start asking strange questions, like why an innocuous human doctor has any business with vampires—especially on a night like this." Finished with me, she knelt by her black bag and started to hastily stash away her things. "I'm needed at the hospital. My pager has been going off for the past two hours while I've been here."

"I'll have Telavar take you back—."

"No." She straightened and her bag swung from her right hand. "No, I'll get back on my own."

"I really am sorry." 

She stomped over to my door and threw it open, pausing once on the threshold to glance over her shoulder. "Save it for someone who cares."

With that, she disappeared without bothering to shut the door behind her. I stared out into the dark hallway at a loss for words as my guilt built, squatting in my stomach like some unwanted drifter. I couldn't stand the woman, but I knew what it was like to fear exposure.

Telavar walked to the door and quietly shut it before returning to his station. I wanted to be angry at him, but the person truly at fault was Havik, and the hulking vampire wasn't currently at my apartment. It was past eight in the evening and he hadn't put in an appearance. 

"She'll probably never help me again, and I don't blame her. I blame your master for being so heavy-handed."

The auburn vamp shrugged. "We have a doctor on retainer who is discreet. Master Aurel will be sure to add you to his list of acceptable clientele."

My right hand formed a fist, pulling at the fabric of the sweatpants I'd forced myself into after Dr. Cabel's examination. I didn't tell Telavar it might be futile to find me a doctor for the future. If Theda was dead, Havik would turn me into a vampire, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I sat at my table's side, tired and filled with abject acceptance as I waited for Havik to appear. Perhaps I should've been afraid, but the past week had been too trying for me to muster up any emotion aside from guilt and exhaustion. It was absurd, and yet I felt as if I'd failed Theda, the vampire girl I'd never met. I'd been so close to her, and yet....

Hurried footsteps sounded in the hall, banging along its narrow length from the stairway. Whoever it was didn't hesitate to knock; they just came bursting through my door, letting it slam into the wall and leave a dent. Sibbie stopped, breathless and panting just inside my apartment, her arms laden with stacks of paper and what appeared to be a crumpled map. 

"Grae—." She froze, taking in my appearance. A pad of yellow paper fell from her grasp and hit the linoleum with a loud snap. "Christ, Grae. You look like hell. I told you to call the cops and get out of there!"

"I think we both know how well I listen to directions." I stood, wincing as my broken bone shifted. "What are you doing here?"

"I called you. I called you several times. What happened?"

I drew back the only other chair at the dining table with my foot, angling it toward Sibbie to make the invitation obvious. She hurried over and dropped her poorly stacked collection, leaving the door wide open. I think she wanted to hug me, but one glance at the brace, my glowing forearms, the wad of bandages peeking from beneath my sleeve, and the plethora of scratches over the rest of me had her hesitating.

"I ran into trouble, and—err—lost my phone. Sorry about that, but what I want to know is what you're doing here, Sib? Don't they have you out on call with all that madness out there?"

She nodded, distracted, and spread the crumpled map out so it covered the entire end of the table. Several scraps of paper fluttered to the floor. "That madness out there is exactly why I'm here. You asked me to check up on the owner of that van? Well, it turns out it's not owned by Ishcer, but it is being leased by a company currently owned by one of the younger vampires in the Emial cadre. Guess what happened to that business tonight?" 

I shrugged—and immediately regretted the action. "Did it go up in flames?" This wasn't what I wanted to hear. 

Sibbie nodded, scattering more papers, tucking a curl of hair behind her ear. "Yes. So far all of the buildings demolished tonight were all owned or affiliated with the Emial cadre."

"I don't get what all this means. I knew Ishcer was behind this, so the buildings being owned by his cadre isn't surprising." 

Sibbie dragged a hand through her tousled hair and gripped the roots, eyes on the map. "Listen, Grae. I didn't see the connection at first, either. It's only been two hours, so we don't have much information aside from the sites of the bombings." She paused from her haphazard sorting to shoot me a guilty look. "When I couldn't get a hold of you, I started to panic. I called the only person I could think of who would know what you were up to."

As if summoned by the mere mention of his person, Aurel Havik appeared in my doorway, dressed in his crimson waistcoat, black coat, and slate slacks. He glanced over my injuries and said nothing, frowning as he entered the apartment.

My eyes narrowed and I watched the looming, hawk-eyed vamp. "So that's why he's late."

Again, Sibbie nodded. "Yeah. Aurel came and picked me up from the precinct. Before I left, though, it occurred to me that all the buildings owned by the Emial cadre were destroyed. I asked Aurel if the Gilded Glass was okay, since Ishcer took it over and is now the owner. Guess what?"

"It blew up?" I almost felt bad for Havik. Maybe that's why neither he nor Telavar were in their waiter uniforms tonight.

"No. It's perfectly fine." Sibbie smiled and gestured at the table. I leaned forward to see the street map of Roccia Nera. Sibbie's thumb was firmly planted over a small splotch of yellow highlighter along the aqueduct. It was the Gilded Glass. 

Either side of the aqueduct was scattered with more small blips of highlighter and little red crosses. "It occurred to me that every site was owned by the Emial cadre, but the addresses owned by Ishcer Emial himself, without affiliation to his cadre, were all left alone. All except this one." 

Her hand drifted across the river to the east bank, stopping on a red cross circled with highlighter. It was the warehouse where I had discovered the revenant. "He had to blow up one of his own buildings." 

Unbeknownst to me, Havik had approached the table and was towering behind my chair. "All of our buildings are rigged to explode if triggered. It's a...throwback, you could say, from the Riots. The buildings that were disabled tonight were chosen quite deliberately by the Baron."

I jumped when his hand landed on my good shoulder and his fingers squeezed the bone before skating upward toward my pulse. His touch jerked a shiver from my spine.

"Are you telling me you work in a building knowing it could be bombed at any second?"

"Vampires have keener ears than...your kind. If the detonator were to be activated, we can hear the frequency the signal is being broadcasted on. We would have a minute to evacuate. My own buildings do not have this precaution."

I noticed his use of the plural word buildings. Did he own something else besides the Gilded Glass? I didn't know. "What about any humans in these places?"

Havik shrugged, his hand lingering. "The system was put in place to destroy evidence linking certain cadres to each other or to any illegal activities discovered by mundane police. It is meant for protection, not for terrorism. I believe, though, that is not the point your friend here is trying to make."

He leaned over me to place one long-fingered hand on the table's edge and my heart thundered when I realized the vampire had cornered me. "Ishcer is using the explosions to create plausible deniability. He destroyed the evidence that was discovered, but also destroyed other businesses within his own cadre, creating the illusion of victimhood. He's made the Emial cadre the apparent victim of a terrorist attack. A full investigation will be launched to consider the cadre's affairs, but all of its businesses and units have gone up in flames."

My eyes widened. "An investigation of the cadre, but not of Ishcer himself." Despite my discomfort, I was slowly starting to understand the significance of Sibbie's discovery. "He bombed the warehouse to destroy the evidence the cops found, then bombed buildings in his cadre to draw attention away from his other properties, which means...he has more!"

I leapt to my feet and almost rammed my head into Havik's jaw. "Pen! Give me a pen!"

Havik didn't move as Sibbie patted down her rumpled jacket and Telavar found a pen by the house phone, handing it to me. I stared at the map and placed one palm on the east bank as I followed the neatly inked streets and byways, thinking.

I'd spent roughly twenty minutes, if that, inside the warehouse with the revenant before the magi and the now-dead thugs had returned. How far could a van get before having to turn back? Considering their cargo, I had to guess they couldn't go too far over the speed limit, nor could they drive recklessly.

I scanned the map as the others silently watched and waited, Havik's breath hot and intimidating on the back of my neck.

I circled six of the highlighted, non-bombed buildings all within a ten-mile diameter of Ishcer's warehouse. "There. If Theda's still alive, she's most likely in one of those buildings."

"If she's still alive and if they moved her to a building owned by Ishcer," Havik hissed in my ear as he dropped his voice so only I—and probably Telavar—could hear. "Your time is running out, Grae Winters."

I shoved away from Havik and grabbed Sibbie's arm to keep me steady. "We have to look for her. If Theda's still alive, it's only a matter of time before Ishcer has her moved again and we lose the trail." I was spooked by the vampire at my back, but my sense of urgency was genuine. This was my last chance to find Theda before she well and truly disappeared. Ishcer knew I'd been close. He wouldn't be so careless in the future.

"We? Grae, I don't think you've had a chance to look at yourself, but you're not going anywhere." Sibbie cupped her hand below my elbow and moved as if to coax me into my seat again, but I shook her off, pointing at the map.

"There's six buildings. It's not like I'm planning on going alone." I glanced at the vampires. "Two addresses for each of you to go check out. Sibbie and I will go see the final two." My friend started to protest, gesturing at my restrained arm, and I only shook my head. "I won't have to go inside. Just drive my car, Sib."

"But...Grae, your scars...."

I knew my scars were burning with vivid luminance, shining freely with my lack of sleeves, and I didn't miss how Havik's gaze lingered on the visible edge of the Mark on the underside of my forearm.

"Havik, give me your coat."

My request took the vampire by surprise, though his only outward display of emotion was the slight rise of his brow. I sensed the shift in his magic. "My coat?"

I proffered my hand and mimicked his stern expression.

With his eyes never quite leaving my own, the vampire peeled off the outer layer of his attire and dropped it into my hand. I struggled with it, having only one operational arm, and finally managed to throw it around my body and to shove my right arm through the sleeve. The coat engulfed my much smaller form, offering an abundance of coverage for my glowing scars.

Havik pinched the coat's fabric to ease me forward, his long fingers buttoning it smoothly but slowly, hands lingering at my throat. "If you find her," he said as he straightened the collar. "Call me immediately."

"Obviously." I went to move but Havik's grip didn't loosen.

"Immediately, Grae." Fangs flashed between his twisted lips, and I didn't need to let out my talent to feel the swell of his magic threatening to bowl me over. His threat wouldn't work, and Havik knew it wouldn't, but his show of strength was enough for me to bow my head without argument.

Havik's hands unwove themselves from my person, but—somehow—it felt as if his grip remained, as if he'd never truly let go at all.