The battle mages escorted us from the pocket dimension through a back door in the coliseum reserved exclusively for servants. Assuring us that it wasn't uncommon for Rupert to go missing for days, even weeks at a time, the three battle mages each grabbed a fistful of Isaac's cloak under the guise of escorting us somewhere official. In reality, he was true one that towed us all forward, through the shimmering veil and into a better future —

— which took the shape of an abandoned filing room, lit by a feeble ray of sunlight that persevered through the dust-choked shutters of a yellowing window.

The moment we crossed into the Mother Dimension, my phone began to ring. The battle mages automatically shied from the noise, pushing Isaac and I shoulder to shoulder in the cramped space. My phone screen tinted their pale and drawn faces with sickly green.

Bjorn was calling. For the eighth time. I answered immediately, plugging my second ear. "What is it?"

"Piper Masika Cross," Bjorn gushed, without regard for privacy. "You're so brilliant I could kiss you!"

Isaac's back stiffened against mine, and I felt unusually self-conscious all of a sudden. I hadn't heard my middle name in a long time, but of course Bjorn would know it. He would have gone through all of my records, had probably even found my birth certificate in the national database. He was always one step ahead, playing every single one of us like pawns in a game of chess.

"I could gut you like a fish," I hissed into the phone, drawing a panicked glance from the youngest battle mage.

"Not you," I said, covering the bottom of the phone. "You guys go ahead. I have to take this."

Their attention was a heat lamp, searing my skin. My cheeks burned furiously as Isaac ushered the new recruits out of the closet, his violet eyes skirting over mine as he shut the door softly. I'd only picked up the phone because I thought it was an emergency, and now I was inadvertently icing him out, after he'd gone through a confronting experience, no less.

This wasn't how I wanted things to go.

"I was under the distinct impression that Rupert was after me," I whispered.

"The world doesn't revolve around you, babe," he said dryly, doubling down on that damned familiarity. "But I'll make it feel like it does, if you keep up the good work."

Why did he keep flirting with me at the most inopportune times? Isaac could surely hear him, if I could still make out the quiet squeak of their boots on the tiles. This wasn't a City Pack issue phone with low volume.

I retreated to the furthest corner of the closet, crouching low. It was easy to pretend the shelves were skeletal aspens crowding around me, sheltering me from view. Hard to believe there was a time when sitting here, in a confined space like this, would trigger a flashback so severe I'd wake up with my teeth through my tongue. "I take it Rupert was your sire, then?"

"Yes," Bjorn breathed, the exhilaration in his voice bordering on the verge of madness. "I wasn't expecting you to be so efficient."

I rolled my eyes at that. "Have I ever let you down?"

He chuckled. "Not yet, but there's a first time for everything."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"Anytime."

"So what now?" I asked, frustrated with the turn of conversation. My body was charged for a fight; I'd been expecting a summons, a threat, an indication that I'd messed up somehow or killed the wrong man.

"You check the letterbox," he said glibly.

"What's in there?"

"A present. The first of many, to say thank you."

"I don't need any presents."

"They're not for you."

"Bjorn, enough," I pleaded, running a hand through my hair. It crackled beneath my nails as they scraped through the blood and guts that sealed the strands together. "I don't care for technicalities. I don't care if Isaac was the only one who could lure Rupert off that balcony. If you put his life at risk again, I will expose you for the fraud you are and end your life only when you have nothing left to lose. Do you understand me?"

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "You really like this guy, don't you?"

I didn't know what to say, short of threatening to stick his head on a pike, but threats were often more effective left to the imagination.

And he was right. I did like Isaac. Perhaps too much, considering the portrait I'd found in Mason's studio.

Maybe we're beyond that, now, a foolish part of me whispered. Maybe he was ready to lower the knife digging into the small of my back.

Ready to forget Louise.

"I'm sorry," Bjorn said eventually. "I can't promise I won't do it again, but I didn't enjoy it, if that makes it any better."

I sighed, letting my shoulders drop. "Only a little."

"We all have our parts to play," he muttered. "But for now, you've played yours to perfection. Rest and regain your strength; there will be plenty to do in the morning."

"And what are you going to do?" I asked, even though I had no right to. He was the spymaster and I was just one agent in the field, supposed to be oblivious to the grand scope of his plans. The more I knew, the more dangerous it was for Bjorn to operate.

"What I said the last time I called," he said, surprisingly forthcoming. I wondered if he was sick of keeping secrets. If he was drunk on his new freedom. "I'm going to bargain with Chance Nightshade for official recognition of a hybrid pack. Protection for all of my people."

"And then what?"

"I'll keep doing what I'm doing," he said, with the tonal equivalent of a shrug. "If Chance will have me."

My eyebrows flew up. "You're going to come clean?"

"She'd figure it out eventually. Woman is a human lie-detector."

"Why not resign? You can do whatever you want now." The Olsen fortune was at his beck and call, and Rupert, his sire, was too dead to tell him what to do with it.

There was a beat of silence that made the spymaster's next words feel all the heavier. "I am in a unique position, Piper, to see the web that we all walk upon. So many seemingly disconnected events have actually been twined this whole time, and Chance Nightshade marches across the threads as we speak. She must defeat the spider at its heart if we are to secure the safety of our people in the long run."

He spoke as if I was a hybrid, too; like I wasn't going to up and leave the moment the tournament was over and move onto the next job, as I had so many times before. Perhaps he, too, sensed a change in me.

"Who lies at the heart of the web?" I asked warily. This seemed like sensitive information, the kind I could be tortured for.

"The Bug Collector," he said gravely. "A prophet who has been steering the world into an apocalypse from the moment he was born."

I paused, regarding the butterfly stamp on the back of my hand. A proud golden monarch. My thoughts erred to its match on the Golden One's cloak. "Why are you telling me all of this?"

"Because a war is coming, Piper. A feud of four Fates, and like I said, we all have a part to play. Marcus might have fancied himself a king, but we're fighting for an empire that was established thousands of years before we were born. When Chance takes her rightful place as the Rainbow Empress, she will need a loyal Council all her own, and an army at her beck and call. I would see you at the head of it."

I scowled. His plans were as vague as they were grandiose. "Then I must disappoint you. Power corrupts, and I will not pledge myself to a woman who is already rotting under the burden of running a City Pack."

"She's grieving," he said, as if that justified her inattention.

"Aren't we all?" We'd just lost half the werewolf population to an ill-begotten shadow war.

"Exactly. You of all people should understand her inability to let something go."

I stiffened. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You've been chasing after Corinne for months. Lord knows what you've given up in pursuit."

My friends. My family. My lover.

All of that and my life on the line, but it still wasn't enough.

"All I ask is that you think about it," Bjorn said. "You and Chance have more in common than you realise."

I snorted. "What, we both killed our dad?"

"And you killed mine," he added in jest.

I rolled my eyes. "Go to sleep, Bjorn. It's getting late."

"Fine. But one more thing."

"What?"

"You know what's coming now. If you like that boy, I suggest you do something about it before it's too late."

My cheeks burned furiously. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"That's my girl. The perfect little spy."

This conversation had gone on long enough. "Goodnight, Bjorn," I said through gritted teeth.

"Goodnight, Piper. Do let the love-bugs bite."

It was only after he ended the call that I realised I hadn't hung up on him.

There truly was a first time for everything.