He held that knife like someone who really knew how to wield it like an expert. That was what held her in place.

“You stabbed me in the back,” Theo said. “I suppose I should be appropriately grateful that you thought enough of me to only use wood, and little enough of Eve to leave her behind to free me. But then, you never intended for her to leave here alive, did you? A silver knife, a human at the scene—conveniently dead, killed by you in outrage. You wished me to believe that Eve staked me, overpowered you somehow, and killed Amelie in some pro-human rampage. It won’t wash, my dear. It simply won’t wash.”

I hadn’t thought about it, but now that I could catch my breath, fury burned up inside me like acid. That bitch. She’d set me up. Even if she hadn’t killed me, she could have blamed the whole thing on me, especially if she burned herself with a little silver. Me and my friends were well known to walk around armed with anti-vamp weaponry.

And the sentence for killing Amelie would, of course, be immediate, violent, and gruesome death.

“What are you going to do?” Naomi flung back at him. “Let her live? Let her become draug? A master draug, capable of destroying us all? Don’t be a fool, Theo! You know what I was doing is necessary!”

“And Eve?”

She glanced at me, then back to him. “A human, determined to marry a vampire? How long do you expect she would last, in any case?”

I risked another look at Amelie. She was as still as a statue now, hands folded across her chest. But as I watched, I felt her attention … shift. Toward me.

And I heard her, in my head. There was a clear, silvery sound to it, like bells and singing, sweet singing.

Go, Eve. Go and don’t come back.

I didn’t wait. My nerve just … broke, and I ran into the other room. Theo must have known where the alarm button was, because a few seconds later I heard the thumping of violent but muffled blows on the door, and it crashed open to admit Amelie’s two guards. I held up my hands. They disregarded me and ran into the other room.

And I got the hell out before anybody could ask me any questions. I didn’t know what Theo was going to say, but if I hung around, there was no way I wouldn’t end up somehow coming out of it badly.

I wished I’d never seen Amelie like that, because it was awful, and terrifying. If she was fighting, I couldn’t see any sign of it; she looked like she was slowly drowning in that slime, and the awful gray color of her skin and eyes made her look like something washed up on a beach.

We were losing the Founder of Morganville, and once we lost her …

… We lost everything.

I dashed down the hallway, blind with tears and anguish, and ran headlong into Michael. I stopped, trembling, and stared at him for a few long, horrible seconds. What I’d just seen … what I’d just escaped …