“I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t hold, Oliver. You know what to do. You can’t allow me to lose myself. Naomi was right. Unkind, but right.”

“We still have time,” I told her, and put my other hand over hers—not to pull it free, but to hold it close, even if it hurt me. “If Magnus can be killed, this will stop. It will all stop.” Because that was the secret of the draug, the one that Magnus had sought to keep so close. That was why he had targeted Claire, who could see through his disguises and defenses. He was the most powerful of the draug, and the most vulnerable. Kill him, and his vassals died. They were nothing but reflections, shells, drones serving a hive.

But Amelie was shaking her head, just a little. As much as she could. “The master draug cannot be killed. Not by steel or silver, bullets or blades. The most we can do is force him to flee and regroup. You must kill me before the transformation is complete, do you understand? I thought perhaps, this time—but we are not so lucky, you and I.” Her smile was terrible, but beneath the alien taking her body, I could still see the ghost of Amelie. She had been my bitter enemy, my gadfly, my bane—we had hundreds of years of bile and ambition between us, but here, at the end, I saw her for what she was: a queen, as she had always been. In my mortal life I had brought down kings, laid low monarchs, but never her. There was something in her stronger than my ambition. “Do me the kindness, my old enemy. It’s fitting.”

“In a while,” I promised her. “Bide with me.”

“I will,” she said, and closed her eyes. This time, the smile was utterly her own. “I will try.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

NAOMI

Finally, finally, I was taking my rightful place. Thirty vampires, all at my unquestioned command. It rankled me that Oliver had been the one to grant it to me, but I would see to him soon enough. I was royalty. He was nothing but a jumped-up king-killer and fanatic who’d once stolen a throne, and there would be a reckoning. It had been foolish of him to give me his vassals to command.

I would use them to do more than finish the draug. I would do it for my sister’s sake. Amelie was queen, true, but when a queen can no longer rule, her heir must act, swiftly, to ensure that no chaos erupts.

I was the heir. Not Oliver.

The only vehicle large enough to carry us all was a yellow-painted bus; it stank of human children, and other less pleasant things, and I ordered the windows put down. The clouds were rolling away on the winds, leaving the skies over Morganville finally clear and ice-cold, with stars glittering in spills of diamond. So many stars here. My sister had chosen her defensive ground well, and if the weapon Oliver had given us worked as he claimed, this would be the final, triumphant victory.