Repeating the maneuver, I slid from shadow to shadow, hallway to hallway, all the while keeping my eyes and ears open for any sign of anyone else lurking in Briartop. But the only ones moving through the museum were the group Clementine was leading. Wherever her other men were, they were all busy with the tasks they’d been given. I stayed one hallway behind Clementine and the others, close enough that I could hear her voice as she barked out orders to her men and the faint crackles of the walkie-talkies as they reported back to her.

“Team one, status?”

“Starting on Exhibit Hall A.”

“Good. Keep to the schedule.”

“Roger that. We’ll load everything up and move on to Exhibit Hall B when we’re done in here.”

And so on and so on. Clementine and her crew really were looting the whole museum, stripping it bare like locusts chewing through a field of sweet summer clover. Good for them, for thinking big.

Too bad she’d singled out Owen to help with her heist. She was going to die for that, for threatening my friends, for Dixon shooting Phillip, for ordering Jillian’s murder—for all of it.

It was one thing to want to kill me. I expected it as the Spider. I’d practically signed on for it, taking out Mab the way I had, then being foolish enough to let all the underworld bosses live through Salina’s ambush. But nobody preyed on my friends and family, nobody scared or hurt or used them as pawns. Nobody.

My heart pumped with cold, steady rage, and I reveled in the blackness, embraced it like the old, familiar friend it was, let it seep into every part of my being until there was nothing left but me, my knives, and my sharp, bloody will to use them on every enemy who crossed my path tonight.

Finally, the soft scuffles of shoes and crackles of conversation stopped. I eased up to the end of the hallway I’d been creeping down, made sure I was in the cameras’ blind spots, and looked around the corner.

Clementine had led Owen deep into the museum, past a dozen exhibits and gallery after gallery, until they were in the center of the main wing in the very heart of Briartop. She approached two giants standing in front of a large metal door marked Museum Personnel Only—Special Clearance Needed. The museum’s rune—that tangle of briars and brambles—curled around the words on the sign.

The two men both wore security-guard uniforms. Well, that confirmed my suspicion that Clementine had gotten some of her men hired on as guards for tonight’s event and had taken out the rest. With them out of the way, she and her crew could rob the museum at their leisure, without worrying about setting off any alarms or someone calling the police.