Each new word he spoke cut into her like a blade, taking every memory she had of him—training by his side, going to him when she was injured or frightened, learning to remake herself into a weapon with a map of the city imprinted on her brain—and adding to it the knowledge that he’d killed her parents. Disgust rose through her and her head spun as she remembered all her hopes; all the nights they’d both stayed up, lost in their thoughts in the train station tower; how she’d wished he would lean closer, or take her hand, or kiss her.

Had he taken the guilt for killing her parents, stored it away in his mind, blamed someone else, and thought that teaching her to kill too, would fix everything? It fixed nothing.

Though her vision still wavered and her hands shook, she raised her eyes to meet his and put as much venom as she could into her glare. His jaw tightened, and though it was a small reaction, it bolstered her to take a step toward him. He stepped back. All the years he’d never shown her anything, had kept his face as impassive as a wall of rock, made this a victory.

“I don’t care what your twisted reasons are,” she spat out. Some of it landed on his face. “You tell me you killed my parents, and then you try to explain yourself? It doesn’t work like that, Kohl. You don’t own me anymore.”

“You’d still be on the streets or dead from an overdose if it wasn’t for me,” he said, wiping the spit away. His blue eyes hardened to shards of ice. “Of course I own you.”

“I will never be yours.” Her hands curled, trying to make fists, but her grip had weakened, so they fell back to her sides. “I’m glad Tannis beat me to Kouta. I’m done doing your work.”

With some demented kind of mirth in his eyes, he said, “Once again, you’re wrong. Do you really think I’d give Tannis the job after you failed?” When she frowned, he continued, “I did my own damn work. I killed Kouta Hirai.”

She stepped back in shock as Kohl whistled.

Like the sleek bodies of spiders sliding down webs, the Blood King’s killers and spies and thieves, all the people she’d worked and lived with, descended from the roofs and windows. He must have brought on people from other tradehouses or from gangs nearby, as a show of strength; there were far more people than those who lived in the Dom.

The rest of the street was empty. It was her against them.

She would fight back and kill them all where they stood.

But when her hand flinched toward her knife, she couldn’t even grip the handle properly. All her bravery vanished.

As she turned to run, blue hair flashed at the corner of her vision.

She swayed wildly, as if the whole earth had been tipped on its side.