Felix took a huge breath. “I need her!” he shouted, and the hum of Jenks’s wings increased in pitch. “Who are you to say no to me! You are a pup!” He strode back and forth, never getting any closer, never any farther. “A squalid, puking whelp snuffing along the edges of the birthing box, unable to see the depth of pain beyond it!”

“Perhaps.” Cormel inclined his head, standing very, very still. “But I, sir, know not to look. I believe the lie, and so I survive another day. You can’t have Nina anymore. I will not give you justification on Ivy or Rachel. The darkness will warm again if you turn your back on the sun. Sir. Please. It’s not too late.”

Felix spun into an ugly hunch, the hem of his beautifully tailored suit quivering in his anger. “It is my right,” he hissed, his gaze starting to dip back into madness. “I hunger because of her; she alone satisfies me . . .”

Frightened for Ivy, I moved, Cormel’s back-flung hand stopping me.

“You may not claim justice on Ivy,” he said firmly. Something had shifted. His voice was still respectful, but the subtle subtext of subordinate vampire was utterly gone. And by Felix’s reddening face, I think he recognized it as well. It was too late for him. He couldn’t let go; he couldn’t become what he had once been. There was only the task of seeing it to the end now.

“Your favored child is stealing from me. I demand compensation!”

I exchanged a look with Jenks, seeing he had seen the shift as well. Felix was no longer a functioning undead vampire, but one who was ailing, one to be humored and lied to. He was old, forgetful, lacking control. He had done it to himself, and I pitied him, remembering seeing the controlled, confident vampire through Nina’s eyes not three days ago. He had known what would happen, and he had done it anyway, all for the chance to see the sun.

“I’ll give you compensation, but you will not have Ivy or Rachel,” Cormel said, and I pitied Felix as he all but whined.

“Ivy could satisfy me,” he wheedled, looking ugly as he tried to hide his emotions, but he was broken and couldn’t be fixed.

Cormel shook his head. “Rachel is going to find our souls with her, and Ivy needs to remain untouched. She will find our souls so that the sun may find us again and end this lie we live. Will you wait with me for that day?”

Felix’s ugly gaze slid to me, and I held my breath. “That’s fallacy,” the younger-looking, aging, sun-addicted undead vampire said.