Hunt’s shout was lodged in his throat, but Ruhn’s echoed through the conference room as Bryce skidded across the carpet.

Lehabah screamed as Syrinx roared, and Bryce managed to snap, “Hide.”

But the Archangel halted, surveying the woman sprawled on the floor before him.

The tattoo down her back. Luna’s Horn contained within its dark ink.

Bryce scrambled to her feet, as if there were anywhere to go, anywhere to hide from the Governor and his terrible power. She made it across the room, to the steps up to the mezzanine—

Micah moved fast as the wind. He wrapped a hand around her ankle and tossed her across the room.

Bryce’s scream as she collided with the wood table and it shattered beneath her was the worst sound Hunt had ever heard.

Ruhn breathed, “He’s going to fucking kill her.”

Bryce crawled backward through the debris of the table, blood running from her mouth as she whispered to Micah, “You killed Danika and the pack.”

Micah smiled. “I enjoyed every second of it.”

The conference room shook. Or maybe that was just Hunt himself.

And then the Archangel was upon her, and Hunt couldn’t bear it, the sight of him grabbing Bryce by the neck and throwing her across the room again, into those shelves.

“Where is the fucking Aux?” Ruhn screamed at Flynn. At Sabine.

But her eyes were wide. Stunned.

So slowly, Bryce crawled backward, up the mezzanine stairs again, clawing at the books to heave herself along. A gash leaked blood onto her leggings, bone gleaming beneath a protruding shard of wood. She panted, half sobbing, “Why?”

Lehabah had crept to the metal bathroom door in the back of the library and managed to open it, as if silently signaling Bryce to get there—so they could lock themselves inside until help arrived.

“Did you learn, in all your research, that I am an investor in Redner Industries? That I have access to all its experiments?”

“Oh fuck,” Isaiah said from across the pit.

“And did you ever learn,” Micah went on, “what Danika did for Redner Industries?”

Bryce still crawled backward up the stairs. There was nowhere to go, though. “She did part-time security work.”

“Is that how she sanitized it for you?” He smirked. “Danika tracked down the people that Redner wanted her to find. People who didn’t want to be found. Including a group of Ophion rebels who had been experimenting with a formula for synthetic magic—to assist in the humans’ treachery. They’d dug into long-forgotten history and learned that the kristallos demons’ venom nullified magic—our magic. So these clever rebels decided to look into why, isolating the proteins that were targeted by that venom. The source of magic. Redner’s human spies tipped him off, and out Danika went to bring in the research—and the people behind it.”