I spread my arms. “What do you want me to do? Should I go up to Roland and ask him nicely to please not claim the city as a favor to me?”

“If that’s what it takes, yes!” Maria snapped.

This was a ridiculous conversation. “You do realize he’ll try to kill me the moment he sees me?”

“That’s not certain,” Sienna said. “For almost six months now I’ve done nothing but look into your future. I’ve seen you die in dozens of ways and I have seen you survive. But I have never seen him die.”

Awesome. Just awesome. “Thanks. This is really helpful. Is there anything else?”

Evdokia bit a thread off her knitting and tossed the sweater at me. I caught it.

“Pure wool,” she said. “Will keep you warm even when wet. Put it on and don’t take this off for the next twenty-four hours.”

I shrugged off my jacket, pulled off my sweater, and slipped into the woolen one. “You know something I don’t?”

Evdokia sighed. “Honey, we can fill this place with what we know and you don’t.”

Ask a stupid question. “If I can find a way to resolve this Hugh d’Ambray dilemma, I may need witnesses for my negotiations with the People. Will the covens act as my witnesses?”

“Yes,” Sienna said. “We’ll send representatives to the Keep.”

I turned around and headed out. Behind me the ice cracked, releasing Ascanio and Derek.

Outside Robert and Desandra waited.

“How did it go?” Robert asked.

“Roland is coming to claim the city. They want me to stop this from happening.”

“How?” Desandra asked.

“They don’t know. They have no instructions. Their helpful suggestion is to ‘just do it.’” I growled and headed out of the forest. So far this had been one hell of a day.

• • •

I CROUCHED IN the shadow of an apartment building. Desandra, Derek, and Ascanio leaned next to me, while Robert took a running start and ran up a seemingly sheer wall. We’d left Cuddles tied to an oak in Centennial Park. Nobody in their right mind would steal an animal belonging to the witches. If vampires sighted her, they would let her alone.

We were on the edge of the Slave Pens, a housing development next to the Casino reserved for Casino employees and journeymen, who’d given it its name. The original plan called for going down Centennial Drive but the vampires were too thick. We had to turn around, loop north and west, and approach the Casino from the Slave Pens. It cost us a precious half hour and if I thought about it longer than a second, it made me grind my teeth.