“It’s the order removing you from the Galbraith assignment.” Breton’s lips twitched, and I knew he suppressed a satisfied grin, the smug bastard.

“General, please!” I clenched my hands into fists at my sides. “The Oracle gave me information. ‘Seek the toothsome ones in the land of the dead.’ That’s something we can go on! And it’s proof!”

“Proof?” Breton scoffed. “And what, pray, is it proof of?”

“That the Soul Eater is up to something!” I squinted in frustration, the gleam off the polished edge of his desk blurring my vision. How much of what I was saying came from the Oracle’s information, and how much was my own mind skewing what I’d heard? “I can’t tell you why or how, but you have to believe me. The Soul Eater is behind whatever is going on with Nathan!”

“As far as I can tell, the only problem with Mr. Galbraith is that he has killed. Twice.” Breton propped his fingertips together and rested his hands atop his desk. “But rapidly, his friends are becoming my problem. Mr. Harrison, you have been removed from the case. I will assign a more impartial third party.”

“You can’t do that!” I shot to my feet. “This isn’t Max’s fault, and it’s not Nathan’s! He deserves better than this!”

“What Mr. Galbraith deserves,” Breton shouted, leaning over his desk, his rage-contorted face inches from my own, “is to die in terror, the way his victims did.”

I felt Max’s stern presence beside me before he put his hand on my arm. “Let’s go. There’s nothing we can do about it now.”

We were silent on the way to the airport. We’d left too close to sunup, and the lighter the sky got, the more tense we became. By the time we reached the tarmac, we had to race to the plane, the frantic whirring of the jet engines urging us on.

The official reason for our quick dismissal from Movement headquarters was our safety after our run-in with the Oracle. To get us out of her “immediate scope of thought,” as they put it. Though I knew it was really because Breton was pissed at me, I was glad we were leaving. We had precious few resources and a seemingly impossible task ahead of us. I would have gone nuts pacing around a hotel room all day, waiting to figure out what was going on, knowing another assassin was out there looking for Nathan.

We made it up the steps to the plane just in time. The hot Spanish sun crested the horizon just as the flight attendant pulled the door shut. A thin line of smoke rose from the back of her hand from the contact with sunlight.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Max gave the woman a sharp look and she took the hint to skip the seat belt demonstration.