I glance sideways. Elliott is still next to me but his eyes are on the gradually thinning fog above, tracking the Being and the screaming thing in its talons. His face is lined with horror, his shoulders tense under the weight of his own failure. He’s a shadowseeker, after all—trained to hunt down mirrors and mirror peddlers, to stop these wraiths before they’re born.

I glance up at the cops, at the mayor. Their gazes are glued on the fog too, searching frantically for the Being. No one is watching me.

No one sees me pick up the gun.

The fog vanishes all at once, dissipating like steam. Overhead, the Being shreds itself into shadows that sparkle and fizz and fall, and then it’s gone too. The person in its claws drops, screaming, to the beach far below. All eyes follow the man’s fall—except mine.

I have maybe five seconds before everyone remembers I’m here. That’s five seconds to figure out what to do with the blood-sticky gun in my hands. I hesitate—and then pivot in toward Elliott, lift the gun, and aim it at him.

The barrel touches his chest, angled toward his heart. He freezes. He swallows, the muscles in his jaw twitching with the motion. His eyes move away from the twisted body on the beach, but he doesn’t dare turn his head to look at me.

“You’ve never killed anyone before,” he says softly.

He’s right. I haven’t. But I’m not a good guy either. I’ve done plenty of stuff I should regret over the last year. And I don’t regret any of it, because it was necessary. Because I will do whatever it takes, no matter how difficult or wrong it is, to get my brother back. Even now, even this.

About half the cops are running toward the newly dead body, but one of the others glances our way and spots us. She shouts to the others and suddenly half a dozen guns are pointed at me. No one fires yet, though.

I raise my voice. “I know he’s a shadowseeker,” I call. That’s how Elliott knows I haven’t killed anyone before. Because he’s researched me, read my file, used the information to put together this operation to entrap me. “He’s one of you. Let me go, or I’ll kill him right here in front of you.”

My voice is shaking. All of me is shaking. I don’t know if I can actually kill a person, but I might have to find out.

Elliott closes his eyes, opens them again. The hatred is burning, burning. “Don’t,” he says to me quietly, and his voice is still calm and steady, but now there’s a thread of fear beneath it. I can’t afford to hear the emotion, can’t afford to humanize him. He’s my enemy. Just like Ginger.