“None of your business,” he says, mocking me, as he tosses his cell phone onto the coffee table. A pulse of pain flares inside him. Not the persistent physical pain I’ve felt since our magic became tangled. This is sharper, more acute. Betrayal.

An image flickers through my thoughts . . . no, through our connection. The picture is hazy at first. Hard to grasp. All I’m getting is a girl. The contrast of short, dark hair against a blurry face. I chase it deeper into his mind, concentrating hard as the girl’s features slide in and out of focus.

I know her. I’ve seen her before. The short pixie cut. Her petite frame. This is the same girl I saw trailing behind Jack and our friends in the video footage on Doug’s phone. But as the image grows clearer, so does my certainty that I’ve seen her somewhere else.

I’m not the only deadly thing lurking in the dark.

I grab Doug’s phone off the table before he can stop me and click open his photos app, scrolling through his videos as he scrambles after me.

It’s her. Kai Sampson, one of Michael’s Guards. I only saw her for a moment on the mountain before Jack and I were separated and she went after him. But her name is burned into me like a brand. Jack still screams it sometimes, bolting upright in bed in a blind panic, grabbing at invisible arrows in his back.

Doug snatches away his phone.

“No!” The word rattles the room. “You call off that Guard right this minute!”

“I would, but she’s not mine. Sommers brought her here. Come on,” he says, taking me roughly by the arm. “We’re leaving. There’s something we need to handle up top.”

Jerking free, I step out of his reach. Kai’s face is suddenly clear in Doug’s mind, his feelings for her glaring under a painfully bright light. He resents her. Doesn’t trust her. And what does he mean, Jack brought her here? “Why? Why would Jack do that?”

“Because they both wanted the same thing. He wanted to find his smaze so he could swoop in and rescue you, and she wanted to find her sister.” Another face appears in his mind. A blue streak in her hair. Frost on her skin, a white swirl in her eyes.

“Névé,” I whisper, finding it suddenly hard to breathe. “Névé was her sister?” They’re both looking for Jack’s smaze. “I don’t understand. Why would they come here together?” Jack couldn’t have known. Névé’s death has haunted him. He never would have used that kind of secret for leverage. But Doug . . .

“You,” I say, struggling to stay grounded as his mind becomes agitated and violent, “you told her. That’s where you were going when you left the office before.”