“Jack . . . ?” she whispers as her heel bumps the foot of the bed. “Did you hear something?”

My mouth is buried in her hair, kissing the soft groove where her shoulder meets her neck. “Just your foot,” I murmur, snaking my arms around her waist, ready to lift her onto the bed.

“Not that. Listen.” She presses me back by the chest. Her body goes rigid in my arms and her eyes shimmer in the dark. “Did you hear that?”

I pull back to listen, both of us breathing hard. A soft clatter echoes in the hall, the same sound the glass votives had made when we’d knocked them over in the stairwell.

A chill snakes up my spine as I unwind myself from Fleur.

I turn for the door. A sudden burst of sound and movement rushes in from the hall. Someone grabs my hands and jerks them behind my back. Fleur shouts as I’m dragged across the floor, the terror on her face captured in the moonlight as she’s surrounded by three shadowy figures. I thrash, managing to free one arm. There’s a grunt as I drive my elbow back hard. One of the shadows whirls toward me and I wind back a fist. As I swing, someone kicks my legs out from behind. My knees smack down onto the tile, and my arms are wrenched painfully behind me.

“What do you want?” I shout as two of the figures grab Fleur by her wrists, holding her immobile against the wall. I count at least four shadows in the room. They’re not Seasons. Fleur would have smelled them coming. We would have known they were close. The weather would have given them away hours ago. “Take whatever you want and get out! Leave her alone!”

Fleur throws her weight forward, but one of the figures lashes an arm across her chest, holding her back. A silver scythe is embroidered on his sleeve, the familiar outline of the metallic threads sharp and clear, even in the semidarkness.

These aren’t burglars or thieves. These are Guards.

A red light blinks in the periphery of my vision. A transmitter. Fleur’s eyes widen as they find mine.

Panic swells inside me. I lurch against the Guard behind me, but he holds me down. “Take your hands off her!”

“Target in custody,” one of them says in a rasping voice I’ve heard before, but my brain’s too scrambled to place it.

Fleur fights, wrenching to get free of them. One of the Guards grunts and curses when her fist smacks into his jaw. Her knee swings up, connecting with a groin. The temperature in the room plummets as the Guards summon their magic to subdue her. Rime crackles over the villa walls. The warm air condenses, filling the room with cold, dense fog. A scream erupts from Fleur’s mouth, streaming out in a thick white cloud as the frost creeps over her arms.