“You’ll never have this world.” Now I looked up, and my body was shaking—with anger, not with fear. “You can kill me. You can claim me. But you can’t claim us. The Seven Seals are waiting. Jaxon Hall is waiting. The entire syndicate is waiting for you.” I raised my chin and stared her in the face. “Good luck.”

Nashira pulled me to my feet by my hair. Her face came close to mine. “You could have been more,” she said. “So much more. As it happens, you will soon be nothing. Everything that you were will be mine.” With a push of her arm, she flung me into a Rephaite’s iron grip. “Alsafi, take this bag of bones to the stage. It is time for her to surrender her spirit.”

I didn’t stop to think as Alsafi walked me up the steps. A bag was over my head. My lips were sore, my cheeks were hot. I couldn’t breathe or think straight.

Warden was gone. I’d lost him. My only Reph ally, and I’d let him get caught. Nashira wouldn’t just kill him, not when he’d stooped so low as to touch a human with his bare hands. It was more than betrayal. By kissing me, holding me, the blood-consort had debased his entire family. He was no longer a worthy candidate. He was nothing.

Alsafi kept a firm grip on my arm. I was about to die. In less than ten minutes, I would join with the æther, like all the other spirits. My silver cord would break. I would never be able to return to my own body, the body I’d inhabited for nineteen years. From then on, I would have to serve Nashira.

The bag came off my head. I was at the side of the stage, watching the end of the play. Two Rephs—Alsafi and Terebell—stood on either side of me. Terebell leaned down to my level. “Where is Arcturus?”

“They took him to the gallery. Thuban and Situla.”

“We will deal with them.” Alsafi released my arm. “You must delay the blood-sovereign, dreamwalker.”

I’d known Terebell was one of Warden’s collaborators, but not Alsafi. He didn’t look like a sympathizer, nor did Warden.

The Overseer fled the stage, his costume drenched in artificial blood, leaving his knife behind him. His screams for mercy echoed through the Guildhall. The emissaries cheered as a group of actors chased him out onto the street, all wearing Scion uniforms. The applause was deafening. It continued as Nashira walked up the steps, back onto the stage.