There’s another thick silence as their words settle—interrupted only by the chattering of my teeth, because it is cold out here. “Not that it isn’t heartwarming how you two are working through your boring emotional baggage after all this time, but there’s an actual demon trying to claim squatter’s rights in my actual body, and I’d like some fucking answers right now.”

Jude faces me, the humor gone out of his expression. “Everything I’ve told you is the truth, August.”

“Are you really the only representative the Syndicate sent here?” I demand. “Humans want me dead, two cults led by murdery sorcerers are hanging around town tearing shit up, and you’re really the only guy they sent to check things out?”

Jude hesitates just long enough for me not to trust his answer. “Yes.”

“That means for now,” Gunnar interprets. “He’s the only one for now. The Syndicate is a bureaucracy, and they love nothing more than sending in a mid-level functionary to do some scouting before they decide how many resources to expend on a problem.”

“Excuse me, I am not a ‘mid-level functionary’!” Jude is even more outraged at this slight than when Gunnar accused him of rigging their breakup. “I am Hecuba’s man-at-arms, with the full trust of the board of Syndics, and they sent me alone because they knew I was capable of assessing the situation!”

“Pro tip,” Gunnar says to me in a mock aside, “if you ever want to royally piss Marlowe off, just criticize the Syndicate or question their right to rule over every single vampire on the face of the Earth.”

“Someone has to maintain order.” Jude crosses his arms over his chest, the sinew in his shoulders rippling. Both of them are dressed for a day at the beach, and appear just as comfortable, but in about two minutes I’m going to look like one of those dead bodies floating in the ocean at the end of Titanic with frost on its eyeballs.

“And it might as well be you?” Gunnar retorts.

“Yes,” Jude answers just as bluntly. “It might as well be us. You know better than most what kind of chaos there’d be if we weren’t out there ‘ruling over every vampire on the face of the Earth.’ You’ve seen the kind of uprisings we’ve had to quell.” With grim satisfaction, he adds, “It wasn’t even that long ago that you agreed with the Syndicate’s mission.”

Gunnar casts his eyes down, uncomfortable. “I was linked to you then.”

“You still are. Just because you severed from me, that doesn’t change. No matter what, you’ll always be mine.” Their eyes meet, and something meaningful passes between them.