“Do you know what syzygy is?” My blank look tells him I don’t, so he fills me in. “It’s an astronomical event, celestial bodies moving into alignment, and it can augur a tremendous focusing of power—just like the ley lines that intersect over Fulton Heights.” Jude points upward, past the frosted glass of the dome ceiling above the food court. “Right now, Pluto, Uranus, Jupiter, and the moon are all moving into formation, and the way they’re affecting the energy under the Nexus … I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

“So the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter is aligned with Mars, and I’m about to get donkey-punched by the universe?” I summarize.

“I’m sorry.” He looks helpless. For the first time since I encountered him outside the school like two weeks ago, he seems uncertain of his position. “I wish I knew some way to suppress the Corrupter, or alter his course.”

“What is the Corrupter?” I ask quietly. I have Ximena’s answer, and I have one from Jude as well … but I want to see if his has changed—if this is another thing that’s been kept from me all along.

But what he says is: “I don’t know. I’m sorry, August. There have been so many false accounts over the years, so many reasons to disbelieve the entire myth, that the Syndicate has long since given up on finding a concrete answer to that question at all.”

“What if I took an oath to the Brotherhood of Perseus instead?” I don’t know why I’m bringing it up with him, except that … who else do I have? “When they realize what happened to Daphne, they’ll probably have someone else contact me. If I pledge myself to their cause, then it keeps the Corrupter’s power out of the hands of all vampires.”

“If the oath works,” Jude reminds me cautiously, something troubled lurking behind his expression. “And only if they don’t have something else in mind.”

The way he says it is so ominous I expect lightning to strike. “W-what else—”

“Truly, I’ve been trying to understand the Brotherhood’s angle in this all along. Not to mince words, but even though you’re human, you’re also a threat to humanity—the threat.” Jude drags a hand through his curls. “I assumed they had access to materials we didn’t and were working on a way to divert the Ascension, or that maybe they were simply protecting you until the last possible moment, hoping for a miracle.”

It is by the grace of God that I don’t diarrhea myself as I supply, “But?”