“Yeah, so I can keep incubating the Angel of Death for you,” I shoot back.

“Would you have rather I let your art teacher chop your head off?” She arches a brow, offering no reaction to my knowledge of the Corrupter’s true origins. “Anyway, Jude Marlowe was the one who brought up the Brotherhood, not me. I saw you two sitting together, and I panicked—I didn’t want him to seduce you and kidnap you off to Transylvania, so I intervened. When he accused me of being a Knight, I went with it, because it was the easiest explanation.” She flops back in her seat, disgruntled. “I knew the Syndicate would send someone, and I should have figured it would be Marlowe, with his puppy dog eyes and slick vibe. They went straight for your hormones. Predictable.”

“And you didn’t?” I counter, glad at least that the spell she has me under disguises how vulnerable I feel right now. “Or do you seriously want me to think it’s a coincidence that you sent a gorgeous surfer boy to work at my favorite café?”

“Gunnar Larsen, that horny little dipshit.” Daphne—Viviane—pinches the bridge of her nose. “I want you to know that he was never supposed to approach you. His job was to watch you when I couldn’t, and that’s all. I didn’t even know the two of you had seen each other outside of Sugar Mama’s until you told me he’d been at that fucking party last night! Believe me, when I see him again, he’s going to get my entire foot up his ass.”

I blink a few times, my throat closing up as I whisper, “I thought you were my friend.”

“Oh, Auggie.” Viviane Duclos clasps her hands together and gives me an abject look, her eyes genuinely sad. “This whole thing got so much more complicated than I ever imagined. I’ve been chasing the Dark Star for almost three hundred and fifty years, and when I started planning for the Ascension, you were just a footnote in an ancient book—a vessel to be born at a particular time, bearing particular markers.” She shakes her head. “I’m sure it won’t mean anything to you to hear this now, given where we are, but … I am your friend. Or I was. I only came to Fulton Heights to find the Corrupter, but I found you, too. And I’m honestly glad.”

“That makes one of us.” It’s a pitiful comeback, but I’ve got nothing else to fight with.