“He was a charlatan.” Jude’s tone is sharp and decisive. “A con man and birthday party magician who managed to inveigle himself into the favor of the Russian royal family. Alexei, the tsarevich, was a hemophiliac, and at the time, very little was known about the disorder or how to treat it. It was easily fatal, and because Alexei was the only male heir, his parents were pretty desperate about finding a cure.” He sweeps his arms out. “Enter Grigori Rasputin, who used vampire blood to save the boy’s life on several occasions, earning himself a permanent place in the Romanovs’ household.”

“They knew he was a vampire and they didn’t care?”

“He wasn’t a vampire when he first came to St. Petersburg,” Jude answers. “He probably wasn’t Turned before 1914, when he was nearly stabbed to death by a peasant. But two years later, he pretty famously refused to die when a nobleman attempted to finish the job. Over the course of a few hours, Rasputin survived being poisoned—repeatedly—shot, and then beaten. Then they put a bullet in his brain and dumped him off a bridge.” A cold smile turns up the corners of his mouth. “He finally got the message and played possum long enough to be photographed and pronounced dead, but then vanished. An unidentified corpse was buried in his place to reduce the kind of mythologizing that would have taken place if anyone had known the truth.”

My whole body is one giant goose bump at this point. “Wow.”

“He’s quite dangerous,” Jude declares softly. “And I’m pretty certain I know how you’re going to respond to this, but I have to say it anyway: There’s only so much I can do, watching your house at night. The League and the Mystic Order … they’ve got numbers on their side, and no matter how good I am, I can’t keep you safe by myself. Please think over what I suggested yesterday. There’s no reason in the world you should trust us, but the Syndicate does have the best chance of protecting you.”

I’m more aware than ever of how close he is at this moment as I pick out my words with the care of a bomb squad. “Thanks for the amazing offer, but I’m kind of hoping this will all turn out to be the result of a brain tumor. So until I know for sure that I’m pregnant with an ancient demon, I’m going to have to decline.”

“I figured.” He gives a half-hearted shrug. “You could at least let me take care of your elbow for you.”

“My el— What?” Instinctively, I reach for my sore arm, glaring at him suspiciously. “How did … What do you mean, ‘take care of’ it? How do you even know there’s something wrong with it?”