“No,” said Ángel. “Now. I need to see Oberon. You are going to get me a car to wherever he is. Right now.”

Jeremy didn’t say anything. His eyes were bright and hectic, his mouth firmly closed.

Emma appeared at Ángel’s elbow. “Here.” She handed him a plastic card.

It was blank. He turned it over to see the magnetic strip on the back. “What’s this?”

“You need it to access the top floor. Just tap it to the pad in the elevator, and it’ll take you to the fourteenth floor.”

He stared at the card. “He’s here?” he said. “In this building? He’s been right here all along?”

She nodded.

Ángel directed one last livid glare over her shoulder at Neil Jeremy. “I don’t care about your good intentions,” he said. “I promise you, if Oberon dies, it will be me on the front page of the New York Times, telling the world how you killed him.”

He turned, and walked out toward the elevator bay.

Chapter 31

The elevator opened up on a silent indigo-painted hallway. There was one door, and when Ángel touched it, it swung inward. Not just unlocked, but ajar.

He stepped in and was slapped in the face with wrongness.

The air, the feel of the air, was somehow dissonant and terrible. His heart pounded, and the hair on his arms and scalp prickled. It was like someone was screaming, though he couldn’t hear a sound.

He was in a large, glossily modern penthouse apartment, dimly lit and dark in spite of the bright afternoon sunshine outside. He barely noticed the clean modern furnishings as he made his way through the large, dim apartment. The feeling of horror increased as he crossed the foyer, past the kitchen and dining room, down a hallway to a bedroom. There he found two fae: an unfamiliar one, sitting on a chair with his long legs drawn up, feet tucked under his body, and Oberon, who was naked on the bed, face to the wall, loosely covered by a sheet. Ángel’s lover was curled in on himself, the knobs of his spine visible on the back of his neck, the wings of his scapulae bladelike and vulnerable beneath his eerily blue-gray skin.

The strident horror was radiating from Oberon.

“Ángel Cruz,” said Mendel quietly. “You’re here.”

Ángel tore his gaze away from Oberon. “The door was open,” he said, stepping hesitantly into the room.

“I leave it open in case anyone wants to come in,” said Mendel.

Your security team must love you.