“What did it say?” I ask, my voice steadier than I feel. I can picture every letter of the caption, but it’s in German.

“They found Nino’s body. You’re wanted for his murder,” Piotrek says. In the backseat, Luka reaches for my hand.

I close my eyes.

Did Nino bleed out on the floor of that trailer, or did they kill him? Did he die alone—or at Nikola’s hands?

I try to block the images, but they play out with brutal detail, nearly as though I had witnessed them.

What will happen to Ana now?

“They’re calling you a serial killer,” Piotrek says. “Saying you killed a man in Croatia last week.”

Beside me, Claudia stares out the window in silence. I wonder if she’s thinking how close to the truth it is, calling me a murderer. It doesn’t matter that I never drew blood, could not have possibly inflicted that kind of damage on a man Nino’s size. He and Ivan both are dead because of me.

The resolve I felt ten minutes ago has frayed to a single thread. And I know if I allow myself to think about Ana—fragile, so lost without Nino—I will come completely undone.

“Turn here,” Jester says from the front seat, laptop open on her knees. “We need to switch cars. I’m lining one up now.”

“Why are you doing this?” I blurt out. “Tibor volunteered you, but you don’t strike me as anyone’s lackey.”

“ ‘Lackey’?” she says. Claudia translates. I had no idea she spoke French.

“Tibor’s been trying to gather information on Nikola for years. It’s something of an addiction to me now. I am sorry for you, but this is a gold mine to me. Katia was my sister.”

“I need a chart,” I mutter. “Between ‘siblings,’ real siblings, and love interests, the underground’s worse than Arkansas.”

Piotrek frowns in the rearview mirror. “I don’t understand.”

“Does it seem strange to anyone but me that other Progeny are willing to kidnap or brutalize their own for Nikola?” I say. “For someone willing to kill his own people?”

“He is the Prince of Budapest,” Claudia says quietly. “He is very powerful. More so today, as he’s become so elusive. He’s more a myth than a man to most Progeny—practically a god to young Utod like Ana. You’re the only person I’ve heard of, other than Tibor, ever speaking to him. And yes. Every prince has the authority to remove any Progeny he considers dangerous. Now you understand why I was afraid.”

“So court is safe as long as you don’t stand out enough to get killed.”