I’m running full force, throwing every persuasion I can think of ahead of me, not knowing who might even be in the building, let alone on the ground floor. Just before I reach the back entrance, a woman in a maid’s uniform steps outside. I barrel past her, into the hotel, through a laundry into a small kitchen. Emerge into a red and purple bar area, veer into the lobby.

I look back and find a balding hotel clerk staring at me in astonishment.

“Guten Tag,” I pant and shove out the front door to bolt across the street, blood pounding in my temples.

My phone rings in my pocket.

“They know,” I say, breathing hard against the phone. “They were waiting for me to get it—”

“Where are you?” Luka demands. Sirens sound somewhere in the distance, and for a disoriented moment I can’t tell if I’m hearing them from the street or through the phone.

“Lange Gasse,” I say, veering right. “Headed north.”

“They’ve got us blocked—” I hear a car door opening. “I’m coming.”

I tear down the sidewalk looking for a back street, an alley between buildings—anything to stay out of sight.

“Keep going north. Don’t stop. Are you being followed?” I can hear his steps pounding the pavement, words jarred with every stride.

I glance back, but I’m running so fast I can hardly see. “I don’t think so.”

“There’s a hotel a few blocks up, on your left.”

I can’t get the image of the woman with the gun out of my mind. The angle of it was, for a split second, the perfect kill shot. I start to hyperventilate, vision spotting.

“Audra? Audra! Find a place to get your bearings. You’re going to be okay,” he says, and I nod, though I know he can’t see it. I duck into the doorway of a café, just enough to get out of sight, to calm my burning lungs.

“You’re okay. I’m almost there.”

My next breath is a ragged sob.

“One more block. You’re going to make it.” And it sounds like he’s slowed as well.

I look down and actually see the envelope clutched in my hand for the first time. I tear it open.

The note is brief.

Do you think you can escape Vienna without being followed? Bring the contents of the box and the Scions will let Luka live. The offer expires at midnight. He will be dead by morning.

N.

An address in Budapest is printed at the bottom.

Like that, the breath I just caught is knocked from my lungs.

Don’t trust Nikola. He’s in league with them.

“Audra? Are you there?”

I squeeze my eyes shut, nod. “Yeah.”

“Keep going.”