“I thought I knew what I was doing. All my theories and formulas. I’d even found the right frequency—” Liam leaned back against a tree trunk. A simple tree, shaded and quiet. In the twilit woods, even the fires of Hallenberg felt far enough away. “But the truth is, I wasn’t strong enough to control it.”

Daniel stepped forward. It was a trusting gesture, far kinder than Liam deserved. Yearning stitched tight in Liam’s chest. He wished he could have met Daniel anywhere, anytime else—an easy, uncomplicated place, where demons and humans alike weren’t circling them like wolves, all too ready to kill them over nothing more than who or what they were.

He wondered if such a place could ever exist.

“It was an accident, then?” Daniel lifted his gaze. “You can’t blame yourself for that. That doesn’t make it your fault.” Then, hesitantly: “This is why you want the book, isn’t it? Because you want to bring him back. You want to save him, don’t you?”

Liam stared at him for a long minute, and his fingers traced the ghost of Pitr’s touch against his cheek. Bring Pitr back. Was that what he wanted? Could it have been, once?

But then he couldn’t help it: he shook with a laugh.

“No. No, getting trapped there was the least he deserved.” Liam’s voice ran cold. “The only problem is that I didn’t finish the job.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SIMONE

Sniper work was one part blood rush—calculations whirling through her head faster than she could examine them, sights lining up perfectly—and nine parts insufferable dullness. Not the dullness of having nothing to do, but of knowing she had something to do yet being unable to do it until some unknown time at which she would have to move too fast—but not now, not yet, not close enough that she could be ready, not far enough she could look away.

Simone hated and loved it. She hated the wait that was a constant itch between her shoulder blades and loved the moment that itch went away. She loved the bloom of red from a Nazi’s skull, those flowers she so carefully planted blossoming over and over. She hated being kept from that joy.

And most of all, she hated sharing the waiting with someone else.

“We should check on them,” Phillip said, for the thousandth time. “No one’s gone in or out for a while now. If they found anyone, they’d be hauling them off already—”