Nita’s body stiffened in terror, and in that moment, she absolutely believed he was exactly as dangerous as he sounded.

“But, as I said. Things went differently. When she suggested forming INHUP to gather and train people, to centralize everything, I agreed to help. When we realized some of the corruption among the hunters, she decided to start making rules—which eventually became laws—about hunting unnaturals. There’s a big difference between someone who’s trying to get rid of a serial-killing unicorn and someone who wants to try eating a ningyo because they think they’ll gain immortality.”

His eyes assessed Nita, cold and cruel. “But the more rules she put in, the more fame her organization got, the angrier certain elements became. Elements like your mother. They joined to kill things, and they didn’t like being told there were things they couldn’t kill.”

Nita leaned forward, fascinated despite herself. “And?”

“And things came to a head eventually. Twenty years ago. Your mother decided I had too much influence over Nadya. She couldn’t get rid of Nadya, she was the face of INHUP. But she could get rid of me.”

He closed his eyes. “I want to say I escaped, or that I won the fight, but the truth was I lost, and I’m only alive because your mother was interrupted before she could behead me. The people who interrupted her were under the impression I was human, and I was buried.”

He licked his lips. “It took me a while to get out. I was badly hurt, and weak, and climbing out of a coffin buried six feet underground is hard even when you aren’t starving and nearly dead. By the time I got out . . .”

“What happened?”

“Your mother—she went by Monica then, I don’t know if it was her real name. I don’t think so.” He swallowed. “Monica had confronted Nadya. I guess she thought if I was gone, she’d be able to regain her influence over Nadya. But Nadya knew what she’d done and was furious. They fought, and your mother was banished from INHUP.” His smile was bitter. “Officially banished, anyway. She had too much sympathy among the ranks for it to work, really.”

His voice went soft. “So when she snuck back into the building later, no one stopped her. And she found Nadya and murdered her.”

The grief on his face was so familiar, so much like her own heart-wrenching pain from her father’s death that it stole her breath. She could see the pain in his eyes, and the scars in her own chest throbbed in response. She understood this pain, and she knew, without ever asking, that he’d truly loved Nadya.

Her mother had claimed Andrej killed Nadya. Andrej claimed her mother did it. Both of them looked like they’d genuinely cared about this woman. So what was the truth?

“Why?” she asked. “Why kill Nadya?”