“Yes,” I stress. “Because she might be able to wipe the crowd’s memory?”
“Please tell me we’re not telling the Council that part,” Sofia “I came here to end him, and I don’t want the Council stepping in.”
“No, we won’t tell the Council that part.”
I take a breath. Organize my thoughts.
“Okay, here’s what we know. Damien told Poppy he plans to reveal what I am at the reception. Make her family watch her defend a monster. Force me to choose between exposure or protecting them by leaving.”
“Except she already knows,” Sofia says. “His leverage is gone.”
“Against her, yes. But her family doesn’t know. Her mother, her sister, everyone she loves—they’re still potential targets for psychological damage, if not physical harm.”
“So we position ourselves to respond the moment he escalates,” Elena says. “Standard containment.”
“Yes. But there’s something else.” I pause. Force myself to say the words I’ve been avoiding. “Damien’s endgame isn’t exposure. It never has been.”
Silence on the channel.
“What do you mean?” Nathaniel asks.
“He his pattern. Margaret. Corinne. Anya.” Each name is a weight I’ve carried for decades. “He admitted to being responsible for all their deaths. He doesn’t just want me to suffer. He wants me to lose. Completely. Permanently.”
“He wants her dead,” Sofia says flatly.
“I think this time he wants me to watch her die. That’s different.” I close my eyes. “Exposure is just the opening move. Create chaos. Isolate me from anyone who might help. And then...”
“Then he finishes what he started in Prague,” Elena finishes.
“Yes.”
The channel goes silent.
“He’s patient,” Marcus says. “Methodical. He won’t rush this. He’s had over a century to plan, and he’ll want it to be perfect.”
“Which means the reception is just the beginning,” Nathaniel adds. “Not the end.”
“Unless we end it first.” Sofia’s voice carries an edge. “Force him to escalate beyond what the Council can ignore.”
“How?” I ask.
“Provoke him. Make him lose control. A man nursing that much rage for that long—there has to be a breaking point.”
“And risk him hurting someone in the process? Risk him hurting Poppy?”
“There’s risk either way.” Sofia’s tone is blunt. “The question is which risk you can live with.”
She’s right. I hate that she’s right.
“Does Poppy know? If not, she needs to be informed.” Elena’s voice softens. “All of it. His pattern. The danger. What he’s done to the others.”
“I know.”
“I have to agree,” Sofia states with no emotion. “The bigger question is: Does she truly understand what walking beside you means?”
The question cuts deep.
I think about Margaret—how I told her the truth and watched her break. How she spent her final years in an asylum, terrified of shadows, never knowing that the fire that killed her was set by someone I created.
