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“I’ll come to your damn office,” I said, batting away delicious visions of Amaya slowly devouring Hunter. “And you’ll tell me where Rhoan is. Once he is safe, I hand over the key.”
“Just like that?” Hunter drawled. “Somehow, I very much doubt it.”
“Oh, you can have
the damn thing,” I said. “But it won’t be of any use to you. You can’t get onto the gray fields, and the temple guardians will certainly never allow you to pass through their grounds, let alone access the gates. So yeah, have the key, for all the fucking good it will do you.”
Her amusement seemed to swim around me, thick and savage. “Oh, how little you understand me. Did not the sorceress you defeated only very recently make a perfectly usable gateway? I am more than willing to wait the length of time it takes for my people to figure out its complexities. As for the key—the mere threat of it is, for now, enough.”
“Then you have nothing to lose by agreeing to my terms.”
She didn’t immediately answer, but I had no doubt she was using the time to mentally order more of her people into the protection of her office. She wasn’t the type to take chances.
But the numbers didn’t matter. Getting into her office—the one place she obviously felt safe—did. Every instinct I had was now telling me it was the only way I was ever going to get close enough to use the knife Stanford had given me.
“Fine,” she murmured. “We shall do it your way, for the moment. I expect to see you in five minutes, or I will ensure there aren’t enough pieces of Rhoan Jenson left for his loving sister to bury.”
There was a long, deep growl from behind me. Hunter laughed and hung up. I hit the End button and glanced at Riley. She was clenching and unclenching her hands, but very little of that emotion showed in her face. How she was remaining so controlled, I had no idea.
“I will kill that bitch once Rhoan is free—”
“No,” I snapped, “that’s my job. Your job is to get your brother out from whatever trap Hunter has laid around him, then get safe.”
Her gray eyes became little more than icy slits. “I will not—”
“Riley, enough.” Quinn gently squeezed her arm as he glanced at me. “You cannot do this alone. I have known Hunter for a very long time, and for all the knowledge you have gained over the past few months, for all the strength, skill, and heart Azriel has, neither of you will defeat her.”
“When she is connected to her god, that is undoubtedly true.” My brief smile was grim. “We know what we’re doing. We know what we face. You have to trust us. You have to let us go; you have to let us do the task the fates have given us, without interference of any kind.”
His gaze flicked from me to Azriel, and it lingered long enough to make me wonder if some sort of communication was happening between them.
“So be it,” he said eventually. “But be warned. It is said that Hunter’s true lair in the Directorate lies not on the top floor, but in hidden recesses deep underground—and that it is so well protected, not even ghosts can get in—or get out.”
Then that was probably where Jack had been killed. And I wondered whether I’d find his ghost there.
Riley swung around to face Quinn, her expression a mix of surprise and anger. “You cannot be serious—”
“There are some things that simply have to be. This, my love, is one of them.”
“But—” She glanced at Azriel for a moment. “What did you say to him?”
“That we are at a crossroads,” he replied. “What path our futures take very much depends on all our actions over the next hour.”
Her face paled. It was a threat of death. She knew it; I knew it. Whose death was now the question—and one we would all get an answer to soon enough.
“Look, we don’t have the time to stand here and argue.” I tugged off the ring I’d gotten from Rhoan and offered it to her. “Please, just get Rhoan out from whatever net Hunter has around him, and let us deal with her.”
“It would appear that I have little other choice.” She accepted the ring, then stepped forward and gave me a fierce hug. “Don’t let Hunter win. I want to be a grandmother; I want to spoil your son as rotten as I did his mother.”
Tears filled my eyes. I blinked them rapidly away, pulled from her grasp, and held out my hand to Azriel. Three seconds later, we were standing outside the Directorate. I raised my gaze, studying the upper levels of the green-glass building. Somewhere up there was Hunter’s office. Or at least the public face of it.
This was it. This was the endgame.
I spun, wrapped my arms around Azriel’s neck, and kissed him fiercely.
“Just in case,” I said.
He didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. I could feel his emotions flow through the inner reaches of my soul, and they were even more turbulent than my own.
