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At least, I had believed the choice was mine.

Mama had appeared in the tavern doorway while Hartley wore a Devouring medallion around his neck. She had guided me back to his shade the following morning. Then she led me directly to Lou, who had been waiting to recruit a Kemp.

Had Hartley known who I was before I gave Lou my name? Had Mama told him what I carried? Had he known exactly which lies would make me lower my guard?

The memory of his hand covering mine turned my stomach.

I had thought I was using him. Worse, he had allowed me to believe it.

If Hartley had lied to get me into bed, I could break his remaining good leg and call the matter settled. But if he had been working with Mama, then the encounter had not been some meaningless night. It had been another move in a plan designed to drag me toward The Devouring.

If so, I hadn’t merely chased Mama to Valemer. She’d manipulated me into Hartley’s arms for her revenge. I needed to know how far her influence extended. She refused to speak to me for whatever reason, but I wondered if she was talking to someone else, or whether Hartley had been reporting to her.

Lou had told me that Honora Kemp had been a member of The Devouring. Perhaps that’s how Mama had known about them in the first place.

If I didn’t find out, there would never be a safe place for Della and me. Mama would always be there, choosing the next road, the next stranger, the next mistake.

“I can find him,” I told Yves. “After I get my magick back.”

His brows drew together. “How? The medallion wards his location.”

There was one way.

I had refused Dominique when all I wanted was money. Gold had not been worth the risk of setting a demon loose. But this was no longer just about gold. This was about finding the man who might have allowed my mother to turn my body into another leash.

My hands shook, and I closed them into fists.

“I have my ways.”

Yves’s brows lifted, as if he too felt the force of the declaration. As if he knew that finding Hartley might cost me something precious. I tried not to think too hard about why I was willing to do this now, and hadn’t been in the alley, especially when Yves was so close. His hands on either side of my hips. The whole warded room around us.

“The room is sealed, isn’t it?” I asked. “We don’t need to whisper.”

“No,” he agreed, not moving. “We don’t.”

How easy would it be for him to lift me onto this workbench and part my thighs. Would I try to stop him? Would I slap him? The answer should have been yes.

Not because I feared him. Yves had given me every opportunity to pull away. When I recoiled, he stopped. When I challenged him, he listened. If I told him no, I believed he would accept it, even if the refusal left us both miserable.

That was what made this so dangerous. I didn’t want to stop him.

Hartley’s lies had made me question a choice I believed was mine. I refused to let him take ownership of every choice that came afterward too. Wanting a man was not weakness. Wanting Yves did not mean Mama had arranged it or Dominique had whispered it into my head.

I could still push Yves away. I could slap him, curse him, or walk out the door. Magick or no magick, I was not powerless.

But letting him peel the fine hose down my legs with his teeth would be a rather poor way to keep him out.

Then again, I had never let a silly thing like sex lash a man to my heart. It was only ever for fun. A bead of sweat rolled down my cheek and landed on the workbench. “It’s so wretchedly hot in here.”

Yves pulled a blood-red handkerchief from his jacket pocket. “I might be able to help if you’ll allow it. But I would have to touch you.”

My attention shifted to his hands. To the rings he wore. To his wide palms.

Stupidly, I nodded.

He used the handkerchief to dab at the sweat, then set his cool hand on my forehead and the other on the side of my neck. The relief was instant. I closed my eyes as goosebumps rose over my skin, imagining how good it would feel to strip naked and lean into his body. How cool his lips might be if he dared to kiss me, like a sip of cold water on a hot day.

I wrapped my hand around his wrist and dragged his hand down my neck until his fingers found my collarbone and his palm was resting over my heart.