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"The company is yours," Magnus said.

Addie's eyebrows went up. "Company? What company? Sterling?"

"Odhiambo & Associates," I corrected.

"Yas, queen!"

"Blackwood, Odhiambo & Associates," growled Magnus.

"Odihambo, Blackwood & Associates," both me and Addie said in unison.

Vidar shook his head. Mei Ling grinned and went back to stirring the pot. Her husband rubbed small circles at her back, gaze still on me. Gunnar winked. Ivar grabbed another juice box from the fridge.

"The company and my freedom," I demanded.

Magnus looked at me for a long moment before saying, simply, "No."

"What do you mean, no? I did everything you asked. I delivered — "

"You delivered a declaration of war."

"That's your problem. Not mine."

"It became yours the moment you pulled that trigger."

Magnus took another step towards me. Vidar pulled Addie out of the way. She went this time.

Magnus was close enough now that I could smell him; the storm-and-heat scent, the thing that had been in my lungs since I woke up in his cabin. "They don't know your name yet. But they know someone inside Sterling's system did this. It won't take them long to find the thread, and when they do, it leads directly to you."

"So you're telling me that I did exactly what you asked, I did it better than you expected, and my reward is that I'm still a prisoner."

"Your reward," Magnus said, "is that you're alive. And the only way that remains true is if you stay inside Blackwood protection until this is resolved."

CHAPTER EIGHT

MAGNUS

My father's study hadn't changed in thirty years. The massive mahogany desk dominated the room; scarred by decades of decisions. Two fountain pens lay parallel on the leather blotter beside their ink bottles. My father believed that the slow-moving ink of a fountain pen forced you to think before you wrote. Bookshelves ran floor to ceiling on two walls, packed with the disorder of a man who read everything and organized nothing because he remembered where every book was, regardless. The window seat beneath the tall, narrow window was upholstered in forest green. It was my mother's claimed territory. The place I most often found her reading with her feet tucked under her. Or occasionally doing things with my father that had taught me, early and without fail, to knock first.

I had been coming to this room since I was old enough to stand on my own without holding my mother's hand. Even when I had held her hand, I'd let go the moment I saw my father sitting behind that massive desk. It had appeared a mountain to me. Fenrir Blackwood would grin down at me from that peak and reach out for me, lifting me up like a god raising a mortal.

I had believed he was one. He was my Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Zeus presiding over Olympus.

My father's word was law in the way the laws of physics were true; not argued into existence, not maintained by effort, just the operating condition of the world. When Fenrir Blackwood spoke, the room reorganized itself around what he had said.

"You need to send Nell Odhiambo away."

My eyes went to the curtains behind my father's desk. They were green like the window seat; heavy silk, floor to ceiling, the color of a deep forest. They fluttered in front of the closed window, as if someone had tugged at them. I had the thought of a little girl reaching out her hand in a throne room, fingers closing around the edge of emerald green curtains and pulling down the fabric to reveal the Great and Terrible Oz.

"She's a remarkable young woman." My father sat in his chair with his hands folded. His eyes on me, patient and certain about his edict.

"She's brilliant." My voice held a little too much praise to be discerning. I cleared my throat and dialed it down. "To dismantle a pack's liquidity in three hours — I've never seen anything move that fast. Human or otherwise."

"She's an asset."

"Yes, sir." The two words were carried on a sigh of relief. He saw it too.

"Which is precisely why she cannot stay here. Remarkable things attract attention, Magnus. Right now, our enemies know someone inside our infrastructure did this. The moment they find out who, she becomes the most hunted woman in this city."