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“I see.” Penelope leans back against the couch cushion. “So what’s in it for you?

For half a second, she almost sounds like Mary. I force myself to focus.

“Nothing,” I say, perhaps too quickly. “There’s nothing in it for me, but we’re both from old families. It’s an obligation, like I said.”

Penelope breathes out, her suspicion undeniable. I don’t need her suspicious. This isn’t about her, not really. She wants to see the Wolraths destroyed? I’ll destroy them. She’ll be happy, I think, when she sees what I’ve done.

So why don’t you want to tell her?

“Besides,” I say, and the words seem to come from someone else. “I—I’m fond of you.”

Immediately, heat floods across my cheeks. I don’t know where that came from, even though it’s not a lie, not at all. I am oddly fond of her. Of her fierceness, her skill with a knife. I’ve been inside her, which is not something I can say about many people, human or otherwise. She’s not Mary. No one can be Mary. But I don’t particularly want to see her put out or harmed, either.

“Fond of me?” she laughs. “Why? Because I fucked you?”

My blush deepens.

“That’s a yes,” she says. As embarrassing as it is, hearing her say it outright like that, I can’t deny that her suspicion has evaporated. “You hoping I’ll do it again? Is that what this is about?”

My heart thuds. Penelope’s grinning, and there’s a soft heat radiating off her body, and although the gentleman in me wants to deny it, I get the sense she’s hoping I’ll say yes. Maybe she doesn’t want to admit it to herself, but I can feel the desire coursing just below the surface of her words.

“If you want to do it again,” I say, much too stiffly, “I certainly wouldn’t say no.”

Penelope laughs, that rich, full, throaty laugh that feels like whiskey and incense. “You’re strange,” she says. “I can tell you’re old.”

“Can you?” I say flatly, although I feel embarrassed by that, too.

“Yeah. Not all the time, but you let it slip.” She sips her coffee and looks over at her phone, although she gives no indication that she wants to grab it. “I’d actually be happy for a ride into Clifwell, but I will be telling my mom and my sister who you are. If anything happens to me⁠—”

“Fine,” I say quickly. “That’s fine.”

“And I’ll need to let Adrian know I’m on my way.”

My stomach knots at that. Other Hunters are one thing. A human is another.

“He can’t know my name,” I say.

“I’ll make something up.” Her eyes glint mischievously. “Will that work?”

I nod.

Penelope looks satisfied, and I feel something like satisfaction, too. A long-delayed satisfaction.

“When can we leave?” she asks.

I smile. I can still taste copper on my tongue, that promise of revenge.

“This morning,” I say. “As soon as you’re ready.”

11

PENELOPE

Victor’s car is ancient, although not, I think, as ancient as he is. He was definitely born pre-1930.

“Will this thing get up the mountain?” I ask as we rumble out onto the main highway, leaving his little spider’s web of bland industrial buildings behind.

“We’re not going up the mountain,” Victor responds dryly. “Clifwell’s in the valley.”