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“I want to do it.” The words seem to burst out of her, and she twists around on the couch until she’s sitting on her legs, facing me. I feel the intensity of her emotions, hot and pulsing. “You were going to say I didn’t have to go, weren’t you?”

She looks at me hopefully, and I think maybe she read me, just a little. I brush her hair back behind her ear, smoothing it down, and she leans her head into my touch, her eyes never leaving mine.

“I was going to say that,” I say slowly. “Because I think you should get to choose.”

Penelope breathes a little heavier. “The gods,” she says softly, and my chest tightens. “When I heard them earlier, they—they didn’t just say you saw my potential.”

I sit very still.

“They said they saw it, too.”

Something sparks in my chest. “I knew it,” I whisper before I can stop myself.

“Knew what?”

I look up at Penelope, and all I can see in this huge airy house is her: her expressive eyes and soft mouth and thick dark hair.

The first living woman I’ve loved in a hundred years.

“I think they want me to take you,” I say slowly, grabbing her hand. “I think this is meant to be an initiation. Your initiation.”

That last part hangs between us, and I hold my breath as I wait for her response. She tightens her fingers around mine, a sharp little burst of pain.

“I always felt less-than,” she finally says, her voice rough. “Less than my sister, I mean. But you—you’re the first Hunter that didn’t make me feel that way.”

My heart twists. “Because you’re not less-than,” I whisper, cupping her face. “You’re exactly what you need to be.”

She stares at me, quaking a little.

“You don’t have to come with me to prove anything,” I add, because it’s true—she doesn’t need to prove anything to me. She’s already done it a million times over. “Like I said, you get to choose. But I really think this is what you’re meant⁠—”

“Yes.” The word is forceful. Penelope leans closer and grabs at my shirt, squeezing the fabric in her fists. “Yes, I want to do this. Fuck Nicholas Wolrath. And fuck being human.” She slides one hand up my chest, hooks it around the back of my neck. “All my life I wanted to be a Hunter.” Her eyes glimmer. “You’re the first person who might actually let me try.”

Heat surges up in me, and all I want is to consume her whole.

31

PENELOPE

We leave late on Halloween night, winding through the mountain roads toward Nicholas Wolrath’s house. Victor’s driving, and he watches the road with a kind of dark, burning intensity that makes heat swell in my belly.

He doesn’t have much of a costume: just his usual dark clothes and, of course, the gas mask. I feel like he shouldn’t be wearing it while he’s driving, but we don’t want to risk anyone at the party seeing our faces—especially any cops who might be hanging around.

Which is why I’m currently seeing the world through the eye holes of the cat mask he got me. The slinky black costume and platinum wig both feel like armor, and I managed to tuck my knife in the band of my bra, nestling it up against my ribs. If you look closely, you might see the outline beneath the fabric, but I can hide that with my arm easily enough.

“Last chance,” Victor says, easing the car around a bend in the road. The air crackles. “I can leave you here. Find you in the woods after.”

I look out at the dense pine trees and think about standing on the deck of that house, hearing the gods’ whispers on the wind. He sees the potential in you. So do we.

“No,” I say, my masked reflection ghosting in the mirror. “I’m ready for this.”

“So am I.” In the reflection, Victor’s gas mask turns toward me, and for a second, I see us as the monsters we are, and my heart flips excitedly in my chest.

We go around another bend, and there they are: a set of wrought-iron gates flooded with orange floodlights, shockingly bright against the dark of the mountain. The gate itself is festooned with fake cobwebs threaded with small, twinkling lights that look like stars. That’s not what catches my eye, though. It’s the cop standing by the gate.

“Invitations?” Victor says, and I pluck them out of the cupholder where I placed them earlier.

“They’re ready for you, Mr. Astor.”