Odalys? Tatya had pinpointed her as a necromancer, and Sylvie had allowed herself to be distracted by the superficial. Odalys had lied to her more than once in the conversation, lies that Sylvie had caught her in. How many lies had she missed? Had she been manipulated?

Her little dark voice pointed out that Odalys had sent Sylvie to Wales, sent her primed to kill him, had called him Ghoul. Odalys scared of Wales? Hell, Sylvie had no magical talent at all, and she wasn’t the slightest bit scared of the man. Wary, but not scared. A witch with real talent? No. Odalys had feigned her fear, turned Sylvie’s visit into a chance for Odalys to remove her necromantic rival. Corporate takeover, small-scale, with a gun.

She said as much to Demalion, and when he looked thoughtful, she added, “Plus, think about this. These are teenagers we’re talking about. Innocents in regard to black magic. They don’t jump headfirst into the deep end. They’re brats, not scholars. Odalys runs a store, on a major street. Wales lives in nowhere land.”

Demalion frowned at the dash. “How much did I miss while Wright was in control?”

“A critical lot,” Sylvie said. “Wales is not our guy. And given a choice between the two known necromancers in the area, given a choice between creepy-ass Wales in an Opa-locka tenement or Odalys . . . If you were a teenage fashionista, who’d be your pick?”

“Just like that?”

“I can tell you, straight up, that if Wales even got within ten feet of Bella’s crowd, they’d be hitting 911 on their cell phones. No, if these kids are getting Hands, they’re getting them from Odalys.”

Demalion sighed. “Maybe Wales cleans up well. Maybe he meets them elsewhere.”

“Much as I approve of playing devil’s advocate,” Sylvie said, “this isn’t the time. It’s personality as much as anything else. Wales is a shut-in freak who has trouble with thinking outside the box. Odalys is a go-getting merchant. Odalys is all about the money.”

“You think she’s the manufacturer as well as the seller? That she knows the Hands are defective?”

“Creation and knowing are the same thing here. If she was just the merchant, if she’d just got some bad stock, she’d send it back and demand a refund from the makers. She’s a businesswoman, maybe the only true thing she told us. She wouldn’t endanger her client base if she could salvage her profit any other way. But if she made them . . .” Sylvie said. “Think about it. You’ve just made really powerful tools. Only you did something wrong. They’re dangerous to the wielder as well as the bystander. You can’t use them without risking your own soul. Destroying them is problematic. So what do you do? You sell them and try again. Sell them to teenagers who are too self-centered to ask why anyone would sell them a tool worth more than the cash they pay.”

Demalion said, “You’re basing your theory on two meetings with two very different people and tangential knowledge of Zoe’s friends. It wouldn’t stand up as evidence.”

“I’m not the ISI. I can make the decision. It’s enough for me to go on,” Sylvie said. “Besides. Wales was genuinely shocked that the Hands had been women’s.”

Demalion narrowed his brows. “Was he?”

“You were ther—” Sylvie shook her head. Wright had been there for that part, until Demalion, pushy and protective, had clawed his way back to the surface. “Yeah,” she said finally. “He was. First thing tomorrow, I’m going after Odalys.”

They traveled back to Sylvie’s apartment in a silence punctuated only by environmental noise: the thrum of the engines, the hiss of other cars passing—the streets busy even after midnight—the occasional distant siren. Eventually, Sylvie reached for the radio, just to keep herself from saying what needed to be said, smothering the words under mediocre rock.

She wasn’t up for a fight, not while driving, not when she felt the weakness of the argument in her bones. It might be Wright’s body, and Wright should get to use it all the time, but dammit, she was enjoying working with Demalion again.

Still, once she’d pulled the truck into her parking spot, cut the lights, the ignition, she took a breath and turned to her quiet passenger. “You need to let Wright—”

Demalion put a hand over her mouth. “A night? One night. One night’s nothing to him. To me? To us?” He moved his hand away, and before she could say yes or no, he leaned in and kissed her.

She met his kiss, chasing that tempting familiarity in an unfamiliar form, lips soft against hers, stubble rasping against her palm. The kiss ended, but she didn’t pull away, leaned in closer, reclaiming his mouth. Making it all familiar. The way his hands moved, one settling at her left hip, the other closing on her nape like a cat’s teeth. The soft sounds they made together. The words she felt him breathe against her tongue. Missed you. Afraid I’d lost you.

She collapsed into him, all her willpower draining away, her hands questing for skin, for closer contact. Worming her fingers into his shirt, the warmth of his skin, that slick curved scar—Sylvie jerked away, hitting the horn with her elbow and startling herself all over again. Her breath was uneven; her lips stung.

“Syl—”

“No,” she said. “He has so little he can trust right now. If he can’t trust us?”

“He wouldn’t have to know—”

“You do love your secrets, ISI man,” she said. It wasn’t a friendly reminder. They’d first started dating on a lie. That was the thing she had to remember. Demalion might be a good man at heart, but he had been trained by those who were less particular about their ethics. “Let me point out,” she added, “you’re the one who has the most to lose if he decides you’re a threat.”

“Would you help him?” Demalion asked. “Choose him over me?”

Sylvie got out of the truck, slamming the door hard enough to echo along the street. She felt bad for her neighbors: First the horn, now this. She watched Demalion come out the passenger’s-side door, the clawed hood between them, her fingers tight on the metal as if she had been the one to mark it. She waited until she had control of her voice, her temper, her own disappointment and fear. “He’s the one who’s alive. You tell me who I’m supposed to choose.”

Demalion’s eyes widened, but he only nodded, a quick jerk of acknowledgment. She stormed up the stairs, making the slats jounce beneath her steps. She’d reached her apartment door before she heard him begin his own climb.

The apartment was quiet and dark, but Sylvie’s nerves reacted instinctively; she found the gun in her hand before the door was more than a few inches open.

“Burglars?” Demalion said behind her.

One of the pluses of having very little in the way of stuff; her apartment was easy to keep clean and easy to notice when someone else had been in it. Especially since they’d made no effort to hide their visit.

Her living room was a jumble of opened drawers, strewn magazines, books tumbled on the floor, sofa cushions thrown pell-mell about the place.

“No,” she said, reholstered her gun. “Zoe.” The lock hadn’t been broken or otherwise disengaged, and while the existence of Hands of Glory made that a moot point, Sylvie kind of recognized the mess. Or rather, the temper behind it.

“Looking for her cash.”

“Yeah, that’s my thought,” Sylvie said.

“At least you know she’s alive,” he said.

“Alive and pissed,” Sylvie said.

“I think that’s your bloodline’s default mood,” Demalion said, and she whipped around to look at him. Did he know? Had he found out about Lilith?

“I’m more concerned with how she got in,” Sylvie said. He didn’t look like he knew. But this was Demalion. He was good at hiding his emotions, and now he had an extra layer of mask to do it in.

“Key?” He picked up a magazine, smoothed it absently, set it beside the television.

“She doesn’t have one,” Sylvie said. Her throat felt tight, her eyes dry and tired. “But there were four kids at Bayside. God, what if they all have Hands? What if Zoe just borrowed one?” If she’d spent the night attempting to save Zoe from herself, and the girl had just wandered off and put herself right back in danger—