“If it got out that the First Ones were real, and nobles once ruled in Elysia …” I said more to myself than to her.

“War,” she said with a crazy gleam in her eye. And then she straightened and shrugged, going back to her fire. “Good for the jinn, though.”

“How so?”

“Char nobles leave to fight for Elysia. We return home, back to our land, and rule as we did in the old times.”

I didn’t bother pointing out the fact that Charbydon’s moon was slowly dying, that one day there wouldn’t be a home to go back to, and, instead, asked a question that I was pretty sure I knew the answer to. “If that happened, Vendelan, if the nobles went to reclaim Elysia, who would be High Chief over all the jinn tribes?”

She glanced over her hunched shoulder, her one good eye taking on a zealous violet gleam. “Grigori, of course.”

My stomach went light and cold. Despite the heat and humidity, I wanted to hug myself, to ward off the chill of her words. Even Vendelan, as old as she was, thirsted for war and vengeance against the nobles. If Grigori felt he had a chance to win, there’d be no stopping him. But why would he want to return to a land that was dying? Why fight to reclaim something already lost?

Unless he knew of a way to stop it …

Vendelan turned back to her fire and stirred her pot of chili. “My story is ended, girl.” She waved her spoon, but didn’t turn around. “All they wants is a story …”

I hesitated by the chamber door, feeling sorry for the old Storyteller. “Next time,” I said, “I’ll bring my uncle Walter’s chili and all the toppings. No story. Just food and company.”

She turned at that. Her white eyebrow lifted. A grunt rumbled in her throat. “We’ll see, Charlie Madigan. We’ll see.”

I opened the door and stepped back into the corridor where Tennin’s guard was waiting to escort me out of the Lion’s Den. This time, I didn’t pay attention to the chambers I passed or the uneven ground at my feet. My thoughts were on Llyran’s “cause” and his “star.” He had Solomon’s ring. By his own admission, he wanted to liberate the nobles, to start a war in Elysia. The very same thing the Sons of Dawn wanted.

And Grigori Tennin had a hell of a lot to gain if the myth of the First Ones was proven true.

As I stepped beneath the massive archway that led into the main chamber, I saw several things at once. The jinn still sitting around the fire. Grigori sitting like some kind of Conan the Barbarian king in his massive chair, dressed in his snug, triple-X T-shirt, his guards behind him, his booted feet propped up on the massive table set in front of him as he carved an apple with a dagger that was way too big for the job. And Rex standing to the side, facing Tennin.

I took several more steps before I realized what I was seeing.

Rex.

My Rex.

Here. In the Lion’s Den. With Grigori Tennin.

I drew up short, so quickly that the guard behind me bumped into my back. But all I could react to was the sight of my ex-husband’s body standing there, his profile grim, his hands fisted at his sides as his head slowly turned in my direction. White as a ghost and those stormy blue eyes struck with horror and loss, like he was floundering and disoriented. He blinked several times.

Tennin popped a slice of apple into his mouth and chewed loudly, not bothering to hide the grin on his pitbull face.

Rage flared inside of me, swift and immediate. I burned from the inside out. My mouth was so dry I could barely speak. The hum that tore through my veins drowned out everything else.

Finally Tennin removed his feet from the table, stood, and came around the edge of the table and parked his rear on the corner. Rex hadn’t moved. “What? No words, Charlie Madigan?” A deep chuckle echoed through the chamber as he cut off another chunk of apple and shoved it into his mouth. “No disrespectful curses? No insults?” He pointed his dagger at me. “Cat got your tongue?” He chuckled at that, a deep, resonant echo bouncing off the chamber walls.

I blinked slowly, my eyelids stinging. I drew in a slow, deep breath and forced a swallow down my throat. “Rex.” My voice broke. “What have you done?”

I expected some kind of excuse. Rex always had a comeback, an answer for everything. But this time he stayed quiet, completely stunned. I flicked my gaze to Tennin. “What did you do to him?”

Tennin shrugged his colossal shoulders and when he grinned, his teeth flashed white and wicked against the dark gray of his skin. He spread his arms and said with a dramatic air, “Opened his eyes.” He laughed again, looking down at his apple, tearing off one last bite with his teeth and then tossing it into the fire pit. “I bet you got that collection letter and told him to fix it, didn’t you? He comes here. He bargains. And you get what you asked for, Charlie. It’s fixed. Debt is paid.”

Sweat trickled down the small of my back. No, no, no. “Jesus Christ, Rex, what did you do?” I asked louder this time, hearing the panic in my voice, but unable to hide it, unable to sound strong.

He shook his head as though trying to come out of his fog. “I … was trying—” He shook his head again, closing his eyes and then opening them, his features taking on a harder, stronger expression, his gaze flicking to Tennin and the rest of the rapt jinn in the chamber, then back to Tennin. They exchanged grave nods and then Rex marched toward me, making me wonder what the hell Tennin had done to him, because the look on his face was one I’d never seen before. And it made me take a step back.

He didn’t stop, just hooked his hand around my arm and jerked me along with him and out of the chamber to the sound of Grigori Tennin’s booming laughter.

I stumbled several times before regaining my senses, and pulled my arm from his grasp, my ankle turning as I stepped into a dip in the floor. I cursed and fell back, behind Rex. “Rex! Goddammit, what did you bargain? Rex!”

He kept walking, up the stairs and straight out of the Lion’s Den and into Solomon Street.

“Rex!”

I ran, weaving through the crowd, the vendor carts, and around the fire barrels, until I caught up with him and grabbed his arm. “Stop! For God’s sake, just slow down for a minute.” He finally listened. My chest burned from the run and the large draughts of smoke that had entered my lungs.

Something had definitely changed. Rex’s eyes were filled with turmoil and though it sounded strange, they seemed to hold more depth, more knowing, more … force. Part of me wanted to rail at him, to put my hands on my hips and tell him what an idiotic thing he’d done by going to Tennin, but his grim expression and that look in his eyes gave me pause. “What happened? What did he do to you?”

“I remember, Charlie. I remember everything.”

He started walking again. I fell in step beside him, trying to understand exactly what he meant by that, my sense of dread growing with each step as I remembered standing in Bryn’s apartment two months ago, discussing the Bleeding Souls that were being used as an ingredient to produce ash:

You know why it’s called a Bleeding Soul? It was used in the Great War when the nobles first appeared in Charbydon and fought with the jinn for control. The nobles used it as a weapon, the biological warfare of their time. It forced the soul to separate from the body. Myth says that’s where the Revenants and Wraiths came from, that they’re really the souls of jinn warriors who have wandered so long that they’ve forgotten who and what they once were.

“Oh my God. You’re saying that’s true? That you remember?”

“Yes,” he said, looking straight ahead. “I remember everything.”

Rex was a jinn warrior during the Great War? I stared at his profile, before having to turn back to watch where I stepped. Our insane, goofy, sarcastic Rex was a jinn? A fighter? “You’re saying—”