like the routine of aiming and discharging her weapons—was reassuring. It was a cue that things were normal, that her life was unchanged even as the houses she slept in year after year changed.
“We have to move again,” Adam said from the doorway to the dining room.
She paused. “When?”
“Now.” His mouth was a grim line.
“Now,” she repeated. “Like tonight, now?”
“No.” He gave her a smile that did little to soften the tension in his expression before saying gently, “I called the company movers. They’ll be here on the fifteenth.”
Childish hurt warred with years of practicality. Adam wouldn’t decide that they needed to go again, especially on such short notice, if he didn’t think it was essential, but she felt betrayed. They’d spent hours together, and he hadn’t mentioned it until now.
“That’s my birthday,” she said with as little inflection as she could manage. She didn’t—couldn’t—mention Kaleb, but the thought of never seeing him again tore at her. Her gaze was carefully fixed on the gun she wiped clean.
“I know.” Adam walked into the room and hugged her. “I’m sorry.”
She closed her eyes like the child she couldn’t be. It was silly to make a big deal over a date on the calendar, but she still clung to the foolish dream that her mother would show up on her birthday. There was no reason to believe she would, but Mallory had held on to the hope that her mother would walk back through the door and into their lives some birthday with as little notice as her departure on Mallory’s twelfth birthday.
Adam swore that Selah had ways to locate them. His employer always knew where they were, and Selah was the only person in the world who had been granted full clearance to be told how to find Adam and Mallory at any time. Mallory hated to doubt her father’s judgment, but her mother had never been accepted by his colleagues. It wouldn’t surprise anyone but Adam if they “forgot” or misled Selah.
“I’m going to be working at the Stoneleigh-Ross main office.” Adam’s expression was perfectly unreadable—which meant he was either hiding something or afraid.
Or both.
Mallory squared her shoulders and stared at him as he walked away. She never succeeded at questioning her father, but the thought of Kaleb made her feel strong. She knew she couldn’t really date him, and she shouldn’t get too close to a regular human. For his safety, she needed to keep a distance, but the possibility of continuing even the small conversations they now shared was a great temptation.
“I want to know why we have to go,” she told her father. Her usually absent temper flared, and her voice rose. “I’m not a child anymore. I deserve to know.”
Her father sat down on the sofa and waited as she reloaded the clips. After a couple of minutes, he said, “I love you more than I thought it possible to love anyone or anything. If I could put you away somewhere safe and take care of the threats on my own, I would.”
“I don’t want to be ‘put away.’” Mallory laid the clip on the table. The soft clatter was in direct contrast to the turmoil she was trying to repress. She crossed the small distance to the living room, but didn’t sit. “I want to know what’s going on. I want to know why we have to move so suddenly. Again. I want to know why they’re after you in the first place.”
Her father gave her a curious look, and she wanted to apologize for raising her voice to him. She wasn’t sorry though. He acted like she was too fragile to know anything, but he taught her how to kill. Maybe she needed to show him that she wasn’t going to back down every time he skewered her with his gaze.
After a moment, Adam said, “A long time ago I took something very valuable.” He leaned forward so that his hands were on either side of his knees, as if he had to hold on to the sofa cushion. “Maybe it was foolish. I knew it was dangerous, but I was angry. They killed my parents and my brother . . .” He paused, and she thought he’d stop as he always had on the rare occasions when he had mentioned The City, but this time, he continued. “If not for my sister, I’d be dead too. Evelyn saved me. I was so young, too young to fight, but after the wars, I waited. It took a couple of centuries, but then I saw my chance: I took what their ruler most valued, but I couldn’t . . . I can’t destroy it. Evelyn wants to use it as a weapon, but . . .” Adam bowed his head as his words dwindled.
This time, he didn’t resume. He sat there with his head down.
Mallory shuddered at the thought of Evelyn Stoneleigh. She was supposed to be family, but family or not, the woman who ran the Witches’ Council was the single most frightening person Mallory had ever met. She looked innocuous, like most witches, but she had stared at Mallory with flat, dark eyes reminiscent of sharks’ eyes: all function, no emotion.
Mallory thought about the few possessions her father carried rather than allow the movers to pack and ship, and she could think of nothing valuable enough to kill for. “Could you give it back so we can stop running?”
Adam lifted his head. “I’d sooner die—and he’d kill me either way. They don’t think like witches, Mals, and he’s their ruler. It would be a sign of weakness to let me live.”
“There has to be another option,” she insisted. “Our choices are run or die? That’s it? Maybe you can have someone else return it to them. Evelyn is strong and—”
“No!” he snapped. After a shuddering breath, he said evenly, “I’ll come up with a plan. We’ll be okay. You’ll be careful, and we’ll move as often as we have to. If I die, you go to Evelyn.”
He held his hand out to her, and she went to his side.
Mallory blinked away tears as her father held her. This was her future for as long as she could imagine, running and hoping the monsters didn’t find them.
I hate daimons.
MORNING HAD COME, BUT only just barely. The sky was still a mix of the gray and plum streaks that heralded a new day in The City, and as she had on so many other days the past year, Aya was readying herself for another fight. She wondered briefly what life would have been like by now if she hadn’t entered the competition. She didn’t like killing, but the thought of the life she was escaping reminded her that this was the right path. Every ruling-caste woman was required to reproduce. She’d avoided that for now by ending her engagement, but that only delayed the inevitable. Eventually, if she didn’t choose a mate on her own, she would be given to someone by their ruler. Better to die in the fights than in captivity. At least within Marchosias’ Competition, she had a chance of freedom. The rules didn’t specify that the winner had to be male, only that the winner had to survive. If she survived, she’d be able to do what no other woman had—rule in The City’s government. That chance was reason enough for what she’d do in a few short hours. It had to be.
A thrum in her skin let her know she had a visitor. It was light enough out that she was cautious as she went into the main room and opened the shades. A street scab stood on the fire ladder. After families were burned alive in the war with the witches long before her birth, the ruler of The City, Marchosias, had ordered ladders
