Chapter 19
NINETEEN
The metropolis had become a corpse wearing lipstick.
A corpse who didn’t have the dignity to simply lie down and die.
Nadi pressed herself against the shadows of an alleyway, watching a patrol of vampires march past with rifles slung over their shoulders.
Behind them, a chain gang of humans shuffled along in perfect synchronization, their wrists bound together by thick iron links, their heads bowed.
They moved with the mechanical resignation of people who had given up hope.
She counted twelve in the chain. Men, mostly, though there were a few women near the back. Their clothes were little more than rags, and even from this distance, she could see the marks—bite marks—that decorated their throats and arms like obscene jewelry. They weren’t just prisoners.
They were livestock.
“Don’t stare.” Raziel’s voice was barely a breath against her ear. “They’ll sense your attention.”
She tore her gaze away, forcing herself to focus on the crumbling brick wall in front of her. The urge to do something—anything—burned in her chest like she’d swallowed coals. But she was one fae. One fae and one vampire against an entire city that had been transformed into a prison.
The patrol passed. The chain gang’s shuffling footsteps faded into the distance, accompanied by the occasional crack of a whip and a muffled cry.
“Clear,” Raziel murmured. “Move.”
They slipped through the shadows like ghosts, navigating a city that Nadi barely recognized.
Every few blocks, propaganda posters had been plastered over storefronts and street corners.
The artwork was striking—bold lines and dramatic shadows depicting vampires as benevolent protectors, their arms spread wide.
Crowds of grateful humans bowing in supplication.
And over them, stamped and printed in block letters, the messages were as subtle as bullets.
“SECURITY THROUGH UNITY,” one proclaimed.
“STRENGTH THROUGH SERVICE,” declared another.
And her personal favorite, in letters three-feet tall: “THE NATURAL ORDER RESTORED.”
Beneath one of the posters, a body hung from a lamppost by a noose. A sign around its neck read “TRAITOR” in crude red letters.
The corpse had been there long enough that the birds had found it.
Nadi looked away.
“Public executions,” Raziel said, his voice carefully neutral. “Mael’s idea, I’d wager. He always did believe in the power of spectacle. Or, even better, those are humans turning against themselves. Which was likely encouraged.”
“And Lana?”
“The propaganda.” He gestured at the nearest poster. “That’s her touch. Making it all seem righteous. Inevitable.” A bitter smile twisted his lips. “They always did work well together when they bothered to align their interests.”
The words sat heavy in the air between them. This was what the Nostroms had always wanted. What Raziel himself had wanted, once upon a time. Rule. Control. Vampires ascendant and all the world bowing at their feet.
The difference was the execution. Mael and Lana had all the subtlety of a cannon and an icepick.
They moved deeper into the outer districts, where the buildings grew older and more decrepit. Here, the gas lamps still flickered instead of the electric lights that dominated the central city. The cobblestones were cracked and uneven. The smell of coal smoke hung thick in the air.
And here, too, the patrols were thinner. Spread too far. Mael was trying to control too much territory with too few loyal soldiers, and it showed.
Openings, Raziel had called them. Places where the cracks in his siblings’ new empire were already starting to show. It wouldn’t ever hold. This was doomed, no matter what they did. The Rosovs and the Nostroms would fall, it was just a matter of time.
They were just here to speed up the process.
The watchtower rose before them like a ghost from Nadi’s memories.
The old garrison wall stretched away on either side, most of it crumbled or demolished to make way for newer construction.
But this section remained—ancient stone darkened by centuries of coal soot, its narrow windows staring down at them like suspicious eyes.
“Looks intact,” she murmured.
“It would be.” Raziel studied the structure with the careful attention of a predator scenting potential danger. “This place has survived everything else. I doubt my siblings’ little coup would change that.”
They approached the wooden gate covered with iron bars, the chains that once locked it from the outside now hanging loose. That made Nadi pause. When she’d been here last—when Ivan had brought a poisoned Raziel here to recover—the chains had been secured tight.
Someone had been here. Or was still here.
She caught Raziel’s eye. He’d noticed too. His hand drifted toward the pistol Kalo had given him, though he didn’t draw it yet.
“Could be scavengers,” she said quietly. “Place has been empty for weeks.”
“Could be.” His tone suggested he didn’t believe it any more than she did.
They moved through the gate and into the small cobblestone courtyard. The silence was absolute—no sounds of life, no rustling from within. Just the distant wail of sirens and the ever-present hum of a city under siege.
Raziel went first, because of course he did. The door at the top of the worn stone steps was unlocked, and it swung open at his touch with barely a creak. The interior was dark, the windows shuttered, but her eyes adjusted quickly.
The watchtower looked exactly as she remembered it.
The blend of ancient architecture and modern comfort.
The spiral staircase rising through the center.
The enormous fireplace with its grotesque carved face.
The leather sofas and thick blankets that had seemed so inviting when she’d been exhausted and terrified and tending to Raziel’s bullet wounds.
But someone had been living here. Recently. The blankets were rumpled. Empty cups sat on the table. And the faint smell of blood hung in the air—old blood, but not too old.
“Raziel—”
The click of a gun being cocked froze the word in her throat.
“Don’t move.” The voice came from the shadows of the staircase. A voice she recognized. “Either of you.”
Ivan stepped into the dim light, a rifle trained on them with the steady hands of a man who’d been pointing weapons at dangerous things his entire life. His face was haggard—thinner than she remembered, with several days’ worth of stubble darkening his jaw. But his eyes were sharp. Alert.
And then those eyes widened.
“Boss?”
“Ivan.” Raziel’s smile was slow and predatory. “You look terrible.”
“You look dead.” Ivan didn’t lower the rifle. “You’re supposed to be dead. Heard the fae got you after the raid.”
“Yet here I stand.” Raziel spread his hands, showing he was unarmed—or at least appearing to be. “Nadi retrieved me. From the bottom of the sea, no less. Quite the romantic gesture, wouldn’t you say?”
Ivan’s gaze snapped to her, and something complicated moved behind his stoic features. “You. You’re alive too.”
“Disappointed?”
“Relieved.” The word came out rough. “We thought—when Mael announced that the traitors had been dealt with—” He shook his head slowly. “We didn’t know what to believe.”
“We?” Raziel’s eyes narrowed. “Who else is here, Ivan?”
Before Ivan could answer, footsteps sounded on the spiral staircase. Light, careful footsteps. And then a figure descended into view, backlit by the faint glow filtering through the upper windows.
Azazel.
Raziel sighed. “Of course.”
Nadi’s hand went to the knives at her belt before she could stop herself. The last time she’d seen Azazel, he’d been at Lana’s wedding. At Lana’s side. In Lana’s bed, for all she knew—the pretty boy-toy that the Nostrom sister kept around for entertainment and occasional scheming.
But he didn’t look like a toy now. He looked exhausted. Hollow-cheeked and pale, with dark circles under his orange eyes that suggested he hadn’t slept properly in days. Maybe weeks.
“Well,” Azazel said, stopping on the bottom step. His voice carried that familiar sardonic edge, but there was something brittle underneath it. “The prodigal Serpent returns.”
“What is he doing here?” Nadi demanded, not bothering to hide the hostility in her voice. “He’s Lana’s creature.”
A muscle twitched in Azazel’s jaw. “I was Lana’s creature. Past tense. A distinction I’d appreciate you noting, given that I’ve spent the last month risking my neck to undermine everything she’s built.”
“He’s telling the truth.” Raziel put his hand on Nadi’s shoulder. “Azazel has been feeding me information on Lana’s side of the family for years. Long before any of this started.”
Nadi stared at him. Then at Azazel. Then Ivan. Then back to Raziel.
“Years?”
“Three years, give or take.” Azazel descended the final step and moved to stand beside Ivan with a casualness that spoke of long familiarity. “Lana never suspected. She saw what she wanted to see—a handsome distraction, too pretty to be dangerous.” His lips twisted. “Her mistake.”
Something clicked in Nadi’s mind. All those times when Raziel had seemed to know what Lana was planning before she did it. All those little advantages he’d had in their deadly sibling chess game. She’d assumed he had his own spies in Lana’s operation.
She’d never guessed it was Azazel. “Now I feel stupid for not seeing it.”
“Eh, don’t feel bad.” Azazel sank down onto the sofa. “I’m a professional liar. You’re just a professional killer. We all have our specialties.”
That almost made her feel better. Almost.
Raziel went to the fireplace, leaning against the mantel. “I didn’t expect to find you two playing house in my hideout while the city burned.”
“It was the only place we could think of that Mael didn’t know about,” Ivan said. “After everything went to shit at the wedding, after they took you—” He stopped, jaw tight. “I got Aza out. We came here. Waited.”
“Waited for what?”
Ivan met Raziel’s eyes. “For you to come back. Or for things to get bad enough that we had to make a move on our own.”