He didn’t have a good reason to be pissed, he knew. He’d gone to Alexis’s room intending to have pretty much the convo they’d wound up having. Granted, he’d meant to offer himself for the sort of sex-only protective relationship she was now looking to find somewhere else, and logic said her theory was better. That didn’t mean he liked the plan, though.

In fact, he fucking hated it.

He despised the thought of her with Michael, loathed the idea with both halves of himself, the magic and the man. He was logical enough to recognize that it wasn’t fair, and to know he didn’t have the right to block her from taking on one of the other Nightkeeper males if he wasn’t willing to be what she needed. That didn’t dampen the rage, though. If anything, it made it worse.

He cursed aloud, feeling raw from the fight with Alexis, and guilty that he’d called Hera’s name in the moment of orgasm. Worse, he wasn’t sure which one of them he’d betrayed. Which was just fucked-up beyond words, and made him think he should maybe have a chat with Jade, who’d been a therapist of some sort back in the real world.

At the thought of Jade, he wondered what she’d say if Alexis wound up taking Michael as her lover. Jade and Michael had been together in the months between the bloodline and talent ceremonies, in much the same way as Nate and Alexis had been. Actually, Jade and Michael had been more open about their relationship, more prone to public displays of affection until they’d gone their separate ways. They seemed to get along well enough in the aftermath, but the Nightkeepers were a small fighting unit, and their quarters were close. What would happen if the singles started trading partners?

Nate tried to imagine it, and just got more pissed off.

Torturing himself, poking at the raw spot, he tried to imagine what it’d be like if Michael turned Alexis down—hard to imagine, but what if?—and she hooked up with Sven. The youngest of the male Nightkeepers, Sven came off more like a college party animal than a warrior. He’d been a little more serious about his training since the equinox battle, and his rank within the Nightkeepers would undoubtedly shift now that he had the translocator’s talent mark. The rank might matter to Alexis, as might her desire not to mess with the dynamic between Jade and Michael. Still, though, Nate couldn’t see her being attracted to Sven’s surfer-dude ’tude or the relatively low rank of the coyote bloodline.

“So probably not Sven,” Nate said aloud, feeling something loosen in his chest, only to have it tighten back up when his thoughts circled back to Michael, whom he could picture all too easily being to Alexis’s taste, not the least because he and Nate resembled each other: They were both tall and dark, both stylish in their own ways, and both came off as wealthy. In Michael’s case, though, Nate suspected the money was only surface-deep. More, he had a feeling that a background check that went a level or two further than the one Jox had done on each of them might turn up something seriously dark and dangerous, something that Alexis belonged nowhere near. Nate didn’t have any evidence to back up his hunch, though. It was just a guess, based on a couple of overheard snatches of the telephone convos Michael invariably took in his private rooms, and the fact that of all of them, Michael had shown the least desire to leave the compound and return to the real world they’d left behind.

I should have Carter look into him, Nate thought, then cursed himself for the impulse. Michael was a Nightkeeper, a teammate. He deserved better.

They all did.

Realizing he wasn’t any closer to sleep than he’d been when he lay down—in fact, feeling even more alert and awake now that he’d worked himself into a mental lather—Nate groaned and swung himself out of bed. Dragging a T-shirt on over a pair of gym shorts, he figured he’d head downstairs for a workout, hoping to exhaust himself into a stupor. Unfortunately, that was pretty much the same plan he’d had the evening after the bloodline ceremony, when he’d gone to the gym hoping to tire himself past the perma-boner he’d acquired with his first link to the magic. Instead Alexis had come looking for him, and they’d become lovers.

And that so wasn’t what he wanted to be thinking about right now.

Cursing himself, he headed out of his suite and down the residential hall, toward the stairs leading to the basement. He was halfway there when a scream split the air.

Alexis! He knew it was her, knew it in his gut, and was running for her door before the sound died off.

Images flashed in his head—not visions, but a mix of the things he’d seen and the ones he feared: scenes of Iago grabbing her and ’porting her someplace he couldn’t follow; scenes of her lying limp, bleeding out from sacrificial cuts in a long, rectangular chamber he didn’t recognize, one that his brain must’ve conjured to fill the need for a dark and creepy setting.

He hit her door at a run, twisting the knob and using his shoulder, slamming the panel inward with such force that it banged against the inner wall hard enough to break the stopper and dent the drywall. He didn’t care about the door, didn’t care about the growing clamor of voices out in the hallway as the others responded to the commotion.

“Alexis!” He pushed through into her bedroom, slapping at the light switch on the way through, his heart in his throat with a half-recognized conviction that she’d be gone, her bed empty.

But she was there, sitting bolt upright in bed with the sheet clutched just above her nightshirt-covered breasts. Her skin was pasty pale, her eyes glazed, seeing nothing. His initial spurt of relief at seeing her there in one piece fled quickly when he realized she wasn’t tracking, hadn’t noticed his arrival.

His first impulse was to grab and shake her, but the memory of being drawn into her link with the Ixchel statuette had him staying clear and raising his voice. “Alexis, snap out of it!”

She didn’t even blink.

Others were starting to come into the room now: Strike and Leah first, followed by Jox and Izzy, and then Michael, whom Nate really didn’t want to see just then. Nate forced himself to block them out, though, as he reached out and gripped Alexis’s wrist. When he wasn’t immediately sucked into the barrier, he said, “Come on, Lexie,” deliberately using the intimate nickname. He was partly hoping she’d hear it and know who was calling her back, partly wanting Michael to hear it and know Alexis was his, even though Nate knew the territorial urge marked him as a complete shit. “Wake up. It’s just a dream.”

That was so wrong it wasn’t even funny, because he was rapidly learning there was no such thing as “just a dream” in the Nightkeepers’ world. Which was probably why he never dreamed. His subconscious wouldn’t let him.

The lie worked, though. Somehow it worked. Alexis stirred, and her pulse cranked up beneath his touch. She blinked and focused on him, then looked past him to where most of the resident Nightkeepers and winikin were crammed in her bedroom, expressions ranging from what the hell? to oh, shit.

Bright spots of embarrassment stained her cheeks. “I screamed, didn’t I?” When she closed her eyes for a second, Nate saw the pain she was trying to hide.

“What did you see?” he asked quietly, aware that he was still holding on to her wrist, and she’d curled her hand around to grip his forearm, linking them palm-to-mark.

When she hesitated, Leah said, “Would you like us to leave?”

“No,” Alexis said, too quickly. Her blush went darker and she pulled away from Nate, scooting higher up in her bed so there was a sizable gap between them. “No, you should all stay and hear this.”

It stung that she didn’t want to be alone with him, didn’t want to lean on him, but that was what he’d wanted, right? He didn’t get to bitch about getting his way.

“The dream?” Strike prompted, his eyes intent on her, no doubt because of all of them, he was the biggest believer in dreams and their portents.

“I saw . . .” She shuddered and looked at Nate, then away, staring out the window and the gathering dawn when she said, “I saw Gray-Smoke and Two-Hawk; I’m sure of it this time.”

The logical part of Nate would’ve asked, “This time?” because he hadn’t known she’d seen their parents before this. But the other part of him, the closed-off, judgmental part, had already turned away, blocking off acknowledgment of the past. He didn’t care what his father had done, who he’d been. The circumstances had been beyond his parents’ control, granted, but that didn’t change the fact that they’d been nothing more to him than DNA donors.

It was Strike who said, “What else did you see?”

That implied he already knew about the visions, which just irked Nate more. If Alexis had kept this from him, what else was she keeping secret? But even as he wondered that, the rational part of him knew that it wasn’t like he’d encouraged sharing.

“They were in that long, narrow stone chamber,” she said slowly. “The same one I saw when I touched the statuette.” She bit off the word, making Nate wonder what she wasn’t saying.

Anna pushed through the crowd, moving between Nate and the bed, subtly easing him away. She shot Strike a look, and he started clearing the room.

“Go on,” Anna urged Alexis. “You saw your mother. What else?”

“I—Wait,” she said breaking off when Strike herded Michael toward the door. “I want him to stay.”

Nate muttered a curse and fought to stifle a flash of rage he had absolutely no right to feel.

Strike glanced from Nate to Michael and back, but raised his hands in surrender. “Okay. Michael stays.” But the look he shot at Nate promised a serious convo to come.

Alexis nodded, then said, “In my dream, Gray-Smoke and Two-Hawk were at the altar, which was made of stalagmites mostly, carved with scales and rainbows. They were working some sort of ritual—at least, they started to. Then they broke off and started arguing about something.”

“Did you hear the spell?” Anna asked. She was holding Alexis’s hands in hers, and Nate suspected she was either leaking the younger woman power or trying to see her dream through the contact. “Or what they were fighting about?”

“No.” Alexis paused and took a deep breath. “But here’s the thing: It was the same chamber, only the altar wasn’t the same. Well, it was, but there was a small door open on it, one that I didn’t see before. Maybe it was a secret compartment? Anyway, there was a little alcove behind the door, and inside the alcove there was a small carving.” Now she looked at Nate, their eyes locking. “It’s the other half of the Ixchel statuette. I’m sure of it.”

He nodded. It made sense that Ixchel would want them to find the other piece of her demon prophecy. Would’ve been nice if she could’ve beamed the missing text straight to Alexis or something, but he had a feeling none of what they were up against was going to be that easy. The gods had rules the Nightkeepers didn’t understand any better than they knew the extent of their own magic, or the limitations of the Xibalbans and Banol Kax. “What else did you see?” he asked.

“Nothing much.” She shook her head, grimacing. “There was this buzzing over everything, like interference. Static. I couldn’t hear any of what they said, and they were still arguing when I woke up.”

Strike shot a look at Nate. “Did you dream anything?”

“I was awake.” He didn’t think it necessary to mention that he didn’t dream, or if he did, never remembered anything but the nightmares.

“Damn,” the king muttered. “Anna, you get anything?”

The itza’at disengaged from Alexis, shaking her head. “Nothing. Sorry.”

Nate didn’t know whether that meant she had nothing to add from Alexis’s vision, or she hadn’t been able to pick it up at all. He cleared his throat. “Where does that leave us?”

Strike didn’t hesitate before answering. “After the first Ixchel vision, I had Jade start searching for references to a temple like the one Alexis saw: a narrow rectangular room deep underground, water access the only way in or out, with a carved crowd scene looking toward a naturally formed throne.”

Alexis straightened against the headboard. “And?”

“Last I checked she had it narrowed down to three possibilities. By now she may’ve gotten it figured all the way out.”

“I’m going,” Alexis said, her tone brooking no argument. “I’ll leave as soon as she’s sure of the location.”

Strike nodded. “Of course. I’ll transpo you and Nate once—”

“No,” she interrupted. “I want Michael.”

Nate hid the flinch as best he could. He’d known it was coming, of course, but that didn’t temper the instinctive kick of rage.

Surprised, Michael looked from him to Alexis and back. “Blackhawk?” he said, letting that one word ask several questions.

Michael was the only Nightkeeper to call Nate by his bloodline name; Nate had never been sure if it was intended as a sign of respect or a subtle dig. Whichever, it sparked his anger even higher now, but he throttled back the urge to rip, tear, and fight, knowing that this, at least, wasn’t anybody’s fault but his own. “It’s fine,” he said tightly. “Go ahead.”

“You don’t need his permission,” Alexis snapped.

“I’m not chattel.” Nate gritted his teeth. “Nobody said you were.” Knowing she was safe—for now, anyway—and that the convo was likely to go downhill fast if he stayed put, he headed for the door. He brushed past Michael harder than necessary, a body bump of warning, and growled under his breath, “Anything bad happens to her—and I mean anything—and you answer to me.”

Nate didn’t wait for a reply, just stalked into the hallway, and from there out the back of the mansion. He was nearly dead from postmagic exhaustion, and knew he needed to shut it down, but he couldn’t bear to go back to his room knowing that Alexis was nearby. Knowing she might already be making her move on Michael.

It would’ve been nice to head out to the Pueblo ruins and raid Rabbit’s stash up there for a sleeping bag and enough of the Nightkeeper’s fermented pulque to get seriously stoned, but Nate didn’t think he could make it that far. Instead he headed for a nearer goal: one of the family cottages behind the mansion, where he figured he could crash and sleep with a modicum of privacy, and without the sense that he was surrounded on all sides by expectations.

The small, four-room cottages stood in two neat rows of six each, plus one on the end to make lucky thirteen. Once, they had held the Nightkeeper families who had resided at the compound but preferred the privacy of a small house over the convenience of the mansion. Now all but one stood empty. Rabbit was staying in the cottage his father had once lived in with his wife and twin sons, back before the massacre. Red-Boar had allowed only minimal restoration and Rabbit hadn’t changed anything, so the place was pretty much vintage. Jox had ordered the contractors to redo three more of the houses during the reno, on the theory that some of the resident Nightkeepers or winikin might want the privacy. Nobody had taken the offer, though, so the small structures stood vacant and unlocked, still smelling fresh and new inside.

The other nine cottages remained as they had been the night of the massacre, save for a new coat of exterior paint covering over where they’d been marred by smoke damage or the six-clawed scratches left by the boluntiku, lava creatures sent by the Banol Kax to slaughter the Nightkeepers and winikin.

Starting to feel seriously woozy, Nate headed for one of the redone cottages. He had his hand on the doorknob when something made him pause and turn away, then head for the cottage next door, which was the last one on its row. It was one of the ones that hadn’t been renovated, and the door was locked, but something in his spinning, overtired brain had him crouching down and feeling through the fist-size pebbles in the rock bed beside the front step.

He found one stone that was unnaturally light and warm to the touch. When he flipped it over and felt the bottom, he found a sliding panel and, beneath that, a key.

Somewhere inside he knew it shouldn’t have been that easy, that there was no reason for him to have known to look for the hidden key. That knowledge, though, was dulled by the dragging exhaustion, and a sort of compulsion that drove him onward, compelling him to unlock the door and let himself inside.

He didn’t even turn on the light, just stumbled across the eat-in kitchen, headed for the living space that separated two small bedrooms. There was nothing strange about his knowing his way around; the floor plans were the same in all the cottages. There was, however, something seriously weird about the fact that when he was halfway across the living room, he pitched forward and let himself fall, knowing there would be a couch there to catch him.

He landed face-first on cushions he shouldn’t have anticipated, which should’ve been dusty but weren’t. Then there was no more strange familiarity, no more warning bells inside telling him he shouldn’t be there, that he should’ve stayed in one of the renovated cottages or, better yet, in his plain-ass suite in the mansion.

There was only the darkness. And finally, dreamless sleep.

The day after the eclipse, Rabbit was up early and feeling surprisingly okay, given the amount of magic he’d pulled during the ceremony.

He dragged on clothes at random—it wasn’t like anyone cared what he dressed like—and hooked up his iPod. The tunes were more habit than anything at this point; he was getting sick of the music, not needing the constant thump in his head when there was so much else going on up there.

Lately he’d been leaving the music off, and had discovered an added bonus: Most everyone thought he couldn’t hear them when he had the earbuds in. Okay, so maybe he’d reinforced that by playing deaf once or twice, but why not? It never hurt to have added intel, especially when Strike and the others—and his old man before them—had made it crystal-clear that he was on a need-to-know basis, and, more often than not, he didn’t need to know.

So he’d played deaf. And he’d listened. That was how he knew that things were still wonky with Patience and Brandt—like he couldn’t have guessed that from being around them, and from the fact that the goddess had chosen Alexis—Alexis, for fuck’s sake—as being preferable to Patience for a Godkeeper. Which was just wrong on so many levels he couldn’t even count them.

Patience was kind and steady, a warrior with a conscience. Alexis was . . . well, she wasn’t steady, that was for sure. He wasn’t an aura reader, but ever since that cluster-fuck in New Orleans, whenever he got within spitting distance of her his arm hairs reached for the sky and his stomach jittered. He didn’t know what it meant, but he knew he didn’t much want to be around her these days.

When he beelined from his cottage to the mansion for breakfast, though, he soon learned that wouldn’t be a problem. Alexis and Michael—Michael? WTF?—were headed out as soon as Jade locked down the location of some temple or another. Not only that, but Anna’s grad student, Lucius, the one who’d nearly gone makol before the last equinox, had shown up past midnight, looking for some chick Rabbit had never heard of. The guy had been given the hospitality of one of the downstairs storerooms for the time being, poor bastard.

Jox passed along all of that info over breakfast—the royal winikin wasn’t big on gossip, but he didn’t mind talking some, and he made a hell of an omelet, especially when the others were still sleeping off the magic.

Once Jox ran out of things to say about the Michael-for-Nate mate switcheroo, Rabbit said, playing it real casual, “What’s Strike doing about Iago. Do you know?”

The casual part must not’ve come off like he’d hoped, because Jox sent him a sharp look. “Why?”

Rabbit shrugged. “Just curious.”

“Then ask him yourself.” The winikin nodded past Rabbit’s shoulder. “Hey, boss. Breakfast?”

“And lots of it.” Strike took the bar stool next to Rabbit at the big kitchen island and leaned both elbows on the marble countertop. “What’s up?”

The king was wearing a schlubby gray sweatshirt and jeans. The sleeves of the shirt had fallen back to reveal his big forearms, and the marks he wore on his inner right wrist: the jaguar, the royal ju, the teleport’s glyph, Kulkulkan’s flying serpent, and the jun tan beloved mark signifying his mated status. It was an impressive array on an impressive forearm, and left Rabbit feeling small and inconsequential, which he hated like poison, because it was pretty much his fallback status.

Taking a deep breath, trying to play it like it was just an idea, like it didn’t matter really to him one way or the other, Rabbit said, “I think we should have the PI tag Mistress Truth’s credit cards, phone, and bank accounts.” His heart drummed in his chest, from nerves and need.

Strike’s gaze sharpened. “Why?”

“Myrinne got away from the fire; I know that for sure. But you said yourself you couldn’t get a ’port lock off my description. There’s no answer at the tea shop, and the bartender down the road said the place has been closed since the fire. Nobody back in New Orleans is looking for Mistress Truth too hard, because she scared the shit out of the neighbors, and the cops are way busy already.” And Rabbit hadn’t pushed because he hadn’t wanted to make too much noise, in case Myrinne needed to keep it on the down-low. “I think Myrinne might’ve made it back to the shop and lifted Mistress’s plastic.” It was what he would’ve done, and even from their short meeting he knew the girl had survival instincts.

“Maybe,” Strike agreed, nodding his thanks as Jox hooked him up with a mug of coffee. “But we need to find Iago, not Myrinne.”

Speak for yourself, Rabbit thought, but knew that wasn’t going to get him very far with Strike, especially not with Jox listening in. “She’s important.”

“To who, you?” Strike shook his head. “Forget about her, kid. Or if you can’t forget about her, then do your best to help us get through the next few years and then go after her with my blessing. Hell, I’ll even help you look.”

“She said she’d been dreaming.”

Strike went very, very still. “Of you?”

Rabbit shook his head. “Skywatch. She nailed it too, right down to the tree.”

“Well, shit.” Strike sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose the way he did when he was trying not to admit he had a headache. “That complicates things.”

“We have to find her,” Rabbit insisted, not sure why or how he knew, but positive that it was nonnegotiable. Call it fate, destiny, or hormones, he had to see her again.

“I’ll call Carter.” Strike fixed him with a look. “But let us deal with it, okay? I don’t want you involved.”

A chill creepy-crawled down Rabbit’s neck. “Why not?”

Strike’s expression said, Because you’re a fuckup half-blood and I don’t trust your magic for a second. But aloud he said, “Because we don’t know what we’re dealing with. Given her association with the witch, there might be something in there that we don’t want inside Skywatch. Hell, for all we know this whole thing is a setup. I’ll find the girl, but until we know her story, I don’t want you anywhere near her. Got it?”

The too-ready anger that Rabbit battled on a daily basis flared before he was even aware of it building. Heat coursed through him, flooding his veins and begging to be set free. Forcing himself to remember where he was—and who with—he fought the temptation, tried to cap the anger. Knowing it was rude, he tapped the iPod on and popped one of his earbuds in, hoping the thumping backbeat would drown out the rage. It helped some, but not enough, and the fury had him snapping, “That’s fair. You and Anna can have your human pets, but I can’t?” He knew he’d gone too far the moment the words left his mouth.

Strike set his jaw. “Watch yourself, kid.”

“Or what?” He jumped off his stool and gave it a boot, sending it skidding across the floor to fall on its side in the kitchen pass-through. He fisted his hands and dug his fingernails into the ridged scar on his palm, keeping the fire in check, though just barely. “You going to ground me? I’m already stuck here. Going to take away my privileges? Don’t got any. Take away my magic? Just fucking try it.”

In the beat of silence that followed his shout, the scene froze in Rabbit’s head as though he’d taken a snapshot or something.

He saw Strike sitting there, coffee halfway to his lips, surprise slapped atop the anger in his expression. Jox stood in the kitchen, his face a mix of disappointment and resignation. Those hurt some, because the winikin had mostly raised Rabbit while Red-Boar had lived in the past with his “real” family. But even at that, Jox’d always made it clear that Strike and Anna were his first and top priority. The frozen tableau was completed by Leah, who was framed in the doorway leading to the residential wing, looking pissed, which suggested that she’d heard him call her Strike’s human pet. That pinched, because she’d always been pretty fair with him, but still. Why did Strike get to bring his girlfriend into Skywatch, but Rabbit couldn’t bring his?

And okay, so Myrinne wasn’t his girlfriend. But there was something there; he was sure of it. He just didn’t know what yet, and wasn’t going to be able to figure it out if he went along with Strike’s plan.

Then Leah stepped down from the entryway and the scene snapped from freeze-frame to play, and Strike was getting up off his stool and advancing on Rabbit, his dark blue eyes hard and angry.

Rabbit braced himself to get his shit knocked loose. Instead the king stopped just short of him, his expression leveling out some when he said, “News flash, kid: I’m not your old man. I’m not going to ground you or call you names. What I am going to do is tell you to man the fuck up, stop thinking with your dick, and factor your teammates into this equation. You bring Myrinne here and things go south, what do you think happens?”

A big chunk of the anger died a quick death, but Rabbit couldn’t back down, couldn’t let it lie. “I have to find her. I can’t explain it; I just know I have to find her.”

“Yeah, I got that.” Strike paused and traded a look with Leah before he said, “I’ll have Carter look into it. Leah can call in a few favors too. Once they find her, we’ll see what the situation looks like and figure out the next step from there.”

“I want to go back to New Orleans,” Rabbit said, feeling all itchy and tightly wound. “I can help look.”

“I can’t spare you for that. I need you in Boston.”

Rabbit had braced for the argument, so it took him a second to reorient. “What’s in Boston?”

“Jade’s tracked down two more of the artifacts. Leah and I are working on one of them. I want you, Sven, Patience, and Brandt to go retrieve the other.”

“Oh.” Rabbit’s gut churned. Strike wasn’t just avoiding his demand to see Myrinne again; the king was also throwing him back together with Patience and Brandt. Bad sign. “In other words, you think their marriage is either fixed now, or so broken that having me around them won’t fuck it up any more than it already is.”

“No! Never that.” The protest came from Leah, who crossed the landing, righted Rabbit’s toppled stool, and perched on it beside her mate. She took his mug and snagged a hit of his coffee before continuing, “We know how much they mean to you. We wanted to protect you, not punish you.” She paused, letting him see the truth in her cornflower blue eyes. “We were trying to make things easier. I’m sorry you thought otherwise.”

Shame coiled around the anger inside Rabbit, dimming the whole mess a little. He looked down at the floor. “Sorry about calling you Strike’s pet just now. If it helps, you’d be something cool, like a rottweiler.”

Amusement sparked in Leah’s expression, and she lifted a shoulder. “No worries. I don’t get mad. I get even.”

Rabbit grinned some at that, and she grinned back, and the two of them, at the very least, were okay. In the moment of mental calm brought by forgiveness, his brain processed the rest of what the king had said. His head came up and he focused on Strike. “You said ‘retrieve’ the artifact. We’re not buying it?”

“The thing’s in a museum.”

Rabbit grinned. “So what you really mean is that we’re going to steal it.”

Strike shifted, shooting a vaguely uncomfortable look at his ex-cop queen. “Yeah. That’s pretty much the plan.”

Rabbit nodded. “Cool. I’m in.” As if there had been any question of it, really. He might be on the outskirts of the real action, and only a half-blood, but he was still a Nightkeeper. He did what his king said. That didn’t mean he couldn’t add on a few things, though. Like keeping in touch with Carter, and making sure he was the first one to get to Myrinne.

As far as he was concerned, that was as nonnegotiable as a fricking royal decree.

“Hello?” Lucius banged on the storeroom door again, hard enough to sting his hands, though the blows made little impact on the heavy paneled door. “Anyone? Hello? I need to talk to Anna. It’s important!”

He didn’t know what time it was, though he’d slept until he wasn’t exhausted anymore, which suggested it was well into the day after his arrival. Maybe already too late.

He rattled the door against its padlock. “Anna!”

A sick feeling locked his gut. He remembered how he’d gotten there, remembered the shock of traveling in search of Sasha Ledbetter and finding Anna and the Nightkeepers instead, but his memories of the prior night were hazy and unreal, like they’d happened to somebody else. An angry, resentful version of himself. In the light of day—okay, in the light of a single fluorescent tube, but after a good night’s sleep—he felt more like himself. And in getting his brain back online, he’d realized he’d left out a crucial detail when he’d been talking to Anna.

Drawing a breath, he thumped on the door again. “Hello! Can anyone hear me?”

The lock rattled on the other side, and an irritated male voice said, “Hold on to your ass. I’m coming.”

The man Lucius had been the night before would’ve looked for a weapon and taken a swing at whoever was on the other side of that door. The guy who’d woken up feeling more at home inside his own skin than he had in a long time backed away and dropped down to sit on the edge of the cot, trying to look as unthreatening as possible.

Which was a good thing, he realized the second the door swung inward, because the guy who stood in the opening was below average in height and weight, in his late fifties, with peppered hair and a quick, economical way of moving . . . and he held a machine pistol with easy familiarity.

Lucius raised both hands in an I’m unarmed; please don’t mess me up gesture, and said, “I come in peace.” Hope you do too.

He was no gun expert, but the thing pointed at him looked like something out of a war movie, or maybe a cops-and-gangs flick, automatic and nasty-looking. The guy, on the other hand, didn’t look nasty. He looked wary and drawn, as if he had a ton on his plate. Then again, that’d make sense. If Lucius had truly found the Nightkeepers, they had to be gearing up for the end of the world, the battle they’d spent generations preparing for. And if that wasn’t a mind-fuck, he didn’t know what was.

“You said you had a message for Anna?” the guy said.

“Yeah. I, uh . . . I’d rather give it to her personally.” He had a feeling it wasn’t going to go down big regardless, but didn’t feel so comfortable telling it to Mr. Armed-and-dangerous.

“I’m Jox, her winikin. I’ll give her the message.”

Which might’ve been useful info if Lucius had any idea what the hell a winikin was. Whatever the guy’s job description, though, he didn’t seem inclined to go get Anna. Knowing that Anna and her brother—the king, and how screwed up was that?—needed to know what he’d done, and figuring their response was going to suck regardless of how the deets were delivered, Lucius said, “Fine. Tell her that Desiree bet me my degree that I couldn’t find proof the Nightkeepers existed, and gave me the money to do it. I called her last night from the road and told her where I was headed.”

Jox looked disturbed but not panicked, suggesting that the location of the compound wasn’t entirely sacrosanct to the outside world. He said, “Who is Desiree to Anna?”

“Her boss at UT. Beyond that, you’ll have to ask her yourself.” He was so not going there.

Jox considered that for a long moment, then nodded. “I’ll give her the message.”

When he started to pull the door shut, Lucius said, “Wait!”

Jox paused. “Yeah?”

“Tell her I’m sorry.”

“Knowing Anna, that’d work better coming directly from you,” the guy said, not unkindly. Then he shut and locked the door.

He was right, too, Lucius knew. Thing was, at this point he wasn’t sure he believed Anna would accept his apology . . . or the help he planned on offering.

Alexis was just getting out of the shower when there was a knock on the door of her suite. As she toweled off and threw on last night’s nighshirt and a pair of yoga pants, she was strongly tempted to ignore it, needing a few more minutes to herself.

It wasn’t like she’d had much in the way of downtime to recharge after the eclipse ceremony. Between her fight with Nate and the dream-vision, she hadn’t gotten to bed until close to three a.m., and she’d slept poorly, her dreams chasing her with sensory images of Nate and Michael, and heartache. They’d been real dreams, not visions—she was sure of that much—but they’d put her seriously low on REM sleep.

She’d planned on chilling in her sitting room for another hour at least. The knock came again, though, suggesting that whoever it was knew she was in there, and wasn’t planning on being ignored. Sighing, Alexis crossed the sitting area and opened the door to find her winikin on the other side.

Izzy’s expression lightened, though it stayed worried around the edges. “Why didn’t you wake me last night? I can’t believe I didn’t hear the commotion.” The winikin ’s voice became reproachful. “You should’ve had someone come get me. I would’ve stayed with you.”

“I know.” Which was why Alexis hadn’t woken her. Trying to avoid having to say that, she took the winikin’s hands in hers and gave them a squeeze. “I’m fine, honest.”

Izzy looked at her long and hard before nodding. “If you say so.” She stepped into the suite and pushed Alexis toward her bedroom. “Get dressed. Jade wants you in the archive as soon as you’ve had some coffee.”

That had Alexis stopping and turning, her heart kicking on a burst of excitement mingled with dread. “She found the temple? We’re going?”

Izzy nodded. “You leave for Belize in an hour.”