I shoved the card into my pocket. "So why am I going to see Catherine Alston when Pierre Boulanger was attacked?"
"Because Catherine woke up this morning with a head of gray hair and an old woman’s face. Whatever is attacking Pierre is now after Catherine."
"And you wish to stop this before Alston goes the way of Boulanger?"
"Catherine can wither and die, for all I care." Mirth briefly touched Hunter’s lips but did little to crack the ice in her eyes. "She is not the reason I wish to see this matter resolved quickly."
"Then what is?"
She studied me in a way that had fear curling through my limbs. This wasn’t about the need to stop a killer finding more victims. This was about me.
And her next words confirmed that. "There are some on the high council who think it would be better for us all if you were dead. I am trying to convince them that you might be useful for more than just finding the keys."
I swallowed heavily. "So this is a test?"
"And you had better pass if you value your life."
Chapter Two
"IF THEY KILL ME," I SAID EVENTUALLY, MY throat so dry it felt like the words were being scraped out, "they won’t ever find the keys."
"That," she said coolly, "is precisely the point."
"But—" I paused, my thoughts filled with panic and going a dozen different ways. "I thought the reason the council recruited me in the first place was to find the keys so that they could use them?"
"It was. It is."
The rhythm of her nails on the desk suddenly stopped, and something flickered in her eyes. Something dark and very deadly. A chill hit me and the sick sensation of fear ratcheted up several notches—though up until that point I hadn’t thought that was possible.
Because, in that brief instant, I’d seen death. Not my death—not yet, anyway. But someone else’s, someone who’d had the stupidity to cross her path.