the shoulders of his wool coat dusted with snow as if he’d emerged from the pages of a catalog—step over Dawes’s body, his eyes locked on Alex.
Dawes will be okay, she told herself. She has to be okay. You can’t help her if you lose control.
Blake was using Starpower or something like it. Alex had felt the pull of it in his voice through the door. It was the only reason Dawes had flipped the lock.
She bolted toward the armory, punching Turner’s number into her phone, and slammed her hand against the old stereo panel on the wall by the library, hoping that for once it would oblige. Maybe the house was fighting alongside her, because music boomed through the hallways, louder and clearer than she’d ever heard it before. When Darlington had been around, it would have been Purcell or Prokofiev. Instead, it was the last thing Dawes had listened to—if Alex hadn’t been so frightened, she would have laughed as Morrissey’s warble and the jangle of guitars filled the air.
The words were muted by the headphones, the sound of her own breathing loud in her ears. She hurtled into the armory, throwing open drawers. Dawes was down and bleeding. Turner was far away. And Alex didn’t want to think about what Blake might do to her, what he might make her do. Would it be revenge for what she’d done? Had he figured out who she was and somehow followed her here? Or was it Tara who had brought him to her door? Alex had been so focused on the societies, she hadn’t noticed another suspect right in front of her—a pretty boy with a rotten core who didn’t like the word “no.”
She needed a weapon, but nothing in the armory was made to fight a living, human body hyped up on super charisma.
Alex glanced over her shoulder. Blake was right behind her. He was saying something, but thankfully she couldn’t hear him over the music. She reached into the drawers, grabbing anything heavy she could find to throw. She wasn’t even sure what priceless thing she was hurling at him. An astrolabe. A glittering paperweight with a sea frozen inside it.
Blake batted them aside and seized the back of her neck. He was strong from lacrosse and vanity. He tore the headphones from her ears. Alex screamed as loud as she could and raked her nails across his face. Blake shrieked and she fled down the hall. She’d fought monsters before. She’d won. But not on her own. She needed to get outside, away from the wards, where she could draw on North’s strength or find another Gray to help her.
The house seemed to be humming, buzzing its anxiety. A stranger is here. A killer is here. The lights crackled and flared, the static from the stereo rising.
“Calm down,” Alex told the house as she pounded down the hallway, back to the stairs. “You’re too old for this shit.”
But the house continued to whir and rattle.
Blake tackled her from behind. She hit the floor hard. “Be still,” he crooned in her ear.
Alex felt her limbs lock up. She didn’t just stop moving—she was glad to do it, thrilled, really. She would be perfectly still, still as a statue.
“Dawes!” she screamed.
“Be quiet,” said Blake.
Alex clamped her lips shut. She was happy to have the chance to do this for him. He deserved it. He deserved everything.
Blake rolled her over and stood, towering over her. He seemed impossibly tall, his golden, tousled head framed by the coffered ceiling.
“You ruined my life,” he said. He lifted his foot and rested his boot on her chest. “You ruined me.” Some part of her mind screamed, Run. Push him off. Do something. But it was a distant voice, lost to the contented hum of submission. She was so happy, so very happy to oblige.
Blake pressed down with his boot and Alex felt her ribs bend. He was big, two hundred pounds of muscle, and all of it felt like it was resting just beneath her heart. The house rattled hysterically, as if it could feel her bones crying out. Alex heard a table topple somewhere, dishes crashing from their shelves. Il Bastone giving voice to her fear.
“What gave you the right?” he said. “Answer me.”
He’d granted her permission.
“Mercy and every girl before her,” Alex spat, even as her mind begged for another command, another way to please him. “They gave me the right.”
Blake lifted his boot and brought it down hard. Alex