The room fell silent. I looked at Eric. He looked at me. Eddie was still scowling, but some of the rage had drained out of his posture. Allie stood with her arms crossed, watching Zane with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
There was a conversation happening between Eric and me that didn’t need words. Years of fighting together, of trusting each other’s judgment, of making impossible calls in impossible situations. I knew what he was thinking. He knew what I was thinking.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I said finally. “You stay, but we tell the others the truth. You help us. But Jared is going to be keeping a close eye on you—not because I think you’re lying, but because I need everyone else to see that we’re being careful. That we’re not stupid. You do exactly what we tell you when we tell you. No solo missions, no private communications, nothing off-book.”
I paused.
“And if anything feels off—if you get a message, a dream, awhisper—you come to us immediately. Not an hour later. Not when it’s convenient. Immediately. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“And Zane?” I waited until he met my eyes. “If you’re playing us—if any of this is an act—I will kill you myself. And I won’t lose a minute’s sleep over it. Clear?”
“Clear.”
I nodded slowly. “Good. Welcome to the team.”
He let out a breath that seemed to deflate him entirely, like a puppet with its strings cut. “Thank you,” he whispered. “I know you don’t have any reason to trust me. ”
“Trust is earned,” Eric said, putting a hand on his shoulder. The same gesture I’d seen him use with Allie a hundred times. “Telling us was a good first step.”
Zane nodded, wiping his face with his sleeve. He looked exhausted, hollowed out, about ten years older than he had when he’d walked in. But there was something in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. Something fragile but real.
Hope.
Allie moved then, crossing the room to stand beside him, not offering comfort exactly, but simply beingthere.A silent statement of...something. Solidarity, maybe. Or just the acknowledgment that they were both carrying things too heavy for anyone their age.
“Come on,” she said quietly. “I’ll walk you back to your room.”
They left together, and I watched them go—two kids shaped by forces they never asked for, trying to figure out how to be something other than what they’d been made into.
Eddie waited until their footsteps had faded before he spoke. “You can’t be serious.”
I met his eyes. “I’m very serious.”
“He’s Samarek’s son, Kate. That goddamn demon actually mated with a human, and he’s the product. That just ain’t good.”
Eddie looked older than usual, the lines in his face deeper, his eyes sharp with worry. He’d been hunting demons longerthan I’d been alive. His instincts had saved my life more than once.
But so had mine.
“He came to us,” I said. “On his own. He could have run, could have disappeared, could have kept playing whatever game his father set up—he asked to talk to us, and he told us everything.”
“Or everything he wants you to believe.”
“We just watched him break apart confessing it. I know what I saw, Eddie.” I held up a hand before he could interrupt. “But I also know you’re not wrong to be cautious. Keep watching him. Keep doubting. And keep second-guessing me. You know that’s what I depend on you for.”
Eddie snorted. “Fair enough, girlie. But if it goes sideways? If that kid turns out to be exactly what his daddy made him to be?”
“Then we deal with it. Together. The way we always have.”
Eddie let out a breath that was half sigh, half growl. “Fine. But I’m watching him. Every move, every word, every time he so much as looks at one of those kids wrong. I’m watching.”
“Good. That’s exactly what I want.”
He shook his head, muttering something about optimism being a luxury we couldn’t afford, and shuffled out of the library, with Eric and me left standing alone in the silence he left behind.
“Do you think we’re making a mistake?” I asked.
