“Why,you, of course,” says Paris, as though it should have been obvious. “You are a wrecking ball, Shea Parker. You smashed your way into Oliver’s life. You blew up his infuriating little idiosyncracies in a way that I’ve never quite been able to do. And now, you have one last role to play. The festivities are about to begin. Asher Thorley’s job was to make sure you didn’t miss even a minute of the party.”
A coincidence,pulses Lys’s voice in her head.A coincidence.
Suspicion crawls into her, cold and skittering. “Whose birthday is it?”
Paris’s smile is heartrendingly familiar. “Why, my son’s, of course.”
In the distance, the music clicks off. A hush falls over the crowd. It’s as if someone placed a glass jar over a living flame—everything snuffs out all at once. In the open door stands a devil in a three-piece suit, his dark hair slicked into a hard part. Oliver Lysander, the night falling in around him.
“He prefers to go by his middle name these days,” says Paris. “But I have always called him the name his mother gave him, the day he was born.”
Understanding is a fist around her throat. “And what name is that?”
“Oliver,” he says. “Oliver Keeling.”
It’s been nearly four years since Lysander last laid eyes on his father.
Even after all this time, it still feels like looking into a mirror. Lit by the chandelier, the too-familiar lines of Paris Keeling’s face are thrown into stark relief. The crowd parts around him like water as he descends the steps, crossing the ballroom to meet Lysander where he stands.
He’s flanked by two figures. Shea, and a girl Lysander doesn’t recognize. Blonde hair. Hazel eyes. A face gridded in hunger. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who she is—Camellia Thorley, transformed. Another pawn in his father’s endless schemes.
With a bitter pang, the last of his suspicions click into place: Asher Thorley has led him to a slaughter.
There’s nothing he can do about it now. The plan is in motion. He keeps his eyes trained on his father as they approach. He doesn’t look at Shea. He can’t. Not in that red fucking dress. Not when she left without a word. Not when he deserved it.
“You seem on edge, Oliver,” notes Paris.
His molars grind hard enough to hurt. “I’m fine.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Shea glancing from person to person. Her mouth tight, she studies the motionless faces in the crowd, taking in the room’s nightmare silence, the preternatural stillness of it all. She has no idea what’s coming.
But he does. He was born for it, after all.
“I must say, Oliver,” says Paris, “I’m alarmed at how little she knows. You’ve kept her well and truly in the dark.”
“I didn’t want her to be a part of this.”
Paris looks disappointed. “What have I told you about playing a role? You can’t do it forever. Eventually, the mask slips. Have you even told her what you are?”
“Look at me,” he snarls. “She knows.”
“Not all of it,” says Paris. “Not the whole, sordid truth. You were afraid she wouldn’t find you worthy of her, if she knew. But the truth, Oliver, is that she is not worthy of you.”
This time, Lysander can’t help but look. And there she stands—a liar in a red dress. A traitor in combat boots. A cataclysm. He knows, sure as he draws breath, that only one of them will make it out of this night alive.
“You asked me what we’re celebrating,” says Paris, speaking directly in Shea’s ear. He doesn’t bother standing where she can see his face. He doesn’t understand anything about her at all. “For most, Turning is a metamorphosis. For Oliver, it was a nativity. He was born in the dark, the very first of his kind. His birth was meant to herald in a new world order. Tonight, it will.”
Paris snaps his fingers. To his great shame, Lysander knows what’s coming.
The lights twist in, pinning him in a spotlight. He’s rendered blind, one hand thrown up against the glare. A woman materializes, acrobat lithe and clutching a coronet of hammered brass. It’s a small bit of pageantry to entertain the masses. Humiliating and showy, just the way his father likes it. He wants to shove the woman away—to flinch back like an animal. But he has learned, over the years, that to do anything but cooperate will earn a punishment.
Not for him. Never for him.
The coronet is set atop his head. It tips to the side, clinking awfully against his horns.
There’s a flicker of movement, the sound of laughter, and Shea is shoved unceremoniously into the circle of light before him. Someone has jammed a similar coronet on her head, only where his is brass, hers is bone. A slender weaving of antler sheds, bleached white. Hunter and prey. God and human. She peers up at him, blinking furiously.
“You didn’t tell her.”
