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His breathing picks up, his grip on my throat loosening slightly as arousal overtakes whatever predatory instinct was driving him. "Yeah? What's that, angel?"

My hand reaches the blade strapped to my thigh, fingers closing around the handle through the sheer fabric. "Justice."

The confusion that flashes across his visible features would be comical if this weren't so serious, so final, so absolutely irreversible.

"What—"

I move faster than I've ever moved in my life.

The blade comes free from its hiding place with a whisper of steel against leather. My hand arcs up, aiming for the soft space between his ribs where the heart beats, where one precise thrust can end everything.

But James is faster than I expected. His hand catches my wrist mid-strike, fingers digging into delicate bones hard enough to make me gasp. His other hand releases my throat only to grab my other wrist, slamming it against the hedge wall hard enough that pain explodes up my arm.

"You little bitch," he snarls, and all that practiced charm evaporates, replaced by something uglier, more honest. "Did you actually think⁠—"

I bring my knee up hard between his legs.

He doubles over with a choked sound, his grip loosening just enough. I wrench my knife hand free and drive the blade into his shoulder—not a killing blow, but enough to make him scream, enough to make blood spray across white silk and white wings.

"For Brandon," I hiss, pulling the blade free and driving it in again, this time lower, more precise.

His eyes go wide behind the devil mask, understanding finally dawning. "You're—you're Hayes’s sister⁠—"

"I'm Brandon's sister," I correct, my voice steady despite the blood covering my hands, despite the way he's sliding down the hedge wall, despite the fact that I'm killing a man and feel nothing but satisfaction. "And you murdered him. You promised him money and answers and a future, and then you killed him."

"He was going to—" James coughs, blood bubbling at his lips. "Going to expose⁠—"

"I don't care." I drive the blade in again, finding the spaces between ribs with a precision that would disturb me if I had any capacity left for self-reflection. "I don't care what he was going to do. You had no right. He was twenty-one years old. He was my brother. He was all I had."

"Alexander will—" Another cough, weaker now. "Will never—forgive⁠—"

"Alexander helped me plan this." The admission feels powerful, feels like reclaiming something that was stolen. "My husband, the man you thought was too weak to protect me, helped me figure out how to kill you. We did this together."

James's hand comes up, reaching for me, maybe to grab, maybe to plead. I catch his wrist and pin it to the ground beside him, leaning close so he can see my face clearly, so there's no doubt about who's doing this to him.

"You're going to die in a maze dressed as a devil, killed by an angel," I whisper against his ear. "And everyone will think it was an accident. A tragic casualty of the Games. No investigation. No justice. Just another initiate who pushed too hard."

"Not—initiate—" he manages, but his voice is fading, his breathing becoming shallow, labored.

"Close enough." I drive the blade in one final time, finding his heart with terrible accuracy.

His body goes rigid, back arching off the ground, mouth opening in a silent scream. And then⁠—

Stillness.

James Harrington, leader of the Sovereign Bastards, heir to a media empire, murderer of my brother, dies in an alcove designed for theatrical scares, his blood soaking into earth and hedge and white silk.

I sit back on my heels, breathing hard, my hands shaking now that it's done. The blade drops from my fingers, clattering against the bench with a sound that seems too loud in the sudden quiet.

I look down at myself. White dress soaked red. White wings stained crimson. Hands covered in blood up to my elbows. I look like something from a nightmare. Like an angel who fell and landed in hell and decided she liked it there.

I look victorious.

Slowly, I tilt my head back, looking up through the gap in the hedge ceiling where late afternoon sky is visible—golden and perfect and completely indifferent to the violence that just occurred beneath it.

"I got him, Brandon," I whisper to the sky, to whatever comes after, to the ghost of my brother who I'll never stop missing. "I got the bastard who killed you. I hope—I hope wherever you are, you know. I hope you're at peace now."

The sky offers no response. Just clouds and light and the distant sound of birds who don't care about human revenge.