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“Adam?” Reynard enquired.

My arm tingled, half numb, half burning. “It’s nothing.” I shook the tingling out. It wasn’t nothing. Gideon Cain was a Lost One wearing powerful glamor, hiding who and what he was. I knew, because I wore the same.

“Why Mr. Vex, you are full of surprises. What are you hiding?” Gideon smirked.

I swallowed, and glanced at Reynard, who was watching the whole exchange far too closely. “Nothing. I’m not hiding anything. What are you hiding? That level of glamor is illegal.”

Cain shrugged. “Indeed, it is.” He leaned forward and fixed his wily eyes on me.

This wasn’t how this meeting was supposed to go. We had to leave. Right now. Before Gideon Cain saw any more of me. Reynard must have sensed something was very wrong. He stood, and buttoned his jacket.

“Leave me and my hotel alone, Cain,” I warned.

Reynard approached. “Adam⁠—”

“Did you do it?” I asked, sounding a little strained. “Where’s my security guard? What have you done with Claymore?”

“Adam.” Reynard rested his hand on my shoulder and tried to steer me toward the door, but I ducked out from under his touch and loomed over Gideon Cain, still lounging in his chair and smiling up at me like the cat who’d gotten the cream.

Cain knew something. He was definitely connected to all this. “I knew it. You can’t stand losing, can you? I bought the hotel fair and square, and because you lost, you’re going to try and ruin it. Well, you won’t. Do you hear me?”

“Adam,” Reynard warned again. “It’s time we left.”

I panted through my nose as Cain stared back, sitting in quiet, smug satisfaction. What was he? Definitely not human. And now he knew I wasn’t human either.

I’d just given my enemy my trump card.

“I suspect the hotel is the least of your concerns, Adam Vex,” Cain said. “You will sell it to me, it’s just a matter of time. Sell it now, while you’re here, and nobody needs to get hurt.”

I blinked at the brazen threat. “I’ll never sell.”

“Your stubbornness will get your friends killed.”

I thrust a finger in his face and snarled, “Touch anyone under my roof and you’ll see exactly what I’m hiding.”

Cain’s smile grew. “How is your business partner?”

The question landed like a physical blow, and staggered me back a step. “What have you done with Zee? Where is he?!” I flew in, but before I could get my hands on him a surge of vicious, bitter energy split the air between us, and darkness poured forth. It was huge, and impenetrable, and other. I sensed more than saw it. Its poisonous energy plucked at the truth of me, trying to unravel my own powerful glamor, as though it knew that’s where my weakness lay. It might have succeeded too, if Reynard hadn’t knocked me down, taking my place in its grip.

On my knees and pulled from its embrace, I could finally see it, although there wasn’t anything solid to see. The creature, made of lashing darkness, had its tendrils wrapped around Reynard, but he writhed and bucked, his face contorted in vicious rage, and as he pushed at its crushing embrace, a crackling aura of red energy beat off him in waves, pushing the smoky creature back.

Cain merely watched from the chair, unsurprised. On his finger, a signet ring throbbed.

And I knew what he was. A sorcerer. And that shadowbeast, ripped from between the veil, was under his control.

“Enough!” Reynard roared, and a blast of crackling red energy pulsed off him.

The shadowbeast shrank away, unplucking its many limbs from around Reynard one by one.

Reynard’s eyes blazed molten silver as he staggered a few steps away, raining blood-red sparks around him.

Cain clicked his fingers.

The shadowbeast lunged, slammed into Reynard, and shoved him through the windows. I saw it all in horrible slow motion. Glass exploded . . . Reynard reached out, as though to clutch at the frame . . . and then he was gone.

Wind and rain tore into the conference room, whipping up papers and sucking out the heat in a swirl.

I dashed to the hole, but the grey clouds had swallowed any sign of Reynard.