So I do. I tell her what she needs to hear to make the connections, to link the pieces together mentally and see the bigger picture of the puzzle. The digital recorder I took from the police department, making a recording of speaker feedback from the conference room to use as the chirping sound of the moth.

While the ankle monitor is water resistant; it’s not waterproof. A decisive difference that will prove beneficial when Agent Hernandez is required to inspect the bracelet I left in the holding cell for its malfunction, to be determined that a day-long trek through thick marsh waters shorted the receiver when it became submerged.

As the ascension ritual requires a certain level of intoxication, I knew that in Devyn’s inebriated state, her delusion wouldn’t be difficult to manipulate. I’ve had a little practice at that with Dr. Torres.

Halen takes a moment to process what I tell her, then: “How did you know…that—” she nods, indicating the blood skull I used to depict the death’s-head hawkmoth “—would work on Devyn.”

“You,” I say honestly to her. “You told me the Overman would incorporate the Harbinger into their delusion.” I tow the cover off her shoulder to inspect the cut there. The sight of the bite mark fans an ember of fury in my chest.

“Show people a reflection of what they fear,” I say, “and they will question their convictions.”

She nods slowly. “It’s fine,” she says, trying to recover the mark. I keep hold of the blanket, forcing her to meet my eyes. “It’s not as deep.”

Reluctantly, I release the blanket. The desire to sink my teeth into her and deface the mark is a demon throbbing beneath my flesh.

“You nearly beat a man to death,” she says, shifting the topic, “and I almost let you. It’s my convictions that are questionable.”

“For hurting you.” I tip her chin up, not concealing the rage still fueled at the memory. “And I’ll always be that man, Halen. The one who will spill blood for you. I should have torn out his entrails and let Devyn feed them to her minions. If that makes me a monster, I have no quandary in that regard. I might have stormed the castle and swept the princess into my arms, but I’m not the knight in shining armor.” Forcefully, I push my hands past the blanket and palm her waist. “In fact, I would destroy that fucker to steal the girl.”

She wets her lips, and I track the sweep of her tongue across her mouth like a starved beast. “Neither am I,” she confesses, stilling my breath. “I’m not some saint. I stole the murder weapon. I stole the knife, Kallum.”

The reason why she went back inside the police building to begin with. I nod knowingly. “You still have time to return it.”

Pulling her lip between her teeth, she shakes her head. “I have no quandary in that regard,” she fires back at me.

My nostrils flare, her admission stirring a temptation to do bad, bad things to her—to show her exactly how the rules don’t apply to us.

She pulls my hand from her waist, holding it in hers. Her fingers lightly touch the bruises, trailing over the split skin of my knuckles above the inked sigils. “You really would have killed him.”

My jaw tightens. “You didn’t want him dead.”

“No,” she says, stroking the ruined flesh. She brings my hand up and places a tender kiss to my knuckles. When her gaze flicks up to mine, her eyes swirl with molten heat. “I wanted him to suffer. Then I wanted him dead.”

The chasm between us falls away…and she’s so close, I can taste her on my lips, feel her tangled around my bones. I want her fully, wholly, no secrets between us.

Halen gauges me carefully. “You left out how you managed to escape from the holding cell to begin with.”

I free a strained breath. “I won a bet,” I say, withdrawing my hand from her waist to remove the key from my pocket and hold it up. Halen’s eyes track the bruising along my jaw from Alister’s fist. “Only issue now is, what to do with the key once I’m back inside the cell.”

Her gaze holds mine and doesn’t waver. “Swallow it.”

A thrill courses along my veins, and I thread my fingers around hers.

There’s my dark muse.

Pushing the key into my pocket, I let a wicked smile curl my lips. The dry blood feels tight on my stretched features, and I’m sure the skull looks fiendish. Halen confirms this when she reaches out and traces her fingers along my cheek.

“I’ll remove it.” As I go to stand, she catches my arm.

“Wait.” She looks at the cloth and holds out her hand. With a furrowed brow, I place the damp cloth in her upturned palm.

I lower to one knee before her, arms braced on my other, absorbed in the flickering light cast across her ethereal features. That’s where I’ll always find her, there in the flicker. Every chaotic, malicious need of my nature is set to stasis when she captures me for even the briefest moment in her light.

She brings the cloth to the medial zone of my cheek and lightly sweeps my skin, removing a layer of the skull to find the man beneath. She repeats the motion, her strokes tender, following the contours along my face as she wipes away the blood.

“What Devyn said back there…” She trails off. Then, as her eyes fuse with mine through the heavy vapor insulating the room, her hand stills. “You’re not the Harbinger killer.”

My gaze solders to hers, unwavering.

I don’t voice a confirmation. I let her read the answer in my eyes.

Silence suspends us amid the dancing candlelight, a charged current the only thing animating my heart that threatens to stop fucking beating.

The cloth drops to the marble floor to break the spell. Keeping her eyes locked on mine, Halen presses her fingertips to the freshly carved sigil scored into my chest. Gingerly, she traces the deep cuts. “Was this for me?”

“Yes.”

“How are you the most intelligent person I know and yet you believe in the power of sigils.”

The arousing feel of her exploring my open flesh summons a deviant craving to have her crawl beneath my skin.

“Quantum physics,” I say simply. When she doesn’t balk, and I sense no confusion or dismissal of this, I continue, “Change how you view the world. When you no longer see it as merely material, then the ability, or the power, to invoke a belief comes naturally. If you want a thing badly enough, are willing to plead for it, die for it, kill for it—” our eyes clash “—then your only limitation to mastering causality is how far you’re willing to go to possess that thing.”

Her eyes track the swirled antlers of the inked stag as her fingers probe my slashed skin, her touch becoming more forceful. Her nails drag over the scored flesh to deepen the wound, drawing fresh blood. My heart scrapes cartilage when she brings a blood-stained finger to her mouth and slips the tip past her lips.

My fucking body ignites. Blood thunders in my ears, muting the sound of the shower. My heart is a feral beast rattling the cage of my chest as my vision darkens around the edges and narrows to a pinhole, predatorily trapping her in the center.

As she touches the stitches on her arm with those same blood-tipped fingers, she says, “You told me before that Voltaire is the philosopher you would have chosen for me.”

My hands grip either side of the stool, holding me back.

She glances at the marred skin of her tattoo, at the black thread stitched into her flesh, before lifting her gaze. “But what if you’re the philosopher I want branded on my skin, Kallum.”

Whatever restraint I held shatters.

I have her in my arms at the same time she pushes off the stool to take me to the floor. She straddles my thighs, her mouth sealed to mine. I meet her frantic kiss with ravenous, covetous need before any sane thought has a chance to break through.

I turn my head and issue a harsh curse, trapping her face between my palms. “You’re drugged, Halen. I can’t—”

“That’s a requirement of the ritualist, the seer. Right? To be intoxicated.” Her heated words drop to my mouth as her fingers seek out the sigil again, and I’m rock-fucking-hard at hearing my little Halen use sex magick terminology.