“I’m a hunter. I guard the walls.” He looks so proud of himself.

“Oh,” I say, forcing a smile. “There’s so many of you out there all the time.”

He frowns. “I’m actually a group leader.”

I feign embarrassment. “Oh? So you are in charge of a few men? I’m afraid I just don’t understand the hierarchy.”

It’s just dismissive enough for him to want to prove himself.

Brennan takes an exaggerated look over his shoulder, like he’s worried he’s going to get caught sharing something important, then leans in close. “I lead a group of twenty men, and we handle very dangerous assignments.”

“Like venturing into the woods?” I suggest.

He scoffs. “Like guarding a Drained we caught.”

My shock is genuine this time. “Caught?”

He leans in and offers a cocky smile. “A new evolution of them. They call it a Breeder.”

“I don’t understand.” I try to think back to when I was at home talking to Kellan. I don’t remember him ever mentioning an evolution of the Drained.

However, there have been five breaches in the last six months at home. There were only two breaches all of last year. Something has changed.

Brennan glances around us again. “I really shouldn’t talk about it out in the open, but I have a room upstairs for the night. A little privacy would surely loosen my lips.”

I should have seen this coming, but between the explicit story and the surprisingly helpful information, I had completely stopped thinking about why he was telling me.

I place my hand in his. “Lead the way.”

Brennan guides me down a dark hallway next to the bar, his hand on my lower back the whole way. It’s an effort not to fidget. The silk is thin and I don’t need him feeling my scar.

We take a flight of stairs up to the second floor. He leads me to the second door on the right and shepherds me inside.

Before he can pounce on me, I turn to face him. “It sounds dangerous to be around an evolved Drained. Why is it here? How do you protect yourself? What if it escapes?”

He gestures to the bed, and I sit down on the edge.

“We’ve noticed over the past six months or so that the Drained have seemed more strategic. Where they used to just mindlessly chase blood and bash themselves against the gates and walls, they now will work together to breach at weak spots. Groups of them don’t fight over a kill. They collaborate to try to break through. For months, it’s felt like they were testing us. Seeing how we responded to different types of breaches and then retreating instead of pushing inside. So we went to investigate.”

“Into the Drained Wood?”

He puffs out his chest a little. “To find a lair.”

I was thinking he was putting on a show earlier, but what he’s describing is incredibly dangerous. Going into—or even near—a lair is a death sentence to even the most talented and magically gifted hunters.

“Did you?” I ask.

Brennan starts to pace. “We found a small one, but it was different than what we had discovered in the past. They had women.”

I stop breathing. Cold dread spreads through my body. “Human women? Not turned?”

Like the human women who have been missing in Lunameade’s poorer neighborhoods. Could the Drained be sneaking in and stealing women away in the dark of night?

He nods. “They were—tied down in a compromising position.” He pauses. “The beasts have somehow found a way to bite them without turning them. They had bite marks all over their bodies, but they were still alive and still fully human.”

I stare at him, unable to fathom that I’m in a fort miles from the city with a forest full of newly evolved beasts between us. I feel breathless and claustrophobic, but also morbidly curious.

“Most of the women we recovered were too traumatized to speak, but one could. She didn’t remember how she got there, but she told us that the beasts had been breeding them to make more intelligent Drained. They grow quickly, and apparently the birthing process is a violent, bloody mess, so none of them survived it and⁠—”

Brennan must see the horrified look on my face and realize this is not at all a good foreplay story.

“Hey, you don’t have to worry,” he says, his voice suddenly placating. “We’re just trying to study what it does without blood for an extended time. You know, to see if it devolves into something more animal like what we’re used to. That thing is locked up tight in the old holding cells by the armory and guarded by hunters. It’s not getting out.”

I stand with a start. “I’m so sorry, but I’m feeling quite unwell. I have to go.”

Dashing from the room before he can say anything else, I descend the stairs and charge across the bar.

Outside, I take in big gulps of cold air and sprint up the street toward the sixth level. Several people stare at me, but most just ignore me as if it’s totally normal to see a blonde woman in a fine silk dress sprinting through the fort this late at night.

I spot the armory up ahead and duck behind a small outbuilding. I grasp the star on my necklace and pull down my glamour. My face, eyes, and scalp itch as I transform back into myself. I ignore the sensation, continuing toward the smaller building behind the armory.

Rounding the corner, I draw up short. A group of five hunters is sitting in a circle, in the middle of a raucous candlelit card game. They’re gathered in front of a large steel door, each of them sitting on a wooden crate, their cards on a rickety-looking table in front of them.

The only other way in that I can see from here is a wooden staircase that leads up to the second floor and an equally heavy-looking steel door at the top.

This has to be the place. If resources in the fort are so slim, they wouldn’t have that many men guarding nothing.

I duck back around the corner and reverse course to the other side of the building. I eye an unstable-looking emergency ladder that leads to a window on the second floor.

I don’t want to go near the thing. I just want to see why they’re keeping it.

I place a tentative foot on the first rung of the ladder, slowly shifting my weight onto it. Mercifully, it doesn’t creak. I climb to the top, fighting the dress constantly tangling around my legs, and peer in the window. It’s dark inside and the glass is too dirty to see much.

There’s enough of a gap for me to wedge my fingers beneath the pane, and with a soft, labored moan of the wood, it opens.

I poke my head in. The air is musty and the room is quiet except for the soft patter of pacing footsteps down below. I pull myself up the rest of the way, struggling with my dress as I slide inside and onto an elevated catwalk about fifteen feet above the room.

The footsteps stop, and I freeze too, holding my breath as I peek over the railing. The Drained one is looking right at me.

It sniffs the air, and I swear to the Divine it smiles.

It’s the faintest upturn in the lips around vicious-looking teeth, but the room is dim enough that my mind could be playing tricks on me.

I expect the Breeder to be under guard, or at least locked in a cell, but it’s wandering freely on the ground floor. Those idiot hunters playing cards outside are probably supposed to be watching it, but when they decided to fool around instead, it took its chance to find a way out.

I duck down behind the wooden railing again. It’s time to go. I need to get out of here and tell Henry.

I still. Henry, who gave me a safe room today. Is this why he offered that gift?

Now isn’t the time to solve that mystery. I turn back to the window, but to my horror, Stefan Laurence’s face is there waiting for me.

“Hey, Carrenwell,” he says. His voice is all menace as he climbs over the windowsill.

I’m torn between the beast in front of me and the one down below.

I could make a run for it to the door on the other end of this catwalk, but it could be locked. If it’s not, my cover will be blown the moment I pop out the door on the other side.