Henry doesn’t even wait for it to cool before he’s stepping over it and rushing toward me. He looks me over, patting my arms.

“It’s Joe’s blood,” I say. “Not mine.”

He looks at the shredded throat of Joe’s body on the ground beside us and then back at my face. “Did you have to make such a bloody fucking mess?”

He cups my chin roughly and wipes my cheeks with his handkerchief. I stare at the dark stubble on his jaw instead of meeting his eyes, until he brushes his thumb to my tingling lips.

“You tried to kiss another man.”

I lick my lips. “It seemed practical in the moment. I didn’t think you would mind.”

“You can use your⁠—”

Hands. He’s going to say hands.

I yank his face to mine and kiss him. It’s quick, just a subtle parting of our lips, just a hint of whiskey on his tongue mixing with the poison sweetness on mine before I pull away.

“I told you that no one else knows that,” I whisper.

He bends so his lips brush my ear. “So many secrets, but your days of poison kisses are over.”

Gaven is suddenly yanking me away from my husband.

I realize when I look at his stunned face that I never told him Henry is immune to my magic.

“Relax, Gaven. Henry is as impervious to my poison as he is to my charm.”

Gaven’s relief is instant, his face morphing from a look of panicked escape-planning to one of annoyance. After all these years, I would think he’d be used to being kept in the dark.

Bryce jumps down from the catwalk and saunters over to us, appraising Joe’s body with raised eyebrows.

“Would have been helpful to know you could wield holy fire this whole time,” Henry says, eyeing my bodyguard.

Gaven crosses his arms. “My duty is to Miss Carrenwell. That wasn’t information you needed to know.”

“How?” Henry asks. “According to the records, you’re not blessed.”

Gaven looks to me for permission.

I wave a hand. “May as well.”

“I’m not,” Gaven says. “But I showed enough promise when I was a young man that Harrick Carrenwell hired me to protect Harlow and offered me a unique gift.” Gaven rolls up his sleeve and bares his forearm, showing off the dark, shiny inked sigil of Vardek.

Henry narrows his eyes at me as if it’s a betrayal that I didn’t tell him, but I can’t imagine he would have been forthcoming if our roles were reversed.

My husband looks at the mark. “I’ve always been aware of magically blessed objects that transfer power for limited uses, but I’ve never seen a blessing infused into one’s skin.”

“They didn’t want to risk me losing the object in a fight,” Gaven says. “Best to have it marked right into my body with a brand and ink made with well water.”

“Holy fire. How can Harrick Carrenwell bestow a Divine blessing?” Carter asks.

“I can only use it to protect Harlow from threats against her,” Gaven says. “I can’t power a city wall, or fire it off at will. She needs to be under threat.”

Henry rubs a hand over his face. “That’s why you kept the Breeder between you and Harlow. As long as it’s a threat, you can use that magic. That’s how you survived the horde alone in the woods on the ride here. They were standing between you and her.”

Gaven nods. “She and I have trained extensively on how to maneuver ourselves in a fight. Now, if we’re done exchanging secrets, what are we going to do about this mess?”

The ashes of the Breeder are the least of it. My dress is soaked in Joe’s blood, and Stefan is unconscious, bleeding from a slice along his left forearm.

“Carter, can you…” Henry gestures.

“Can I make the last twenty minutes not have happened?” he asks, a nervous pinch in his brow. “No, Hen. Afraid not. Polm’s gifts are powerful, but not that powerful. We need a strategy.”

“Drained attack?” Bryce suggests.

Henry shakes his head. “They weren’t on duty, and it makes my family look bad.”

“Training accident?” Carter says.

“This late at night?” Gaven counters. “And it still makes the Havenwoods look bad.”

“They attacked me,” I say.

Carter sighs. “That makes Henry look bad.”

My trembling from Stefan’s fear magic has stopped, but I know I don’t have much time before the adrenaline hits me.

I’m good in an emergency. It’s born out of necessity—out of years of needing to show a brave face and suffer quietly far from prying eyes. It’s like my mind and body have learned how to postpone the panic until all the danger is gone, but the delay costs me. When it comes on, it comes on very hard—until I’m a shaking mess, entirely unable to compose myself.

I don’t know how long I have before I fall apart completely. I need to get away from Henry and everyone else before that happens.

For the first time in my life, I wish for my sister, Electra. She is beautiful in a cold, cruel way—much like our mother—but her blessing from Harvain gave her the ability to erase or reform memories. I used to resent her for being granted a much less brutal gift by the same Divine. Most of my family have blessings from Harvain. It was part of the reason my father chose to marry my mother.

Harvain is the wildcard of the Divine. His blessings are the most unique and least predictable. They’re also highly coveted because there are fewer defenses to counteract them. I know I’m ungrateful, but I wish he’d granted me something I could control.

“How does your magic work?” I ask Carter.

Carter looks to Henry first. Bleeding woods—don’t they ever get tired of looking to him for approval? How does Henry even have such allegiance from two men who look like they could at the very least go a few rounds with him in a fighting ring?

When Henry nods, Carter looks shocked, but his gaze turns skeptical when he looks at me.

“It works a little bit different for everyone because no two gifts are exactly the same,” Carter says. “But, generally, Polm’s gifts are most effective on someone with whom you’ve established a personal connection. What Henry is asking for here is a challenge, to say the least.”

“But you can do it,” Henry says.

Carter holds up a hand. “If you could give me a second to think, I could.”

He paces back and forth a few times, then looks toward the catwalk and back at the bodies on the floor.

My hands are still tacky with drying blood. It’s a reminder that my time to escape without making a scene is dwindling. I try to think like Kellan. How would he manage a situation like this? He would never use his manipulation on someone who wasn’t asking for it.

“Could you make him believe that he hurt his friends?” I ask. “Like, could you make him stab them now and then trick his brain into thinking he’d done all this violence?”

“That is a degradation of a blessing,” Carter says, his face the picture of genuine disgust. “Just because Polm is Divine of Malice doesn’t mean his blessings have to be used for harm. Very few even have that level of power. It’s a rare gift that can force someone to do a physical act.”

Henry meets my eye, and I wonder if he’s thinking of the fight against the rebels at our engagement dinner—of Kellan forcing all those men to lie on the ground until dawn. Kellan’s magic is very powerful. It’s the reason he’s the leader of the city guard.

“Doesn’t seem rare enough in Lunameade,” I say.

All of them stare at me blankly.

“There are those who would use their blessings to—force women,” I say.

Henry’s aura billows out like an explosion in all directions. “What are you talking about?”

All three of the other men flinch.

I scoff, trying to shove down the panic and rage. “Calm down, my wolf. Not me. Women I know. Women in my community.”

This is too close for comfort. Anger claws its way up my throat, dragging something from the center of me. I take a breath, shove it all down, and level a glare at the men.

“Do you know one of the first things a girl learns when she’s young? The first thing her mother teaches her when she’s coming of age?”