None of them speak.

“How to recognize influence blessings. What the first press of it feels like—how to ground yourself so that it can’t get in deeper. I don’t imagine that men learn the same, judging from the looks on your faces. It might be rare in your circles, but it’s not rare in this world.”

Even Gaven looks chastened.

It’s a slip-up. I am slowly splintering, and I need this figured out now so I can leave this room that smells like mold and death and breathe clean air.

“Their families—” I gesture to Joe and Roland’s bodies. “They’re powerful, right?”

Henry nods. “Not as much as Stefan’s, but still very connected.”

I scour my brain for a believable lie. “What if Joe and Roland were tired of playing sidekick? What if they wanted to take Stefan on?”

Henry frowns. “It would make more sense for them to wait until I was out of the way too, but it could work.”

“Can’t you just make him forget?” I ask.

Carter rolls his eyes and bends to check Stefan’s breathing. “I can’t erase a memory or remove it, but I can refocus the mind on different parts of a memory. The more you know the person, the easier they are to influence. To know them is to understand what motivates them. Minds want to take the path of least resistance. But Stefan hates Henry and, by proxy, you. I’m not sure how I’d find a way in.”

I replay the few interactions I’ve had with Stefan in my mind. “He wants to fuck me.”

Henry’s jaw clenches. “And how is that relevant?”

I place a hand on his chest. “Calm down. You can’t be the bad guy, but I can. What if I make myself the slut everyone already thinks I am?”

“Absolutely not. That will humiliate me,” Henry says.

I glare at him. “And yet, somehow I’m certain your ego will survive.”

Carter and Bryce muffle nervous laughter.

“You could make him think I lured him here to seduce him. We thought it would be somewhere that we wouldn’t be disturbed.”

“Harlow, no,” Henry says at the same time Carter says, “That could work.”

I push my advantage. “The people here already hate me. If anything, you’ll get sympathy. I lured him away. We thought it would be safe here. Joe and Roland were supposed to stand guard. The Breeder got free of its cage. There was a fight and all of you showed up at the tail end of it.” I turn to meet Carter’s gaze. “Could you do that?”

He gives a half-hearted shrug. “I could.”

“Absolutely not. There has to be another way,” Henry says.

Gaven sighs. “I don’t like it either because it puts her more at risk, but we’re running out of time and I don’t see another option. The hunters outside those doors are going to be wondering what happened. This story holds up for them and it holds up with what’s here in the room.”

I can feel Gaven’s disapproval, but I can’t tell if it’s because of the kiss or the suggestion or both.

Henry looks to his friends.

“She’s right, Hen. It’s the only way to keep the target off of you,” Carter says.

“But they’ll hate her. It will be more dangerous for her,” Henry argues.

“They already think she’s a selfish, spoiled city girl from a corrupt family. If we play into their expectations, they won’t look for another explanation,” Bryce says.

I hold up my hands. “Good—it’s settled. I need to go back to my room and wash up.”

“You’re hurt,” Henry says.

“You’re hurt worse. Clean up here. Gaven will walk me back to my room.” I thread my arm through Gaven’s and start toward the door before Henry can argue.

Bryce makes short work of the bar on the door, ready to intercept the half-drunk hunters as we slip out.

Gaven and I walk in silence down the gravel trail back toward Havenwood House. Silver moonlight turns the evergreen tree shadows ghoulish as we cut up the trail toward the back door.

He waits five blessed minutes before chastising me. “That was incredibly foolish.”

“Believe me. Silk would certainly not be my first choice for a fight with the Drained, but⁠—”

Gaven jerks me to a stop. “Is the careening toward oblivion going to stop at some point? The risks you were taking in Lunameade were one thing, but this isn’t a controlled environment and you are not invincible, Harlow.”

The venom in his voice is as startling as the use of my name. As much as I resent his coddling, Gaven has always been a better approximation of a father than the man who raised me. A more gracious woman would appreciate his concern, but it just makes me feel stupid.

I glance back the way we came. “Stefan and his friends caught me off guard. They must have spotted me and followed me through the sixth level. I just wanted to peek and see if the Havenwoods were really keeping a Drained, especially after what that idiot at the bar told me about the Breeders. I’m here to do a job and I got in a little over my head, but I’m not trying to make a regular thing of rumbling with these mountain men.”

His scrutinizing gaze rakes over me. “You fell from the second story?”

I don’t remember the fall. I remember the moment before and the moment of impact, but the falling is a blank spot in my mind, just like stabbing Joe. It frightens me that this could be my descent into the same madness that claimed my father and brother.

Forcing the thought away, I shrug. “Fortunately, Joe broke my fall, so⁠—”

“What happened in there?” Gaven snaps.

“A man put his hands on me.”

“And?”

“And I put my hands on him back.”

He clenches his jaw and looks away. “We’re going to discuss this later.”

That’s all the scolding I can take. I continue up the trail toward the house, listening to Gaven’s footsteps behind me as I cross the back patio and duck inside the large glass doors of the solarium.

The glass panes of the ceiling form a moonlit checkerboard on the tile floor and highlight the white, shimmering petals of the Stellarium Blossoms. I’ve only ever been in this room in daylight, when the blooms look withered and dead. They’re named after the Divine of Stars and Darkness because of the way they come alive in the dark.

These flowers are rare in Lunameade, but grow wild in the mountains here. They’re stunning. Moss grows over the rims of the planters and the vines cling to the glass walls, forming an intricate pattern all the way up to the ceiling. Their soft floral scent fills the space, blending with the ever-present beeswax smell of the rest of the house.

Havenwood House is quiet. The gentle clatter of dishes echoes down the hall from the kitchen.

The glass door creaks open behind me as Gaven enters. “His parents should already be in bed. I ducked in the kitchen and let them know you’d need a bath.”

My scolding from him and the sight of the flowers offered only a temporary distraction from the growing panic in my body.

Gaven steps up beside me, and I let him lead me up the back stairwell to my room.

He posts himself beside the door and gives me a hard look. “Don’t sneak out again.”

I know he thinks it wasn’t worth the risk, but he always thinks that. Besides, I learned something valuable.

When I push through the door into my bedroom, Cora, my maid from the wedding ceremony, is waiting for me. She quickly fetches water to fill the bath—not well water like below the manor, just fresh water from a nearby river channeled through a network of pipes in the fort. She places heated sunstones in the tub.

I begin to wash the blood from my hair, face, and hands in a bucket of warm water she brought separately, so that I can keep the bath from getting bloody.

“I can help you with the bath, miss. I don’t mind,” she says, clearly noticing the way I’m struggling to move with my broken ribs.

But I can’t bear one more person touching me today.

I dump an unnecessarily wasteful amount of soap into the tub and the room fills with the soft lilac scent of it as I peel the last bit of sticky silk and lace from my body.