Chapter 3 — The Whole World Says It's You (1)

Evelyn did not go home.

She was made that way. The more firmly someone said don't, the more she needed to know what the don't was hiding. Besides, the chain of evidence in her hands was almost perfect — perfect in a way that smelled like someone had assembled the puzzle pieces for her.

Her grandmother had told her to come home in three days. She was, on paper, coming home in three days. She was simply going to use the three days to find out what, exactly, she was supposed to be afraid of.

In three days, she did three things.

First, she hired a crew of human hackers to trace the Well's accounts backward. They worked out of a walkup in Bushwick and charged her a sum that made her raise an eyebrow. The books were cleaner than she had expected. Every entry was transparent, every number in its place, except the one eight-figure transfer from the night of the vault heist, which led nowhere she could follow.

"Clean?" she said.

"Scary clean," the lead hacker said, spinning toward her on his chair. "Lady, this guy's laundering records are cleaner than my tax returns. The only hole is the one you already know about."

"Can you trace the eight figures?"

"I can trace a ham sandwich across three boroughs." He clicked. "I tried. The money falls off a cliff into a charity in the Caymans that doesn't exist. It's a perfect exit. Which is my point. People this good at not getting caught don't leave surveillance tapes lying around."

Second, she went down into Night territory herself and bought a conversation from an information broker willing to talk for money. He took her cash, rolled his eyes, and said, "Listen to me, girl. If Mr. Varga actually wanted you dead, you'd be dead already. If he really stole your shiny rock, you wouldn't have seen that auction three nights ago. You're hunting in the wrong direction."

Evelyn stared at him. "I paid you. And you give me 'wrong direction'?"

"I'll throw in advice for free." He pocketed the money. "Every page of that evidence you've been reading? It reads like someone wrote it on purpose, for you."

Third, she went back to her hotel and read the four files again.

The longer she looked, the tighter her jaw got.

Too neat. Every coincidence landed exactly where it should. The hole appeared where it should appear. The account pointed where it should point. The surveillance was wiped where it should be wiped. It was a crime report written by a textbook.

But evidence was evidence. The council didn't care about feelings. It cared about paperwork. She walked those four files into the chamber and the extermination order would be signed by sundown.

She had built her whole life on evidence. Her grandmother had raised her on it. Sera Voss, her mentor, had drilled it into her: trust the numbers, trust the paper, trust nothing that smells like superstition. The four files were clean. The numbers agreed. The paper agreed.

So why did her wrist still burn when she thought of his throat under her needle?

She stood at the window, knuckles white.

Her phone buzzed. Not the Lumen plant. A number she did not know. A photo arrived first: a picture of her leaving the Well three nights ago, shot from the shadows, framed so that the laundromat doorway sat right behind her.

One line of text came under it.

The Night's hounds have your scent. Kill him now — or you'll be the one dead.

Evelyn stared at it, and then she laughed.

The laugh was cold and short and did not reach her eyes. The hidden world was yelling at her, from both sides, in exactly the same voice. The Lumen said the Night monarch was a thief and a killer. The Night's anonymous messengers said the Night's hounds wanted her dead. Every voice agreed on one thing: Kaelen Varga was the problem.

Every voice agreed a little too perfectly.

That was the tell, finally. Not the files. The unanimity. In her experience, no conspiracy this big ever agreed that cleanly unless someone was paying for the agreement. The Lumen said it. The Night's anonymous hunters said it. The evidence said it. The whole world had decided the verdict before the trial.

She put the phone in her pocket, picked up her coat, and walked out.

To the Well.

She did not bring the council's extermination order. She did not bring a warrant. She brought the four files, a silver needle up her cuff, and the one question she had refused to ask out loud for three days. If Kaelen Varga was guilty, he would prove it. If he was innocent, then the person who had built the case against him was still watching, and she wanted to see which way the room turned when she called his name.

At ten that night she stepped into Abyss Hall again. This time there was no alias, no smile, no performance. She wore a suit the color of morning light and stood in the middle of a room full of dark things like a lamp that had no business being in hell.

The Crossing parted for her. The werewolf DJ lowered the music. The goblins stopped haggling. In the Well, the order bar did not walk through the door twice in one week. She let them stare. She wanted them to stare. She wanted the whole hidden world to see her walk in unarmed and unsmiling, and she wanted the person who had written her evidence to watch her do it.

"Kaelen Varga." She said his name clearly, the way she would read a verdict. "I'm here to kill you."

The room went dead silent. The werewolf DJ's hand froze over the decks. The vampire bartender set down his glass. Mr. Fluffy quivered under the sofa.

Kaelen sat on the couch with his wineglass still in his hand. He looked at her. There was no surprise in his gray eyes, only a kind of absurd, delighted curiosity, the way a man looks at a card he already knows he's going to win.

"Oh?" he said. "On what charge?"

"Swapping the Core. Putting a bounty on Lumen investigators. Tampering with surveillance. Contracting witness elimination." She threw the four files onto the table. Pages fluttered and scattered across the low wood. "The Lumen High Council signs the extermination order in three days. I came to execute early."

"Evidence?"

"On the table."

"I'm asking you." He set the glass down, stood, and walked toward her one slow step at a time. "Do you believe it?"

Evelyn looked up at him. She had met too many people, seen too many lies. She should have been able to say yes without a second thought. But her blood was rolling under her skin, objecting.

"Yes," she said.

"Then come and kill me." He stopped close enough that she could smell the cold pine on him. He opened his arms wide, like a martyr, like a gambler who had just pushed his whole stack into the middle of the table. "I'm right here. I won't move."