Chapter 3 · The Most Devoted Puppy in Three Realms (3)

"Run. Whatever you see tonight—run. Do not trust the blade."

Liora stood in the dark, holding a knife that told her to kill him, listening to a voice that told her not to trust the knife, and a memory that told her he was a monster.

A block away, in a different apartment, Lucas Rodriguez stood at his window, listening to the dead dial tone. His right hand slid into his jacket pocket and came out with a silver badge. An inverted star. VOSS, ETERNAL WATCH. As precise as his smile.

He put it away and whispered to the dark: "I'm sorry, Liora. It was never me you should have hated."

Somewhere in the rain, something was coming. Step by step.

He started leaving things on her doorstep.

The first was a black rose. Liora found it at 6:00 a.m., wrapped in silver paper, no card, no note, no fingerprints. She brought it inside because it was too beautiful to throw away, and because throwing it away felt like admitting something.

The second was a moonstone the size of her thumb, left on her car's windshield, perched exactly on the wiper blade like a bird. She pocketed it.

The third was a black envelope containing a single ticket to a planetarium show, for a date three weeks in the future, stamped with the words: SURRENDER.

"Surrender," Millie read, over her shoulder, at 7:15 a.m. "That's either very romantic or very serial-killer."

"It's both," Liora said. "That's the problem."

"That's not a problem. That's a red flag with a bow on it." Millie squinted at the ticket. "Who sends someone to a planetarium? That's a middle-school move."

"A twelve-thousand-year-old middle-school move, apparently."

"Okay, but seriously." Millie's voice dropped. "The first witness. The tall one. Black coat, red eyes, couldn't keep his hands out of his pockets? Marcus looked him up. There's no record of him. No driver's license, no social security, no birth certificate, no nothing. It's like he walked out of a fog."

"He did."

"What?"

"Nothing." Liora pocketed the ticket. "I'll handle it."

She did not handle it.

That night, at 11:47 p.m., a knock came at her door. Liora opened it with a scalpel in one hand and a container of leftover takeout in the other, because she had been raised to be prepared for any combination of threats.

Kael Ashveil stood on her doorstep, wet from the rain, holding a fourth item: a black velvet box.

"You," she said.

"Me." He smiled. "I brought you something."

"You left three somethings on my doorstep. I think you have a system."

"The system is evolving." He held out the box. "This one's for your hand."

Liora looked at the box. Then at him. Then at the scalpel.

"I'm not opening that," she said.

"Why not?"

"Because the last four things you've given me have been a corpse, a flower, a rock, and a threat."

"The flower was a promise. The rock was a star. The ticket was—" He paused. "The ticket was hope. And the corpse, for the record, was not from me."

"Then who tagged it ZERO?"

"Someone who wants you to look in a direction that isn't mine." His voice was quiet. "Open the box, Liora."

She opened the box.

Inside was a ring. Not a diamond—a ring of black glass, set with a stone that looked like a captured piece of night sky, with a single point of light burning at its center.

"It's a star," she said.

"It's your star." He took the ring from the box, and very gently, with the care of a man handling a holy relic, he slid it onto her finger. "The thirteenth rune. The one the Court tried to hide. It was always yours. I just wanted you to have it back."

Liora looked at the ring on her hand. It fit perfectly.

"How do you know about the rune?"

"I've been looking for you for twelve thousand years." His voice was soft. "I know everything about you. I know you hate coffee that's been left to sit. I know you bite your lip when you're lying. I know you keep your scalpel in the second drawer because the first drawer is for the good chocolate." He looked at her. "I know you're the most dangerous thing in three realms, and you have no idea."

She should have slammed the door.

She didn't.

"One date," she said. "The planetarium. If you're late, I'm calling the police."

"I'll be early." He smiled, and the red of his eyes caught the porch light. "I've been early for twelve thousand years."

The door closed.

Liora stood in her hallway, holding a black velvet box and a ring that fit like it had been made for her, which it had been, and tried very hard not to think about the fact that she had just agreed to a date with a man who had no records, no past, and no business being in her life.

The ring was warm against her skin.

It stayed warm all night.