THE BOUNCER UNLOCKS the door of our cell, trailing eight guards behind him, and everything in me sinks. This can’t be happening now. I need more time. I need…Then it occurs to me: Layla’s not here. She didn’t break us out of the dungeon, she didn’t even give us a sign that she was going to try. I swallow, the blood draining from my cheeks. What if I was wrong about her being the one who killed those guards, or worse, what if she’s been captured, too?
Two guards approach each of us, and as they lower my arms out of the shackles, I realize how sore I am from holding them above my head. All my struggling produced a couple of angry red welts on my wrists. But I don’t get time to inspect them because the guards yank my arms behind my back with force and tie my wrists with a knot of rope.
They escort us out of the cell in a line with me at the very back, Ash at the front, and Ines and Aarya in between. A guard holds each of my arms with a steel grip that I’m certain is going to leave bruises.
“I guess it takes eight Lion guards and one giant to handle four Academy kids,” Aarya says flippantly in front of me, and the guards next to her stiffen. “I’m also guessing you want to smash me into something right now?” she continues when they don’t respond. “Go ahead. I’ll wait.”
I tense, waiting for them to throw her into the bars on the cells we’re passing. But the guards don’t respond.
“Ahhh, I see,” Aarya continues. “Jag doesn’t let you think for yourselves. That’s probably a good thing, though. And that big one, geez,” she says loudly enough for the bouncer to hear her in the front of the procession. “Good thing brute strength is an asset.”
In a way, I understand Aarya; she’s getting in her punches where she can, even if they’re verbal. The guards lead us out of the dungeon and up the flight of stairs we snuck down last night. The wide corridor with the looming portraits is now populated with Strategia, who stare at us uncomfortably. And it gives me hope to know that while Jag may be willing to torture Academy kids in his dungeon, other Strategia don’t find it as palatable.
The guards lead us into the great hall. It’s a huge rectangular room with vaulted ceilings. At the far end there is an elevated platform, upon which Jag sits in a thronelike chair that’s trimmed in gold, with a red velvet seat. Rose stands next to him with a stony expression and next to her is Brendan, who doesn’t look victorious the way I thought he would, but ghostly pale and uncertain.
A large crowd is gathered, speaking in hushed voices that hum with anticipation. Heavy wooden doors close behind us, and the crowd parts as the bouncer approaches, creating a pathway for us to be brought to Jag.
And that’s when I see him. Dad. His hands and chest are bound with rope and he’s on his knees in front of Jag, surrounded by four guards. There is blood on his face and I see cuts on his arms. He makes eye contact with me, and despite his banged-up appearance, his eyes have the same steady look they always do. A sob rises in my throat.
Jag leans back in his throne, exuding self-assurance as the guards line us up in a neat row. He’s the picture of poise, transformed from his unassuming private persona to his showy public one. I glance around the room, searching for some sign that Layla is safe, but find none. There are twelve guards standing with us, thirteen if you count the bouncer. Plus two with Jag and two more at the entrance we came through, which is the only way in or out of this room. There is no place to hide in here, nowhere Layla could be.
Jag clears his throat and the room falls eerily silent. “Welcome, Family and friends,” he says, and his tone is easy and imbued with his usual charisma.
I scan the crowd, wondering how many different Families are here, but it’s impossible to tell based on appearance alone.
“Today we meet under unusual circumstances.” Jag takes his time getting up from his throne and moving between us and the crowd. “As I told you all last night, the Ferryman apprehended the man who not only killed our former Regent but made a mockery of our Family. A worthy capture, one that is a testament to our Family’s strength and dominance, and one that will be remembered for decades to come. This is the man who appears before you.” Jag gestures at my dad. “While I knew the criminal would be cunning, and I knew he would be resourceful, what I did not imagine, could not imagine, was that he would also be someone I once knew better than my own self. This man, who has committed unspeakable acts of betrayal, of cold-blooded cruelty, this man…is my son, Christopher.” Jag pauses, letting the information sink in.
There are low murmurs from the crowd and people look at one another, unsure. I hear my dad’s name being whispered.
“Like you, I was led to believe that Christopher was murdered as a young man,” Jag says. “Like you, I trusted my son, believed that he was unshakably loyal to this Family.”
I look at my dad, but he just stares forward at the crowd, unflinching. And it becomes clear why Jag invited all these people—this public display is meant to show his Family and all of Strategia what happens if you challenge him. He’s spinning fear behind the façade of justice.
“Under markedly different circumstances, this would be a happy occasion,” Jag continues, momentarily lowering his head as though the whole ordeal has taken a toll on him. “But unfortunately, that is not this day. Instead of the bright, capable boy who was meant to lead this Family, the man who has returned to me is a traitor.” His expression is somber. “Not only was he captured after making an attempt on my life, but he passed his twisted ways on to his daughter, who admits without remorse to recruiting fellow Strategia to move against me. She killed our very own Harry.” There are uncomfortable whispers in the crowd and people lean over each other to get a look at me.
“Unfortunately, there is no hope for my son and his daughter,” Jag says as though this is a difficult decision for him. “They have been thoroughly corrupted…”—he pauses, making sure he has everyone’s attention—“by the Bear Family.”
My eyes widen, and I’m not the only one who’s shocked. The room hums with tension.
Jag sweeps his eyes across the crowd. “Our sources show that these two have been working with the Bears for many years now in an attempt to destroy this Family. They have gone against everything we Strategia stand for, undermining our value system and threatening our way of life with their flippant disregard for our rules.”
I glance nervously at the crowd. I remember Ash telling me that leaving Strategia was forbidden, that it was punishable by death. And from the nodding among the onlookers, it’s obvious they think we’re guilty of that and much, much more.
Jag clasps his hands behind his back. “It’s a sad day when a father has to pass sentence on his own son and granddaughter. I can see that you agree I would be remiss not to. But the burden that is weighing heavily on me this day is not restricted to these treacherous Family members. It extends to the Bears who supported them—the head family that hides in London as we speak and the apothecary who provided these traitors with poison intended to kill me, to name just a few transgressions.” Jag’s knowing gaze falls on me for the briefest of seconds, a look of victory in his eyes; my stomach does a fast unnerving flip. “I fear the time has come for me to right this wrong. The Bears have been taking liberties for years now, and if the Council of Families won’t move to correct their offenses, it leaves me no choice but to take action myself.”
I flit my eyes to Ash, but he’s watching Jag, his expression laced with worry. Suddenly this public display makes sense. This was never about us; he could have killed me and my dad in his dungeon and no one would have been the wiser. Jag is using us to start a war with the Bears. And if he succeeds, Jag will go uncontested, free to abuse his power and dominate the rest of the Strategia. This is what Ash meant when he said he wanted to know what Jag was up to, that he thought Jag had an ulterior motive.
Without warning I hear my dad laugh, and I’m so surprised that I flinch. “Bravo,” my dad says to Jag in a big booming voice. “Wonderful performance. You should take a bow.”
Jag frowns at the sound of his voice and gives my dad a warning look before returning his attention to the crowd. “I will make no exceptions for my son and granddaughter; they will receive the same treatment I would afford any traitor who abandoned Strategia, compromised our secrecy, and attacked their own Family: execution.”
Jag snaps his fingers and one of the guards opens the door, letting through a man dressed entirely in black and holding a double-sided axe. His tunic has a wide hood that comes down over his face in a blackout mask. Sweat drips down my temple and I try to get my dad’s attention.
But my dad isn’t looking at me; he’s still looking at Jag. “Do you honestly imagine anyone believes that you’re starting a war with the Bears because of me?” he says in a clear voice. “Certainly not. For years you’ve been looking for a reason to make the Bears bow to your depraved rule; I am merely an excuse.”
People in the audience shift, looking from Jag to my dad and back again.
Jag’s expression remains unfazed, but he looks at the crowd as if gauging their reaction to my dad’s words. “It is impossible to argue with the facts,” he replies, and straightens his tunic, an easy, unconcerned gesture.
“If you were relaying facts, you wouldn’t be hosting a private execution. Careful now,” my dad says. “Or people might think you’re doing this for personal reasons.”
In any other situation, I would be cheering on my dad for getting under Jag’s skin, but not with an executioner in the room.
Then I see it: Jag’s eye twitches. “You might find it judicious to spend the last minutes of your life more wisely, like saying your goodbyes. But no matter, it’s easy enough to gag you. Guards,” he says, and once again scans the room, like he’s looking for some unseen threat.
One of my dad’s guards shoves a cloth in his mouth, stopping him before he can reply.
“Now bring him up here,” Jag says, his voice perfectly controlled.
The bouncer places a large wooden block on the ground in front of us. It’s covered in dark marks that I can only assume are bloodstains. I feel the color drain from my face, my heartbeat pulsing furiously in my temples. And as the guards drag my dad forward, I struggle.
“Are you all really going to let this happen?” I say angrily to the crowd, in a last-ditch effort to buy time, for Layla to show up, something. “Are you really going to let him kill his son and granddaughter without question? Maybe you will, maybe you’ll stand there, justifying our execution as punishment for breaking some archaic rule. Maybe you’ll ignore your misgivings about why the firstborn son of the Lion Family suddenly disappeared as a teenager, and the fact that he left because his own father put a hit on him. And even if you can make peace with all the things that don’t add up, how will you possibly explain away my friends? Is it right that Jag murder a group of Academy students without their Families, without the permission of the Council? A Jackal, a Fox, and the head Wolf’s son.”
Once again shock rolls through the crowd in the form of hushed conversations and worried looks.
“Enough!” Jag says, only it’s not the quiet tone he used to silence Aarya last night; it’s forceful, signaling a small crack in his composure.
But I keep talking, Ines’s words about defiance ringing in my head. “Ask yourselves this: Are you comfortable letting someone who would murder children rise to be the head of all Strategia? Strategia have rules; we have order. Jag breaks all those rules and yet he still runs this Family. How can this be? How can he be allowed to kill off the most talented students at the Academy, of all places, a time-honored institution where the child of every Family is an equal?” When I stop speaking, my dad is staring at me, proud.
There are a couple of gasps in the crowd. I can tell Jag wants to muzzle me, too, but is too prideful to let it look like the only way he can control the situation is by gagging everyone.
“The ramblings of a guilty child,” Jag says like it’s all very sad that I’m so desperate, but his eyes are angry.
“If you don’t believe me, ask them.” I nod at my friends, speaking as fast as I can, hoping my words are connecting. “Ask Brendan. He’s not a good enough liar to hide it. And then ask yourselves: What if your children, cousins, brothers, sisters are next because they disagree with Jag? Because the Lions are not the problem here. I refuse to believe it’s the Lions. My dad’s a Lion. I’m a Lion. The person who is abusing his rule, the person who is killing other Strategia without cause, is Jag.”
Jag’s face tightens, but instead of addressing me, he gestures at the block, redirecting everyone’s attention to my dad and the executioner.
My dad’s guards force his head down onto the bloodstained wood.
“No!” I scream, and the sound is guttural, ripped straight out of my heart. I struggle against my guards with wild movements, but however I thrash, I can’t break their hold on my arms.
Jag’s eyes twinkle as he walks up to me on his way back to his throne. He leans in, speaking just loud enough for me to hear. “You will die last, watching your father and every one of your friends go before you.”
For a heart-stopping second, I remember the coded message Ash was reluctant to give me—Harry’s dead and there will be retaliation—Jag’s setting a trap for us in his dungeon, hurting my friends, this. After soaking in the expression of horror on my face, Jag calmly walks back to his throne, confident once more.
In desperation, I struggle harder against my guards. “Dad!” I yell as the executioner takes his position.
I throw my shoulders backward and kick my legs up in the air, as though I were doing a backflip. The guards manage to support my body weight, but I lean so far back that I’m practically inverted, giving me enough momentum to kick the guard on my right in the face. There is a crunching sound and blood comes pouring out of his nose. He drops me, causing the other guard to lose his footing, and I hit the ground hard on my side. But before I can right myself, the stumbling guard regains his grip and yanks me to my knees by my hair.
“Raise your blade!” Jag commands the executioner, victory ringing in his voice.
The executioner lifts his axe with both hands, the blade hovering over him for a split second, and the entire room seems to pause with it. Then he drops his arms, the blade whipping through the air so fast and with so much force that no one has time to react as it changes direction—slicing the bouncer’s head right off.
A scream stops in my throat so abruptly that I choke. Blood sprays outward and the crowd lurches back. It’s so quiet that when the bouncer’s head and body hit the floor, the noise echoes, like the sound is being broadcast through a loudspeaker.
I stare unblinkingly at my dad.
Then everything happens at once. The guards throw open the door to yell for backup and half the room looks toward the exit, not like they’re scared, just like they want no part of this fight. The executioner doesn’t waste a moment. He swings his axe again, taking down one of the guards holding my dad.
“Kill them!” Jag orders behind me, his usual calm replaced by anger. All I can think is that he sees his mistake in inviting members of other Families to watch the execution—people who might need him politically but also have no interest in risking their lives to save his.
The guard whose nose I broke unsheathes his knife while the other one yanks my head back, exposing my throat.
“Nova!” my dad yells, but he and the executioner are outnumbered, fighting four guards.
Ash, too, calls out for me, but his hands are still bound. He whips his head to the side, smashing it into the face of the guard on his right.
My guard steps toward me, his fingers tightening around his knife handle. I attempt to go backward, but the other guard’s grip on my hair makes it impossible to move. I keep my eyes open, looking straight at my oncoming killer.
“Do you think you’ll remember this?” I ask. “The day you killed an innocent seventeen-year-old? Or will it just be another day working for Jag?”
For a split second, he hesitates. Instead of softening, though, his expression hardens and he closes the distance between us. Just as his blade comes toward me, there’s a buzzing sound and the guard grunts like the wind was knocked out of him. Then his eyes widen and he steps uncertainly to the side, dropping his blade. A wooden shaft sticks out of his back. An arrow?
My eyes sweep the room, but before I can locate the archer, there’s another buzzing sound and I duck reflexively. The guard holding my hair sways, loses his grip on me, and drops to the floor. I look from him to the crowd, where I see Layla, bow in hand, which she reloads to take out one of Ash’s guards. I search for Matteo, but he isn’t with her, and I’m not exactly surprised. I was shocked he came to London in the first place. I could hardly expect he would risk coming to the Lion estate.
“Layla?” Ash says in disbelief. But before Layla can get another arrow out of her quiver, one of Jag’s men is on her, throwing a kick that splits her bow in half. Ash jabs his elbow into his remaining guard’s throat, and as the man chokes, Ash breaks free of his restraints and moves toward his sister.
I bend down fast, grabbing a knife from the dead guard’s belt and sawing through the rope that’s tied around my wrists. I turn toward my dad, who’s fighting two guards alongside the executioner. But before I can get to him, another Lion guard collides with my shoulder, sending me back a step. The moment he makes eye contact with me, he swings, connecting with my jaw before I can find my balance. My mouth fills with blood.
I regain my footing and lunge forward, slashing at his torso. He nimbly jumps backward, my blade cutting nothing but the air in front of him. He yanks two knives from the sheaths on either side of his belt. I readjust my stance, watching his hands and his eyes, hoping he’s not as good with knives as I fear he might be. He begins to lift his blades, and I brace for his advance, but it doesn’t come. Instead, his eyes widen and his back arches unnaturally. I stare at him in confusion as a wet patch appears on the front of his black shirt. Blood.
The guard falls to his knees, dropping his blades, and there standing behind him is Ash.
“November,” Ash says with relief, immediately scanning me for injury.
Then Layla is at his side, and with their matching expressions they look unmistakably like twins.
The room is in complete chaos. Everywhere I look people are fighting to the death. Ines drops one guard with a kick to the throat and punches another. She moves with grace and self-assurance, like a petite ninja. And her shorn hair doesn’t diminish her flair; if anything she looks more badass than ever. Aarya’s no slouch, either. She’s got two knives and is slashing them through the air with remarkable speed.
Jag is watching them as well, his face twisting into a grimace. He grabs a knife from his belt and pulls his arm back, aiming it at Aarya. Ash follows my line of sight as I scream, “Aarya!”
Jag’s hand is extended, the knife already flying through the air. But Ines has seen him, too, and dives in front of her friend.
A look of horror washes over Aarya’s face as she realizes what’s happening. “No!” she screams. But it’s too late; Jag’s knife has lodged in Ines’s chest, a clean shot, a kill shot.
Ines slams back against Aarya, who wraps her arms around her friend, and together they slump to the ground. Ines’s face contorts with shock and pain.
Aarya rips off the sleeve of her own shirt, pressing the fabric around the knife wound. But there is so much blood that it’s soaked in seconds. Aarya stares at her fingers, covered in red, continuing to put pressure on the wound.
“I’m getting you out of here,” Aarya says, sliding an arm under Ines’s neck.
“No, Aarya,” Ines responds in a self-assured voice.
Aarya grips Ines firmly, lifting her slightly.
“Stop,” Ines commands, her voice strained, and Aarya does.
For a moment they just stare at each other. Aarya bites back tears, and Ines places a shaking hand over Aarya’s, squeezing her friend’s fingers as if to tell her not to worry.
“I…th-thank you,” Ines says, but her voice comes out gargled and her eyes struggle to stay focused.
“Don’t you dare thank me, Ines. You’re not dying,” Aarya says stubbornly.
But Ines’s breathing is getting progressively more labored. “Thank you…for being my sister.”
Aarya opens her mouth to respond, but Ines’s eyes flutter and close, her body going limp in Aarya’s arms.
Aarya touches Ines’s face. “Ines?” she breathes. “Ines?” But Ines is gone, and by the way Aarya’s face crumbles, she knows it. She folds over her friend, squeezing Ines into her body, her pain so visceral that I feel it in my own chest.
I pull at my shirt, like I can’t get air, like it was all sucked out of the room, my breath fast and stilted. But deep down inside, anger is forming, small and tight and hot, like a red coal from a dying fire. My hand clenches around my knife and before I can even form the thought, I’m looking for Jag, ready to avenge my friend, to guarantee he never hurts anyone ever again. But when I look back toward the throne, he’s gone, and not only him, but Rose and Brendan as well. I do a fast scan of the room, scared I won’t find him and scared of what I might be capable of when I do.
“There,” Layla says, and points. Jag is already halfway across the room, heading for the door.
My dad drops the guard he’s fighting with a fast kick and immediately turns to me. He follows my sight line to Jag just as Jag slips out of the great hall.
“Nova—” my dad starts, but looks again after Jag. “Stay here. Stay safe.” And with a heavy expression, he leaves me to hunt down his father. I know he has to follow him, that he can’t let Jag slip away, but I can’t, either.
“I’m coming with you,” Ash says, his eyes strained with the same conflict of chasing Jag or staying to fight with Layla and Aarya.
“No, just me,” I say. “We can’t leave Aarya by herself.”
“Go, November. You’ll lose them if you don’t,” Layla insists, and I do.