Elise was true to her word about mobilizing any witches coerced into the cult, and she kept me informed as best she could. We continued to discreetly pass notes when we saw each other around the building, taking care to burn or flush the paper after we'd read them. It was a slow communication system, but it worked. It also meant that Elise was the only person I felt I could trust, as she kept the names of anyone else involved secret.

I didn't blame her. In the event that someone tried to force out the truth, no one should have all the information at once. Not even Elise. Not even me.

Her communication was good, though, and she passed on as much information as she could. The most recent intel from her was the most concerning: another attack planned on the Veil.

No one was quite sure what Calen was planning, but there were weapons involved. There were travel plans. Elise had to piece things together from folks in different parts of the building, all working on different pieces of the puzzle. Some were packing travel supplies, others gathering research, and others on what seemed to be wild goose chases.

It was an intricate operation, and it was lucky that we managed to catch it when we did... though there wasn't much time left. We had nine days.

My leg bounced as I slumped in my chair, stuck beside Calen in yet another meeting. He droned on about some kind of plan known only to him, something about a theft job that needed to be done. The other half dozen enforcers on some upper tier of his cult hierarchy listened intently, nodding along as Calen said something about maps, locations, additional meeting times, and where to get supplies for your assigned team.

I wasn't really paying attention. He had these meetings all the time, and some of the operations were dropped before they even got off the ground. Calen was a planner, but he was also cocky and impulsive. He'd plan something on a whim, but then cancel it as soon as he wasn't one hundred percent sure that we could pull it off. They kept saying something about Sylvan crown jewels, which I didn't actually think existed, and I was pretty sure that meant it would all fall apart before the plan went into action.

It was an annoying waste of time, but permission for me to zone out.

Instead, I was trying to work out if it might be possible to get a message to Dante about the veil attack, but every hypothetical situation ended badly. Best case scenario: the message never made it out and no one knew I'd tried to send it. Worst case scenario: Calen caught on and realized I'd broken the witch's promise by sending a message. I didn't have to help him, but he did have me on a pretty tight verbal leash. I could talk with people in the building, but I wasn't allowed to send outgoing messages.

The fact was, even if I did break the witch's promise, it wasn't like a bolt of lightning would announce it to the world. It was simply mutual magical assurance that you both stayed in line. If either party broke the promise, there would be immediate and painful punishment, as well as very likely karmic consequences in the future... but I was willing to risk that if I was sure the message got out. While breaking the promise wasn't the end of the world, it did put everyone I cared about in significant and immediate danger. I couldn't afford that. The consequences had to be worth it.

Thus, it would probably be better to wait until I had more information on... Well, whatever weird, nuanced part of a bigger operation this meeting was about. I'd lost track a long time ago.

"Any questions?" Calen asked, snapping me back to the present.

The only thing that was worth paying attention to was close to the end. Calen was planning another operation to break through the Veil. I still wasn't entirely sure how he managed, but he'd essentially had infinite tries to figure it out. It wasn't surprising that he'd eventually hit on something that worked.

I also wasn't entirely sure why Calen would want Sylvan gems. They weren't really any different from mundane gems, and he had enough money from centuries of living that he didn't really need to worry about funding his operation. There weren't even any papers I could peek at for details. No one seemed to have notes, as per usual, like they were expected to memorize all the details immediately and never tell a soul.

A heist, truthfully, seemed a little out of character for him. Everything he did was so meticulously planned that it made me wonder what kind of message the theft was supposed to send. He wouldn't put all this effort into it for nothing...

But maybe it didn't matter. Maybe it was all a smokescreen to disguise whatever bigger attack Elise happened to know about. That seemed more likely.

"How about you? Questions?" Calen raised an eyebrow, arms crossed as he stared at me.

"What? Me?" I rolled my eyes. "Don't see why it matters. I'm just here so you can keep an eye on me."

I stood from my chair and stretched. It had been a long two hours of paying very, very little attention to the plans, and this wasn't my first meeting. It didn't seem like it was over, either, as I was the only one who stood to leave.

Great. Maybe we were in for another two hours.

"It does matter. You'll be coming with us next week," Calen said flatly. "Next Thursday."

"What?!" I whirled to face him. "I never agreed to that."

I wasn't so concerned about my agreement as the day, though. Nine days-the exact same day of the planned assault on the Veil that Elise was investigating. Maybe my offhand idea about a smokescreen coverup was closer than I thought.

A heist was one thing, sure. I wouldn't put it past Calen to just decide he wanted something and formulate a plan to take it on a whim, but... Elise said there were travel plans involved. She said weapons, horses, tents! That was surely a bigger operation than just a heist.

What was he planning? And why did he want me there?

"You'll do what I need you to do, remember?" Calen asked pointedly. "Consider this your punishment for the little stunt you pulled last night."

"Oh, I'm sorry, the man who murdered the vast majority of my past incarnations is upset about karmic payback?" I snapped.

Calen suddenly stood, sneering as he stormed up to me, but I didn't flinch. He needed me. Hurting me would get him absolutely nowhere, and in fact might only set back his plans.

"You know nothing about my karma, Sunday," he growled.

"I know it well enough," I muttered. "You're an old, pathetic, failure who hasn't been able to pull off his single scheme in hundreds of years. What do you even want? What's the point of all this?"

I goaded him on purpose, and thankfully, it worked.

"I want what I'm owed!" he screamed, his face inches from mine. "My magic makes me superior. I was destined for this-destined to rule!"

I slapped him hard across the cheek, my hand leaving a red mark on his skin. Calen's head jerked to the side as he winced.

"Your magic is a fluke from a bad decision a hundred lifetimes ago," I said coldly, "and I owe you nothing."

I stormed to the door, threw it open, and slammed it shut behind me. Calen should be used to me slamming doors in his face by now, and this behavior wasn't new... which meant I could use it to my advantage, so long as I was quiet about it.

Instead of walking away like I usually would, I leaned against the wall outside the door and listened.

The building wasn't old enough to have keyholes you could look and listen through, but it certainly had hollow doors and shitty walls. I'd have to keep an eye out and book it if anyone came close by, just so no one snitched to Calen that I'd listened at the door, but it was worth the risk. I hoped they might say things that they wouldn't say if I was in the room.

It was hard to make out exactly who some voices belonged to through the door, but I could still hear the majority of the meeting.

"Are you sure taking her with us is a good idea?"

"It's the only idea," Calen growled. "I need her broken."

Anger flared in my gut, my teeth bared and hands in fists. He wouldn't break me. I wouldn't let him.

"I still don't get why we're calling it a heist," someone grumbled. "That's not the plan."

"It is, in a sense. We're stealing the Sylvan throne," Calen drawled.

I stifled a curse. The "Sylvan crown jewels" made a lot more sense now that I knew it wasn't an actual object- it was a code. He was trying to keep me complacent because he knew that I'd try to fight back if I heard it.

I halfway wondered if he'd expected me to listen outside the door, or if he'd come up with some other way to be two steps ahead, but I couldn't be sure. Calen was difficult to out think in a number of ways, and it was hard to see his weak points when he was just as likely to leave open spaces as a trap for anyone brave enough to try to stop him.

"I need her cooperative. She's just stubborn enough to fight me if she knows we're getting close to her family," Calen snapped. "How are the assassination plans coming?"

Assassination plans?

I went cold, biting down on my lip hard to avoid making a sound.

"Fine. The king has a history of coming out to fight in a skirmish, so we can handle him on the field. The queen and two of the three children should be easy. We'll cut them off on the way to their safe house."

"Good. And the fairy boy?"

"Unclear. Why can't we move on him until last?"

Calen scoffed. "Because she has to see it."

Nausea roiled in my gut. No, I did not think I was supposed to hear this part.

They were going to break the Veil open, charge the Court, and then kill the entire royal family. They were going to kill Dante in front of me, all for the purposes of trying to shatter my spirit so thoroughly that I just gave into what Calen wanted.

Suddenly, I felt much less guilty about those attempts on Calen's life. In fact, I felt very, very motivated to try again.

"Why do we need her at all?"

"With Sunday and my magic combined, we will have enough power to mold the very universe to our liking. Or... my liking," Calen corrected. "I can't afford to wait another century and a half for her to reincarnate. Or worse, longer."

Longer? How long had he waited after he killed me? And I supposed there was always a risk of not finding whatever incarnation came up, if I appeared at all. I was halfway curious about his system, but not enough to tell Calen that I'd heard all this.

It did make it clear that he had a system, though. He'd been working on this plan for a long, long time, and it felt like he'd narrowed it down to a science. Calen found my incarnation, coerced her into some king of relationship, and tried to convince her that his plans were noble and just and worth following. When she inevitably disagreed, because he'd clearly always been a raging psychopath, he killed her.

Great. Comforting. Something that totally would not haunt my nightmares. Nope.

"I still don't get it," the same voice muttered.

"Well, isn't it lucky that you don't have to?"

I couldn't tell what was going on behind the door for a moment. I wasn't sure what the sounds were, wasn't sure why there was a silence that wasn't quite a silence... and then it broke.

There was a horrible, heavy thump from the other side of the door, the scraping of chair legs on wood, and an awful silence in its wake. I didn't have to guess what had happened, and I shouldn't have been surprised that it happened so suddenly and flippantly, but I was. Bile rose in my throat, and I forced myself to breathe as I braced myself against the wall.

"Any other questions?"

Not a word.

"Good. Meeting adjourned. Someone clean this up."

The sound of chair legs scraping across a wooden floor was enough to force my legs to move. I had seconds before someone opened those doors and saw me out here, and that was not a mistake that I could afford. Heart pounding and adrenaline rushing through my veins, I took off down the hallway at a full-on sprint.

The rug slid under my feet like a chase scene from Scooby-Doo as I scrambled around the corner and off into another part of the building, though I managed not to fall. Barely.

Heart pounding, I raced around a few corners until I made it back to the dining area, trying not to breathe too hard and draw attention, but I was sure I looked a little green. I was sure anyone in that meeting room looked a little green after what they watched.

"Sunday!" a masculine voice piped up. "You okay there?"

I turned, still forcing myself to take slow breaths, surprised to see the man I'd crashed into the other day. His brow furrowed in concern when he looked at me, and for a moment he reached out, as if on instinct... but then he dropped his hand at the last second.

I blinked at him, like I might be able to see through his appearance and into his mind. Why was he so familiar? I could use the Threads, but it felt like I shouldn't need them, like things matched so well that-

That was when something clicked in my brain. I wasn't sure if it was the mannerisms, the way he said my name, the memory of trying to puzzle him out the last time I'd seen him, or something else entirely, but I knew. I knew exactly who he'd reminded me of and why I thought I'd seen him before.

"Come with me," I said, grabbing onto his arm like a vise.

"Who-" he stuttered. "What did I do-"

"You know what you did," I muttered, stomping down the hallway and dragging him along behind me.

Someone might have caught a glimpse of me pulling him to the side before he entered the dining area, but the back hallway I dragged him towards was empty. Calen hadn't been able to set up a new security camera system in this place, either, which was good.

It would have been very, very difficult to explain why I dragged a random person into a storage closet and locked the door behind us. I couldn't risk someone coming in, but I had to talk to him. Alone.

He stumbled and turned to face me, hands flailing in a way that looked all too familiar as he struggled for words. I didn't have to check the Threads to be absolutely sure of what I was doing, but I did, just in case.

The blue-white crystalline Thread that I expected to see was right there, exactly as it should be.

"Wha-" he began, backing into the wall behind him as I came closer.

When I was close enough to touch him, I held his face between my hands and kissed Dante's glamoured mouth.