My smile faded. I shifted from foot to foot on the stairs.

My mood might be sunshine glinting off water, but there was a dark undertow beneath the placid surface.

I’d gone further off the deep end than I liked to think about, with the whole decimate-the-universe kick I’d been on. I’d been one hundred percent committed to wresting whatever dark knowledge I’d needed from the Book, no matter the cost to myself or anyone else. I’d been willing to do anything it could teach me in order to replace this world with a new one. All because I’d believed Jericho Barrons was dead.

I hadn’t even had a concrete plan, except to get the Book and wing it, believing I could master whatever spells of making and unmaking it had to offer. Looking back on my behavior, I was stymied by it. Rabid ambition, insane focus.

Alina’s death hadn’t done that to me.

I pushed my hands into my hair and tugged as if the gentle pain might clarify my thoughts. Shed light on my recent temporary insanity.

It must have been the betrayal aspect of it all that had made me so crazy. If only it hadn’t been me who’d stabbed him, I never would have cracked like I had. Sure, my grief at losing Barrons had been intense, but it was the guilt that had crushed me. I’d turned on my protector, and my protector had turned out to be Barrons.

Shame, not grief, had fueled my need for revenge. That was it. Guilt had turned me into a woman obsessed, willing to consider erasing one world to create a new one. If I’d been the one who’d stabbed Alina, if I’d participated in killing her, I would have felt exactly the same way and considered doing the same thing. It wouldn’t have even been love motivating me as much as a desperate need to erase my own complicity.

Now that grief wasn’t a fist around my heart, I knew I would never have gone through with it.

Re-create the world just for Jericho Barrons? The thought was ridiculous.

I’d lost Alina and hadn’t turned into a world-destroying banshee, and I’d loved her all my life.

I’d known Barrons only a few months. If I was going to re-create the world for anyone, it would have been my sister.

Okay, that was resolved. I hadn’t betrayed Alina by not going all Mad Max over her.

So why did I still feel something dark, twisting and turning inside me, trying to get to the surface? What was eating at me?

“Bloody hell, Ryodan, we’ve been over this a thousand times!” Barrons exploded. “The whole bloody way back we talked about it. We had a plan, you deviated. You were supposed to get her to safety. She was never supposed to know it was me. It’s your fault she knows we can’t die.”

I froze. Ryodan was alive, too? I watched him get ripped to shreds and be flung down a hundred-foot ravine. I frowned. He’d said “can’t die.” What did that mean? As in never? No matter what?

He was quiet for a moment and I realized he was on the phone.

“You knew I’d fight. You knew I’d win. I always win. That’s why you were supposed to separate us and shoot me, so she wouldn’t know I was dead. Bring more ammo next time. Try a rocket launcher. Think maybe you could manage to hit me with that?” he said sarcastically.

A rocket launcher? Barrons would survive that?

“You’re the one that fucked up. She watched us die.”

Indeed, I did. So why weren’t they dead? There was another pause. I held my breath, listening.

“I don’t give a shit what they think. And don’t give me this vote crap. Nobody voted. Lor doesn’t even know what century it is, and Kasteo hasn’t said a word in a thousand years. You’re not killing her and neither are they. If anyone is going to kill her, it’s me. And that’s not happening right now. I need the Book.”

I stiffened. He’d said “right now,” strongly implying that there might be another time it was happening. And the only reason he wasn’t killing me was because he needed the Book.

This was the jackass I’d been grieving? Whose return I’d been celebrating? I didn’t ponder the “thousand years” comment. I’d work on that later.

“If you think I’ve hunted it this long to kill the best chance I’ve got, you don’t know shit about me.”

There it was again, the phrase Fiona had used the night he’d stabbed her to shut her up. I was his “best chance.” At what?

“Bring it on. You. Lor. Kasteo, Fade. Whoever wants to get in my way. But if I were you, I’d back the fuck off. Don’t give me a reason to make you live to regret it. Is that what you want? A pointless, eternal war? You want us at each other’s throats?”

Silence.

“I never forget my loyalties. You’ve forgotten your faith. Keep her parents alive. Follow my orders. It’ll be over soon.”

I fisted my hands. What exactly was going to be over?

“That’s where you’re wrong. One world isn’t just as good as any other. Some worlds are better. We’ve known she’s a wild card since the beginning. After what I learned about her the other night, I have to let this hand play out. Have you located Tellie yet? I need to question the woman. Assuming she’s still alive. No? Get more people on it.”

What did he mean by after what he’d learned about me? That I’d teamed up with Darroc? That according to him I’d been willing to betray him? Or was there something else? Who was Tellie and what did he need to question her about?

“Darroc is dead. She’ll tell V’lane she made it up. No one will believe the kid.” Another long pause. “Of course she’ll do what I say. I’ll take V’lane out myself if I have to.” He paused. “The fuck you could.”

The silence stretched so long that I realized he must have terminated the call.

Hand on the door frame, I stood, eyeing the stairs.

“Get your ass in here, Ms. Lane. Now.”

“I heard—” I began.

“I let you hear,” he cut me off.

I shut my mouth, closed the door, and leaned back against it. The corners of his lips turned up as if at some private amusement, and for a moment I thought we were having one of those silent conversations.

You think it’s safe to close yourself in with the Beast?

If you think I’m afraid of you, you’re wrong.

You should be afraid.

Maybe you should be afraid of me. Go ahead, piss me off, Barrons. See what happens.