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Echo’s fingers loosen against my shirt before flattening over my chest. “I heard them talking.” I wait while her eyes hold mine. “And I think we’ve been looking at this all wrong,” she says, and her voice shakes in a way I’ve never heard it shake before, not even the night Thessaly first said her name across the yard.

My hellhound settles hard beneath my skin as I brace a shoulder against the clubhouse and wait.

Echo drags both hands through her hair before looking at me. “Thessaly thinks she made a deal with Malgrave.” My jaw tightens. “She gets me. The Conclave gets my voice. Whatever Malgrave promised her in return, she thinks she’s finally won.” Her mouth twists around the last word. “Three days, remember? That wasn’t just a threat. That’s how long she has to deliver me.”

My fingers curl against my palms.

Echo sees it and says, “It gets worse.”

Fucking fantastic.

“Malgrave told her I have to be brought in alive.” She hesitates, and that tiny pause puts my hellhound right back on its feet. “Then he told her not to damage my throat.”

My head snaps up.

Echo touches her throat without seeming to realize she’s doing it.

Something hot and vicious punches through my chest.

Her throat.

Her-fucking-voice.

I push away from the wall.

“I know.” She catches my forearm before I can start pacing. “I don’t know why yet.”

Yet. I fucking hate that word.

“But that wasn’t the worst part.” Her fingers tighten around me. “I heard something underneath them.” I stop. “The same presence I heard when Malgrave had his hands on you.”

Every muscle in my body locks.

Echo’s eyes stay on mine. “It was faint around Thessaly, but it was there. She thinks she’s controlling this whole thing. She thinks she made the deal, set the terms, got Malgrave exactly where she wants him.” A humorless laugh slips out of her. “She has no fucking idea.”

My hellhound presses harder beneath my skin.

Neither of us needs to say the name.

We already know whose hand is buried this deep in Hell.

Echo folds her arms across her stomach, but she doesn’t look away from me. “The Devil isn’t just using Malgrave. He’s using Thessaly too. He’s taking everything she already wants and pushing her toward it hard enough that she thinks every choice is still hers.”

Hell has always been good at that.

Make the leash long enough and eventually the poor bastard wearing it starts believing he’s free.

“And there was something else…” Echo steps closer. “Malgrave said the extraction is behind schedule.”

My attention drops instinctively to my chest.

“He wants what’s inside you, Carnage. The hellfire. Sentinel’s Grace. Whatever the two became when they fused.” Her voice lowers. “That part I’m sure about.” I look back at her, and she swallows. “What I can’t figure out is why the Devil needs me alive to get it.”

My eyes drop to her throat.

Hers follows my gaze.

And something ugly starts turning over in my gut. Every nerve in my body goes molten at once, hellfire climbing through my chest so fast the gravel beneath my boots starts to smoke. I know exactly what it feels like to have something ancient decide you belong to it. To have your choices stripped away until all that matters is what you can do for them.