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"Whatever did this was moving toward the front doors," I said. "Not toward Danika's office."

River released my arm, although nothing about him relaxed. "Which means it left."

"Looks that way."

"That does not make this less concerning."

I ignored the comment. We continued down the corridor together until I skidded to a halt.

Danika's office door stood open.

My grandmother sat behind her desk in the dark, both hands folded neatly on top of it. She was wearing the same dress I remembered from Thursday, and my book lay unwrapped in front of her. She didn't look up when we entered.

"You're early." She conversed pleasantly without lifting her head.

"You knew I was coming."

"I've known since Thursday afternoon." Her attention remained on the book. "It took you longer than I expected. I assume the Alpha talked you out of it until now."

I stopped just inside the doorway and looked at Danika Byrne properly for what might have been the first time in years. She looked terrible.

I didn't have a more elegant word for it. My grandmother had looked essentially the same for my entire life, which was one of the more unsettling parts of being raised by a powerful witch. Age might have applied to other people, but Danika had always seemed to regard it as an administrative inconvenience she had no intention of accommodating.

That Sunday morning, she looked like a woman who hadn't slept in a fortnight and had finally stopped wasting energy pretending otherwise. Her hair was down again, her face drawn, and there was a faint mark on one cheek where she had spent enough time leaning against her own hand for the skin to remember it.

"I came to ask you a question."

"You came to offer yourself."

"I was going to." I didn't deny it and moved toward the chair in front of her desk but didn't sit. River remained closer to the door where I could feel his attention moving around the room rather than settling on either of us. "Alex talked me out of it, which apparently you already knew. So I'm trying something different."

That finally brought Danika's head up.

I rested my hands against the back of the chair and met her eyes. "What's stopping you?"

For the first time since we entered the room, my grandmother went completely still.

"You've had me within reach for twenty-six years. You sealed me as an infant and raised me under your own roof. There were thousands of nights when you could have walked up two flights of stairs and taken whatever you needed, then told the Council I ran away. Not one of them would have questioned you." My fingers tightened around the chair, but my voice held. "You've got six days left. You know what happens if that contract goes to auction, and you know exactly what my soul is worth. Yet I'm still standing here."

Her jaw tightened. It was such a slight movement I might have missed it if I hadn't spent half my childhood studying that face for signs of impending doom.

"This isn't out of sentimentality, Grandmother. Something is stopping you from using me as a bargaining chip or a payment. I want to know what that is."

For several seconds, the old building settling around us was the only sound in the room. Then Danika laughed.

I had heard my grandmother laugh before. Rarely, and usually at somebody else's expense, but I knew what amusement sounded like coming from her.

This wasn't it. The sound came out short and dry, as though a support somewhere inside her had finally given way.

"Sit down, Hazel." She looked at the chair between my hands. "I'm going to tell you, and I would prefer you were sitting instead of looming over me."

Whatever was underneath her voice got me into the chair faster than any threat would've.

Danika stared at her hands for a moment before she spoke again.

"I have tried three times."

The words filled the room so quietly that it took my brain a second to understand them. Then my fingers tightened around the arms of the chair, and every trace of warmth seemed to leave my body.