“The drugs keep her lucid.”

“Are you sure she’ll stay on them once we release her?”

“She’s going out on her brother’s recognizance. And Dr. Taj is, as we all know, a most well-regarded physician.”

“Ashwini, can you hear us? We need you to answer some questions.”

She’d answered their questions, said what she knew they wanted to hear. It had been the last day she’d ever pretended to be “normal.” So they’d let her out, let her go. “Never again,” she whispered.

And the hell of it was, people still liked her.

Her hand fisted. Not everyone. Dr. Taj wanted only the sister he’d known before, the rising star whose glitter matched his own. Who the hell cared if that star had been dying piece by slow piece as she tried desperately to hang on to a sky she’d never quite understood?

It was the heat that wrenched her out of the abyss, as her skin began to protest its treatment. Flicking off the water with a grateful sigh, she rubbed herself down using the fluffy peach-colored towel that went with the elegant décor of the room. It would’ve been normal to head out into the bedroom in the matching robe hung on the back of the door, but Ashwini was a hunter. And, within the Guild, paranoia was not just accepted but encouraged.

It was as well. Because when she walked out—barefoot, but otherwise dressed, her gun hidden in the curve of her lower back—it was to find the most dangerous being in Atlanta waiting for her.

“Nazarach,” she said, stopping in the bathroom doorway. “This is a surprise.”

The angel stepped out onto the balcony. “Come.”

Sensing it would be suicidal to refuse, she followed him out into the summer air, the night heavy with the warm scents of the flowers that ringed the estate. “Janvier?”