“You won’t be alone. I’m sure Aleksander feels similar to me and will want Lily away too. You’d go together. Maybe to the East Coast, or—”
“Did the lights go out?” Evie asked suddenly. Natalya frowned.
“What?”
“It’s dark.” Evie turned her head, looking around the dimly lit apartment. Her eyes were unfocused and distant. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened.” She grabbed Evie’s chin, turning her so she was looking at Natalya. But she wasn’t. Her eyes saw nothing.
“I can’t see.” Evie touched her face in confusion.
“What do you mean you can’t see?” Natalya directed her gaze upwards, but her eyes were flicking wildly. Not focused on anything.
“I can’t see!” Evie took a frightened step back. “I can’t see anything. Everything went dark.”
Natalya took her hand, and Evie flinched. She turned in the direction of the touch, but her eyes looked past Natalya.
“Evie, calm down.” Natalya’s voice sold the assertiveness she knew wasn’t showing on her face.
This wasn’t normal. People didn’t just go blind for no reason. Maybe Evie had been injured somehow? But she wasn’t in pain. She was just terrified.
Bright panic rushed through Evie, and she started panting. Sharp, quick breaths that sounded like she was swallowing air. And then she didn’t even do that.
She stopped inhaling, her breath catching in her throat and staying there. Her mouth opened and closed desperately as if trying to force air into her lungs, and she was suddenly unable to. Evie clawed at her throat as her eyes rolled back in her head, and she collapsed to the floor.
“Evie!” Natalya knelt next to her, taking Evie’s face in her hands.
Evie didn’t respond. She couldn’t. She writhed and twisted, tried to gasp, and failed. Her throat was taut from the effort of trying to breathe. She couldn’t even sit up, falling back on the floor.
She wasn’t choking. She wasn’t being strangled. It was like she’d lost her ability to breathe. Like it had been stolen from her.
The thought momentarily stunned Natalya as realization washed over her. The jagged puzzle pieces of the past many months snapped together.
Everything made sense. Everything connected. The warlock and his fiend at Varro’s estate. How Stefano had known about Natalya’s presence when meeting with Hasan. Why the apartment had seemed so unnaturally dark. The Court of Chainsdidhave a spy.
The shadows were deeper than usual. They were too dark. Too thick. Toofull.
Natalya looked up, noticing an unusually heavy shadow only a few feet from her. It started to take further form. It grew solid. It grew humanoid.
Emerging from the dark came a woman. She was lean, pale, and had a youthful, androgynous appearance and short, spiky black hair. Her slitted eyes were green. Not the natural, mossy green found in Evie’s but the bright neon of a satiated fiend. Her torso was covered by a t-shirt. Otherwise, her gilded marks would be showing.
“Lady of Lust,” the fiend said to Natalya, smiling with challenge.
Red light spilled over the floor as Natalya’s eyes flared with scarlet fury. “Lady of Envy.”
Chapter 42
The gilded fiend of Envy trailed her green eyes over Natalya. She looked to be enjoying herself.
“You two arereallycute. Nauseatingly so. I should know, with how much I’ve been watching you lately.”
She made a mock gagging noise.
“Give it back,” Natalya snarled. Evie was in her arms, clawing at her throat. Her eyes saw nothing.
“Why would I do such a thing?” The fiend sneered as she said it. “You’ve made someone annoyed, Lady. There’s a certain King who doesn’t like it when people take his things. And my Master isveryinterested in you.”
Eyes flaming with fury, Natalya surged on the fiend and pinned her against the wall. The assault broke the fiend’s concentration. Behind Natalya, Evie gasped.
