Hands of Flame

“I fell and then I started digging a pit. I don’t know, maybe this is one of the reasons I agreed to go work for Daisani. I always knew that most of the time I was defending bad guys, but I could live with that. It was how our legal system worked. But it’s our legal system, and I got myself neck-deep in a whole world that doesn’t quite follow our rules. It’s easy to stop toeing the line, Tony. I never knew how easy it was. If I’m not at Legal Aid anymore I’m not in the position of making these decisions, of splitting these hairs. I don’t have to decide if I put Janx away or let him walk.”

“That’s for a jury to decide, not you, Grit.”

“Where are you going to find a jury of Janx’s peers?”

Uncertainty crossed Tony’s face before he looked away with a new frown. “He lives in our world. He should be judged by it.”

“If you can really believe that,” Margrit said softly, “you’re doing one better than me.”

He looked back at her, lips thi

Margrit nodded, then sighed. “Would it do any good to ask you not to pursue him now? Because he’s already chafing at having to promise not to eviscerate you. If you push it…”

“You think he’ll go back on his word? I thought you trusted him.”

“I think he might decide you’re crunchy and good with ketchup now and be terribly, terribly sorry later.” Margrit widened her eyes in her best imitation of the dragonlord’s mockery of i

“That’s quite a mouthful coming from you, at this point.”

“I know.” Margrit got to her feet, wrapping the blanket around her as a barrier against the cool room. “So maybe you’ll take that into consideration. Did Grace bring me any clothes, by any chance?”

“I went to your apartment and got you some.” Tony got up to pull a duffel bag around the end of the bed. “What’re you going to do, Grit?”

“First I’m going to get dressed.” Margrit began rifling through the bag, pulling out a favorite T-shirt, a sports bra and well-loved jogging pants. She shot a smile of recognition and thanks at Tony, who shrugged a shoulder in acknowledgment.

“First I’m going to get dressed,” she repeated, mostly to herself, then glanced at Tony again. “And then I’m going to topple an empire.”

It had sounded good, she thought later, though the reality was that she slipped out of Grace’s tu

Margrit crushed her hand into a fist. No: not more than she had access to, not if she utilized all the resources at her command. But far more than she wanted to use, if there was any potential way to avoid it.

She was ru

Janx and Daisani were symbiotic, always working as a pair. Both Chelsea and Tariq had said that when one failed in a location, the other soon moved on. Margrit told herself it wasn’t betrayal to push Daisani toward that end, but rather helping nature take its usual course.

Disbelieving laughter tore her lungs. Even if she could make herself believe that—and while she was a good liar, she didn’t think she was that good—even if she could, Daisani would never believe it. She already had a very black mark against her on his record. Pulling strings to cut his financial empire’s throat would be setting herself a noose and offering to adjust its fit.

Ir rah shun al, whispered the back of her mind. She sprinted ahead of it, trying to run faster than thought. It leapt ahead of her, taunting: if she failed Janx, his hands would be freed. Daisani losing everything seemed a fair trade for Tony’s life. The vampire, after all, could start again. Tony wouldn’t have a second chance.

Someday, she would be able to look back and pinpoint the moment at which she ceased recognizing herself. Maybe it had been when she’d gone with instinct and admitted to Alban that she trusted him. Maybe it had been later than that; maybe it had been when Ausra had died and Margrit had passed beyond normal human law into being part judge, jury and executioner herself. Maybe all of it had simply crept up, weighting her with incremental changes until she was suddenly, simply, no longer as she had been.

The woman she’d been wouldn’t have seriously considered how to ruin vast financial holdings, much less found herself grimly intending to do so.

Fresh humor, more of the bitter stuff that had followed her lately rather than the previous night’s joyfulness of being alive, surged through her. The truth was the woman she’d been before the Old Races could never have encountered the questions and problems that were now part and parcel of her life. In the same extraordinary circumstances, faced with what she now faced, the woman she’d been would make the same decisions. Had to make them, for the sake of people she loved. Daisani could start again, and at the end of the day, his welfare wasn’t as important to her as Tony’s.

Margrit wondered if that made her more human, or less, than she’d once been.

The thought cleared her mind, leaving her room to simply run. She cut across streets against the lights, making her way uptown with the vague idea of going home, or to the park. It didn’t matter, as long as she ran. For the first time in two weeks, nightmares didn’t haunt her steps, and she felt as though the exercise was helping to replenish the blood she’d lost the night before. She still needed more to drink, but what Tony’d brought had given her strength.

She came to a halt, panting, outside an apartment building, and flipped her ponytail upside down, hands on her thighs as she panted for air. The dizziness felt good: normal, and she was begi

“Ms. Knight?” A voice spoke from a few yards away. Margrit righted herself, hands on her hips while she continued to heave for air, and blinked at the doorman, whose expression split into a smile. “Are you here to see Mr. Daisani?”

Margrit rolled back on her heels, still breathing hard, and looked up toward the penthouse apartment Daisani lived in. She’d had no conscious intention to visit the vampire, and reversed her gaze to eye her feet accusingly, as though they’d developed a mind of their own. Then she smiled at the doorman. “Yeah, I am. It’s Diego, right? Gosh, thanks. I didn’t know if anybody would recognize me, with me turning up all sweaty and out of breath.”

Diego gri

The elevator doors slid open and Margrit stepped in, heel of one hand pressed against her eye as she tried to count back and remember how many days had passed since then. It was late Saturday afternoon now, and that had been Wednesday morning. She’d had far too little sleep in the interim, but felt astonishingly good for all of that.

An almost u

Daisani himself came out of an enormous kitchen off to the elevator’s right, followed by the scent of garlic. “Miss Knight. To what do I owe the pleasure?”