This will work, I thought, my throat tightening. It has to.

“I understand that you feel you have nothing to say to us.” Agent Sterling began the interrogation like it was a conversation, treating the serial killer’s feelings and desires like they were completely valid. “But I thought this picture might change your mind.”

She laid an image on the table—not Mason Kyle, not yet. For now, Agent Sterling needed an entry point, something to tax the killer’s capacity for silence—in this case, a picture of Laurel.

“Did you call her Laurel?” Agent Briggs asked. “Or Nine?”

No answer.

“They have her, you know.” Agent Sterling’s voice was even and calm, but there was something intense about it, like each word that passed her lips was a living, breathing thing. “We hid her, but not well enough. They found her. Maybe they always knew where she was. Maybe they were just biding their time.”

I should have protected her, I thought fiercely. I should have been there.

Beside me, Dean laid a hand on the back of my neck. I wanted to lean into his touch, but didn’t. I didn’t deserve to be touched. I didn’t deserve to feel safe. I didn’t deserve to do anything but sit here and watch the man who’d killed Judd’s daughter reach for the picture of Laurel.

“You brought her to Las Vegas with you,” Agent Sterling said. “Why?”

“If I didn’t know better,” Briggs commented, once it became clear that Nightshade wasn’t going to say anything himself, “I’d think that you cared for the child. That you wanted to get her away from the life she was living.”

All Nightshade offered up in response to those words was another stretch of deafening silence.

“He wasn’t happy when he found out the Masters had her again,” Michael informed the agents. We were miked. Briggs and Sterling could hear us; Nightshade could not. “But he’s not surprised, and he’s not upset. If he’s feeling anything right now, it’s longing.”

What are you longing for? Not Laurel. Something else. Someone else…

“Ask him about my mother,” I said.

When the FBI caught you, you cashed in your last chip—your only chip—to speak to me. You took Laurel away from the other Masters. You told me things that no one outside of your hallowed walls was ever supposed to know.

“Did Lorelai ask you to get her little girl out?” Agent Briggs asked. “Did she whisper a desperate plea in your ear?”

The Pythia doesn’t whisper. The Pythia doesn’t plead. I could feel those words—or something like them—simmering just below the surface of Nightshade’s silence. The FBI cannot begin to fathom who and what the Pythia is—to you, to your brethren. You won’t tell them.

Silence is power.

“Show him Mason Kyle,” Dean suggested beside me.

Take away his power, I thought, take away his silence.

Agent Sterling didn’t say a word as she pulled out the photograph Sloane had found of Mason Kyle.

Michael let out a long whistle. “His chin just jutted out ever so slightly. He can barely keep his lips from pressing together. Look at the way his hands are folded on the table—there’s tension in his thumbs.”

“He’s angry,” I inferred. “And he’s scared.” I thought about everything I knew about Nightshade. “He’s angry that he’s scared and scared that he’s angry, because he’s supposed to be above things like that. He’s supposed to be above it all.”

My understanding of emotion came from a different place than Michael’s. It had nothing to do with the muscles in Nightshade’s jaw or the glint in his eyes—and everything to do with knowing what a man who lives to win felt when he realized he’d bet everything on the wrong hand.

When he realized that he’d lost.

“This is an age progression of that photograph.” Agent Briggs pulled out the sketch that Celine had done for us.

As Nightshade stared at his own face, Agent Sterling went on the offensive. “Mason Kyle, born in Gaither, Oklahoma, Social Security number 445-97-1011.”

That was the sum total of what we knew about Mason Kyle, but that was enough. We were never supposed to know your name. You were supposed to be a phantom, a ghost. Even sitting in a cell, you were supposed to have the power.

“I’m a dead man.” The words were barely audible. Months of silence had not been kind to the killer’s throat. “I am not worthy.”

To the Masters, that’s a death sentence, I thought. A Pythia who is not worthy dies in battle against her successor. When a child is shown to be unworthy of the mantle of Nine, they’re left to die in the desert. And a Master who fails in his duty…

“It will be painful. It will be bloody.” Nightshade—Mason Kyle—stared through the agents, like they weren’t even there. “She cannot afford to let it be otherwise—not after choosing to let me live until now.”

My mouth went cotton-dry. She as in my mother.

“The Pythia?” Agent Sterling said. “She’s the one who decides if you live or die?”

No answer.

“Let me talk to him,” I requested. Neither Briggs nor Sterling gave any sign that they’d heard me. “Let me talk to him,” I repeated, my fingers curling themselves into fists and releasing, again and again. “I’m the only one he’s ever really spoken to. He won’t tell you about my mother, because you’re not a part of this. But in his eyes, I am—or at least, I could be.”

The last time I’d spoken with this man, Nightshade had told me that maybe someday, the Pythia’s choice—to kill or be killed—might be mine.

With a slight nod, Agent Sterling removed her earpiece. She set it on the table and turned up the volume so that Nightshade could hear.

“It’s me.” I struggled to find the right words. “Lorelai’s daughter. Your Pythia’s daughter.” I paused. “I think my mother is the reason you took Laurel when you left for Vegas. You weren’t supposed to. And you certainly weren’t supposed to tell me where she was. You all but gift-wrapped her for me, knowing I would hand her over to the FBI. My sister hadn’t been tested. She hadn’t been deemed worthy or unworthy. And you let her go.” Still no reaction, but I could feel myself getting closer. “You treated Laurel like a child—not like your future leader, not like Nine.” I lowered my voice. “She told me about the game she plays, when my mother is in chains.”