I was late to work the next day.

Well, not technically. When I'd finally gotten around to showering — after going back to bed, sleeping for a few fitful hours, and then getting up again — I'd discovered Brendan had used one of my good lipsticks to scrawl the words sleep in on the bathroom mirror.

So I arrived later than usual, but technically not late.

Some strange impulse had me take the stairs, even though it was six flights. Maybe I needed to stretch my legs. More likely, I just wasn't ready to plunge into the organized chaos of the office, not when my own thoughts were in such a disorderly state.

Juhan. Brendan. Kasimir.

They were a lot to think about. They had been a lot to dream about. I'd only spent the one day with Juhan, but I couldn't quite forget the feeling of his mouth on mine, the raw need that had surged through his lips. Nor could I forget Brendan's surprise visit to my apartment, even if all physical remnants of it had been wiped away: my memory was locked around the cold arrogance of his eyes, the burning heat of his embrace, the brutal joining of our bodies that had left me aching with pleasure. And Kasimir, after all of it, so sweet and tender, coming to rescue me like a knight of old.

I nearly walked face-first into the fire door.

I caught myself just in time, one hand resting against the cool metal as I tried to collect my thoughts. Pull it together, Severine. It would be dangerous to be distracted like this when I entered Brendan's office. Just because he had been indulgent last night didn't mean anything had changed. He was still my Wielder; I was still his third Catalyst. Not his lover. I needed to act like it.

After a deep breath, I pulled the door open and walked into the reception area on the top floor. There was no one behind the desk, but the laptop was on, the open screen shining blue light on the glossy wood. Odyssa must have just stepped away.

Past the mahogany doors, the foyer stood just as empty. I didn't catch any glimpse of Aeliana through one of the open doors, even though she was rarely permitted to leave this floor during working hours. Still, not every door was open. I thought I heard voices murmuring behind one of the closed doors, the soft rumble of a serious discussion. Probably something above my pay grade.

When I reached the doors to Brendan's office, I paused. I didn't have to go in, really, not now. I could wait until he summoned me. Still… my gut told me that it was better to show up of my own volition. That would please Brendan, make him think I was trying to curry his favor, earn myself another night visit. And maybe I was. Of the three men who'd haunted my dreams, Brendan was the only one I could have while I was awake. I'd thought not being with anyone was better than being one of his harem, but the truth was I didn't think I could go another year without some kind of intimacy. Not after last night.

Once I'd listened long enough to be certain that I couldn't hear any voices coming from Brendan's office — that I wasn't about to interrupt any meetings — I grabbed the door handle. As I pulled, I dropped my gaze to the carpet, let my false smile slide across my lips. Soft, demure, submissive. That's the trait he'd extolled last night; let it be the first thing he saw in me this morning.

I stopped a few steps into his office, hearing the door slowly whoosh closed behind me as I clasped my hands in front of my waist. Sun glowed on the beige carpet just a few inches in front of my toes. Brendan would be bathed in sunlight, back to playing his role of holy god-king of the city.

At last, I lifted my gaze. "Brend—"

I never finished.

Brendan lay on top of his desk.

He was on his back, arms stretched wide to either side, his head dangling off the edge. Golden sunlight poured over him, gleamed over the ornate dagger plunged deep in his chest.

I swallowed.

It didn't look real. Even though my eyes now picked up the slow, fat droplets of blood that dribbled off the desk and splashed onto the pale carpet, my brain still insisted it wasn't real.

Brendan couldn't be dead. He was the Shadowmage. He had been the Shadowmage for more than a thousand years. He was ruler of the city, leader of its mages, president of his own business empire. He was my Wielder.

But the only movement in front of me was those crimson beads as they spilled from desk to carpet, one by one, a grisly Morse code.

I took an unsteady step forward. I had to be sure. It could have been an illusion, a cruel prank — or yet another test of my loyalty. Another step. It could have been a terrible wound, but not mortal, not fatal. A step closer again. It could have been someone else, someone who wasn't Brendan.

But it was, and he was dead.

I could see that now, as I stood over him. His blue eyes were open, flat, staring unseeing at the ceiling. His strong hands were open, limp, fingers spread, palms empty. His designer suit looked crisp and freshly pressed; the blood barely showed on the pitch-black fabric. If not for the scarlet soaked into the bleached whiteness of his dress shirt — and the ritual dagger protruding from his chest — he would have looked almost peaceful. Still dead, but not murdered.

This was murder, though.

The dagger was one I didn't recognize. Not that I knew all his weapons, but I knew his tastes — he liked shiny and new, or at the very least expensive and encrusted with gems if it were old. This dagger's blade wasn't visible; its full length was buried deep within his chest, angled to perfectly pierce his heart. But the handle was bone, worn and yellowed by time. Animal etchings raced across its surface, the details rubbed away by generations of handlers, but I glimpsed what I thought might have been a dog or a bear. The pommel looked to be metal, a blackened iron or steel, engraved with a large letter P.

I stumbled back, pressing a fist to my mouth. It couldn't be. Brendan had threatened him, but he hadn't meant it. Couldn't have meant it. He was too smart, too suave, too strategic to attack a guest as important as Juhan Parkkonen.

With a shuddering shake of my head, I spun back towards the doors — and nearly fell.

Odyssa sat on the floor. She leaned back against the wall, a foot or so to the right of the door frame. Her head hung at a funny angle — someone had cut her throat so deeply they'd nearly decapitated her, and only a few bits of muscle and tendon still held her neck together. Severed white bone gleamed wetly in the sunlight; the front of her body was a single crimson wash. Blood had soaked into a wide ring of carpet all around her body. Tiny droplets had splashed up across the wall in an arc that nearly reached the ceiling.

Her eyes, at least, were closed.

A fine tremble started at the base of my spine and sped upwards.

Mages might die. Mages fought, and sometimes mages died. But Catalysts did not die. Catalysts were not killed, no matter how desperate the fighting. Those were the rules.

But Odyssa was dead.

And I couldn't seem to convince my body to move. I needed to move, to get out of here — to find Kasimir, to tell him what had happened, to warn him of the danger. But my muscles had gone stiff, rigid, immobile.

Footsteps sounded on the other side of the room. The sound broke through my shock, and I swung to face the sound — and saw nothing. But still I heard the footsteps growing closer, louder, as if their owner were almost on top of me—

The shimmering edge of a spell washed over me, sent tiny rainbows dancing across my vision. Strong hands grabbed me. One snatched me, swung me around; another clamped hard over my mouth. I felt an arm wrap like an iron band around my body, pinning my arms against my sides as I was hauled back against a man's chest.

"Don't scream." The words were hissed into my ear, barely louder than a whisper.

The voice was Juhan's.

I wish I could say I froze, but I couldn't. I was shaking too much for that.

We were inside some kind of spell; the air in front of me had a strange, iridescent edge. I hadn't seen it from the outside, but now that I was at the center of the magic, it was impossible not to see. An invisibility spell of some kind? Had Juhan been here the entire time? Watching me? Waiting for his chance?

To do what?

"We don't have much time before they come back," he whispered, lips pressed close to my ear. "I need you to listen to me, Severine."

Not that I had much of a choice.

"I didn't do this." There was a fierceness to his words, almost a growl. "Brendan may have been a conniving bastard who deserved it, but I would never harm a Catalyst. And I would never hurt you."

The hand lifted away from my mouth, and I — I did not scream.

"What are you doing here?" I almost sounded calm. Almost.

"I will tell you everything, I swear it, but we have to get out of here. Now." The arm around me hadn't loosened so much as an inch; Juhan still held me tight. "Please, Severine, you have to believe me."

Did I? Brendan — I could see Juhan killing Brendan, though I couldn't quite understand how. Brendan should have been the better mage even before his Catalysts tipped the scales. But Odyssa… I remembered the anger in Juhan's eyes, in his voice, when he'd learned Brendan's views on people and power.

I didn't believe he'd kill a Catalyst, not even to save his own skin. Besides, murdering Brendan would get him a trial; murdering Odyssa would get him an execution. There was no redeeming a man who'd killed a Catalyst, no matter how long he lived. Even his father would value a Catayst more than his own son; Ernst could make more sons, but he couldn't make more Catalysts.

"There's a back stairway," I offered. "An emergency exit."

Juhan's arm loosened, and I heard a heavy sigh squeeze past his lips. "How do we get to it?"

I turned within the circle of his arm, tipping my head back to stare up at him. There was no blood on his face; Odyssa's killer should have been caught in the arterial spray. No red spatter on his clothes, no dark smudges or bright smears. Some of the tension within me eased. Not all of it, but enough. "There's a hallway off the foyer, but if there's anyone in the foyer, they'll see us before we can reach it."

He nodded, a thoughtful look furrowing his brow. "I can provide a distraction. Hold on to me or you'll end up on the outside of the invisibility spell."

Not spotting a better option, I grabbed the bottom hem of his blazer, digging my fingers into the fabric. Satisfied, Juhan released me and took a half-step back. I watched as he pushed the cuff of his sleeve up to elbow — watched as he revealed a forearm crowded with tattoos. They started just above his wrist and continued up under his sleeve. The black lines were all runes, rows and spirals and triangles made of runes, each separated by only the narrowest strip of blank skin. Spells. Well — almost spells. I wasn't a mage, but I knew enough to recognize each ended with an unfinished rune, one that lacked a final stroke or two.

Juhan reached for the large sigil that took up the center of his forearm — a personal sigil, like Brendan's had been, but this wasn't the Shadowmage spell. It was something different, and Juhan's fingertip was making the two quick slashes needed to complete the final rune.

Magic made the air tingle, and shards of prismatic light swirled through my line of sight. I blinked, shaking my head in an attempt to clear away the afterimages.

When I looked up again, my breath caught in my throat. There were two Juhans, now, the one I held onto and a new one. More identical than twins: perfect copies. Even the unruly curl at his left temple was exactly the same on both.

"An illusion?" I asked, staring at the clone. Brendan had liked glamour, fixing small details here or there, but I'd never seen him do a full illusion like this. I'd never seen any of his mages do such a perfect replica as this.

The first Juhan — the original — nodded. "Something like that. He will head to the main staircase, and I'll need you to get us to the hallway to that back stairwell. You ready?" He reached for me, fingers curling tight around my own.

No. No, I was not ready for any of this. But I squeezed his hand in return. "Yeah."

The second Juhan headed for the door, and the original Juhan pulled me along after. We needed to exit together, that much I understood; a door opening itself would rouse suspicion. What I didn't understand was why the second Juhan reached for the door handle, because illusions couldn't touch things, couldn't move things. They were as corporeal as the sunlight that streamed in through the windows: visible, but not physical.

I stumbled in surprise when the second Juhan grabbed the handle and pushed the door open. That wasn't possible. It just wasn't. It wasn't — but the original was already dragging me out the doorway while it was still open, apparently unfazed by his double breaking the known rules of magic.

Two people were in the foyer now. Meaghan I recognized by the sweep of her long, coppery-blonde hair as she turned to smile at the second Juhan. Vicente, a short, heavyset man weighed down by a thick mop of black curls, gave a curt nod of acknowledgement at the Juhan double, who smiled and waved as he walked past.

Just a normal day in the office; nothing to see here.

Except the two were mages, albeit down in the lower ranks of Brendan's organization and not nearly powerful enough to qualify for their own Catalysts, but mages just the same. They should have been skilled at detecting when they were being deceived by magical means — some mages could even detect the faint shimmer that accompanied a spell — and yet neither seemed to notice anything off about the clone.

Neither one noticed us, either, even though we stood right outside Brendan's office.

Then Meaghan turned and headed for us — no, headed for the doors to the office. I tugged on Juhan's hand, and he let me lead him towards the narrow hallway tucked between two offices.

We were running out of time before the bodies were discovered, before Meaghan's pretty green eyes landed on Brendan's bloody red corpse. There were only minutes, maybe only seconds, before the alarm went up and the office erupted like an angry beehive. The frantic pounding of my heart wanted us to rush, to run, but I forced my steps to be slow and soft.

Invisible didn't mean silent. The invisibility spell would do us no good if we bumped into something or made too much noise.

We just needed to reach the hallway, some twenty paces away, before they discovered us.