“Ugh,” someone muttered. “What is that smell ?”

The wind picked up, and all eyes turned to me as my foul stench spread. Suddenly, I was the center of attention, something that I very much did not want to be right now.

“What did you do?” a nearby cop muttered, his nose crinkling with disgust as he stared me down. “Roll around in garbage all day long?”

I ground my teeth together. That was precisely what I’d done, not that I could tell him that. So I put my head down and hurried along a little faster, before the cop decided to further investigate me and my miserable stench.

As soon as I drew near, those in the crowd shifted back as far as they could and still see the Pork Pit. I started bobbing my head and mumbling nonsense as I shuffled past them. Let them think me some homeless junkie bum, high on blood, drugs, magic, or a combination of all three. At least it made getting through the crush of people easier when they all shied away from me.

I’d circled my way around most of the crowd and was about to cross to the next block over when I spotted a flash of pure white out of the corner of my eye. I stopped and turned my head.

Madeline was here.

She wore one of her expensive white pantsuits that made her trim, toned figure stand out that much more in the darkness. She stood beside Emery at the very back of the crowd, both of them staring across the street at the Pork Pit. Everyone was giving them a wide berth, obviously knowing who Madeline was, except for a couple of folks who were being truly obnoxious with their phones, trying to get the best angle and shot possible for their own ghoulish amusement. But a cold, measured look from Emery soon sent them scurrying away.

Despite the danger, it was too good an opportunity to pass up, so I sidled a little closer to the acid elemental and the giant and slipped into a doorway a few feet away and downwind from them. I sat on the stoop, sprawled my legs out, and slumped my body against the side of the wooden frame as though I were sleeping off a drunk. I held my breath for a moment, but neither of them noticed me or my stench.

“Do you think that she’s really dead?” Madeline asked.

“Everything seems to point to it,” Emery replied. “The body that the coroner pulled out of the back was definitely female, and Blanco never left the restaurant. The cops made sure of that. Elemental or not, I doubt that even she could have survived a fire like that.”

“Perhaps.” Madeline’s face was thoughtful as she stared at the pig sign over the front door. “And yet, I wonder if she found a way to survive and escape after all. I don’t want to make the same mistake that my mother and everyone else has by underestimating Blanco. So far, she’s had an annoying habit of surviving the impossible.”

“You saw how her family reacted when they rushed over here and saw the fire burning through the restaurant. The only thing that stopped Grayson from going in to try to save her was the gun that cop finally leveled at his head. And you saw her sister this morning after the coroner examined the body. You can’t fake grief and anguish like that. Besides, we both know that Blanco would never let her family think that she was dead when she really wasn’t.”

“True. She’s far too weak and soft-hearted for that. Still, I could have sworn that I felt her using her magic during the fire.”

Emery shrugged her broad shoulders. “She was probably trying to use her Ice magic to put out the fire, but we all know that didn’t happen. Every single part of the restaurant was scorched through and through. Even if she could have somehow fought off the fire, the smoke would have gotten her, thanks to all those sturdy brick walls trapping it inside with her.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Madeline’s voice was still full of doubt. “Perhaps I’m just being paranoid.”

An eerie sense of déjà vu swept over me. Madeline and I were far more alike than I’d realized, if she had spent these last few weeks worrying about me as much as I had about her.

“Regardless,” she continued, “we have preparations to make, now that she’s finally out of the way. Have you contacted all the underworld bosses yet?”

“Of course. They’ve been glued to their phones, Twitter, and TVs, watching this all play out. They know you were here when everything went down, and I ordered McAllister to spread the word about what really happened to Blanco. How you trapped her in her own restaurant and then burned it down around her. The other bosses will fall in line. And if they don’t . . .” Emery shrugged again. “I’ll make sure that they do—one way or another.”

So Madeline hadn’t been torturing me and mine just for the sake of her own twisted delight. At least, not entirely. Instead, all of this, every single problem, accusation, and misfortune that she’d caused for us, had been part of her plan to take control of the underworld, just as I’d suspected. Now, with her crowning achievement of my murder making the gossip rounds, she was finally ready to consolidate her power.

I was so going to enjoy fucking things up for her.

But not tonight. No, tonight I needed to get to my family. Then, together, we could plot our counterstrike against Madeline, Emery, Jonah, and all the rest.

Madeline must have had the same thought that I did because she frowned. “What about Blanco’s friends and family? Where are they now? What are they planning? Is there any sign that she’s still alive and has made any sort of contact with them?”

Emery sighed. “There you go, being paranoid again. Blanco is dead. Good riddance.”

“And her family?” Madeline persisted in a much colder voice. She didn’t like having her top lieutenant question her sanity.

Emery grumbled under her breath, pulled out her phone, and started tap-tap-tapping the screen. “According to my sources, they’re all still holed up at Deveraux’s so-called beauty salon just like they have been all day long. No sign of Blanco, and no indication that she’s alive. See? I told you that you were worrying over nothing. Do you want my men to keep watching the salon?”

Madeline stared at the pig sign for several seconds. “No, they can leave. But I want you to go over to the coroner’s office for the autopsy first thing in the morning. I want to be absolutely certain that body is Blanco’s before we proceed with anything else.”

Emery sighed again, a little louder and deeper this time. “I don’t see the point of that. Your plan worked, and she’s dead. You should be celebrating your victory, not worrying over a ghost that’s never going to come back and haunt you again.”