“Indeed.”

   McAllister looked down and pulled his sweater away from his chest. The reindeer’s left eye, right over McAllister’s heart, had been obliterated, and I could see the glint of the three bullets caught in the black vest underneath. Fedora hadn’t been messing around. All of those were kill shots, and the tight grouping was especially impressive. So she could shoot too, in addition to her acrobatics. She’d definitely wanted him dead, which only made me more curious as to what, if anything, he might know about the Circle.

   Jonah McAllister had been the personal lawyer for Mab Monroe, the Fire elemental who’d run the Ashland underworld for years before I’d killed her. Mab had also been the bitch who’d murdered my mother, Eira, and my older sister, Annabella.

   For years, I’d thought that Mab had killed my family because of a long-standing feud between the Snows and Monroes, as well as her worries about my Ice and Stone magic potentially overtaking her Fire power someday. But Hugh Tucker had claimed that Eira had been making trouble within the Circle, so he and the other members had given Mab the go-ahead to murder her. Something else that had come as a stunning, horrifying revelation, and something else that had made me even more determined to get answers about my mother, the Circle, everything.

   Starting right now.

   McAllister grimaced and let his sweater drop back down into place, even though the one-eyed reindeer looked anything but cheerful now. He glanced back and forth between me and Phillip, his mouth pinching in thought. I could almost see the wheels turning in his brain as he wondered what we were doing here—and how he could best twist the situation to his advantage.

   I was still holding my knife, so I stabbed it at the couch along the wall. “Sit.”

   McAllister swallowed, but he moved over and plopped down on the couch. I grabbed a chair that was beside the desk and moved it into the open space in front of the couch. Then I turned it around, sat down, and leaned my elbows across the back of it. Phillip stayed by the patio doors, glancing outside and keeping watch, just in case Fedora and her giants decided to double back and take another shot at us.

   I looked at McAllister, and he stared back at me, wetting his lips over and over, as well as repeatedly dry-washing his hands. If he knew how desperate I was for information—any information—about the Circle, he wouldn’t tell me a damn thing, just like I’d told Phillip earlier in the van. So I kept staring at McAllister, my face calm and blank, waiting for him to crack and start talking to fill the tense silence.

   It didn’t take long.

   “What do you want, Blanco?” McAllister snapped.

   “Well,” I said, still keeping my easy tone and casual posture, “in case you haven’t heard, locked up here in your ivory tower, I am officially the queen bee of the ­underworld these days.”

   He scowled, but he didn’t say anything.

   “It has come to my attention that there are some folks who want you dead, Jonah. Well, more so than usual, anyway. Given my new position, you would think that these people would check in and get my permission for the hit, especially when it’s so well-known how very much I want you to stand trial for your crimes at the Briartop art museum back during the summer. But these folks didn’t get that okay from me, so I decided to come by and spoil their little assassination party.”

   It was complete bullshit. The only reason I wanted McAllister to keep on breathing was so I could pump him for information, but he didn’t need to know that.

   “Now, I’ll admit that these folks actually surprised me, actually got the better of me. I didn’t think that they would be quite so smart, quick, and determined. But that only makes me more curious about who’s decided to stir things up in my sandbox.”

   “Your sandbox?” McAllister sneered. “It’s not your sandbox, and it never will be. Not the way that it was Mab’s. The other underworld bosses were too afraid of her to make much trouble. At least, not so openly. You, my dear, are a completely different story. Queen or not, you’ve killed enough of their friends that they all want you dead.”

   I snorted. “Please. My body count isn’t nearly as impressive as Mab’s. She fried people just for looking at her the wrong way.”

   “Certainly,” McAllister agreed. “But Mab never pretended to be anything other than the stone-cold, ruthless bitch she truly was. Everyone’s sick and tired of your little moral code and annoying self-righteousness. Sooner or later, one of the other bosses is going to succeed in taking you out. I just hope that I’m still alive to see that day when it comes.”

   “Going to dance on my grave, Jonah? That’s a bit cliché.”

   He scowled at me, anger staining his cheeks and making them almost as red as the reindeer nose on his garish sweater.

   I shrugged. “You’re probably right. I never wanted the job, but now that it’s mine, I’m going to make the best of a bad situation and all the bad, bad folks who come along with it.” I leaned forward. “Now, tell me what you know about the Circle.”

   He frowned. For once, his forehead actually wrinkled the way a normal person’s would, despite all his years of Air elemental facials. “The Circle? What Circle?”

   McAllister was a good lawyer and more than capable of all sorts of theatrics, including lying to my face. I studied him, but for once he seemed genuinely confused.

   “The Circle,” I repeated, trying to keep my voice smooth and even and not let him know how important this was to me. “They’re the ones who sent that assassin after you tonight.”

   He shook his head. “Never heard of them.”

   I glanced at Phillip, who shrugged back at me. He thought that McAllister was telling the truth too.

   “The Circle,” I said for a third time, a bit of annoyance creeping into my tone. “Some secret group that Mab was involved with. I want to know everything you know about them.”

   McAllister shook his head again. “Sorry, but I’ve never heard of any Circle. What kind of idiotic nickname is that anyway? Sounds like a yoga group.”