I ignored him. “They’re both dead.”

Adne looked at the floor. Anika and Lydia sighed, but Connor scratched the shadow of whiskers on his jaw.

“That’s not exactly new information, Monroe.”

“We knew about Kyle,” Monroe said quietly. “He was among the Fallen. But we needed confirmation on Stuart. No one is counted as lost without a firsthand account of his or her death.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “Firsthand?”

“Yes,” Anika said. “That’s our protocol.”

I wondered what they would do when they found out exactly how firsthand my view of the other Searcher’s death had been.

“Hang on a sec.” Shay was frowning. “What are the Fallen? I read that name in The War of All Against All. Are those the things that climbed out of my uncle’s gross paintings?”

As much as I didn’t want to, I shuddered the moment Shay mentioned the creatures that had pursued us through the cavernous halls of Rowan Estate. The way they’d shuffled, moaned—how empty their eyes had been.

“Yes, but we don’t have time to get into that now.” Monroe gave him a stern glance before turning back to me. “Now about Stuart, if you know anything . . .”

I nodded and tried to ignore how breathless I felt.

“What happened to our operatives, Calla?” Anika asked. “We need to know how they were taken. Our sources in Vail don’t have any information.”

“Sources?” I frowned.

The look on Monroe’s face squashed the question the moment I’d asked it.

“Just answer.”

Alarm sparked in Shay’s eyes. “I really think we need to put this in some kind of context.”

I pulled my wrist free of his grasp, ready to bolt or attack. “They already have the context, Shay. I’m a Guardian. They know what that means.”

“Aw, shit,” Connor muttered. He and Lydia exchanged a glance and they both began to inch toward Ethan, whose head had taken a deceptively innocent tilt as he watched me.

Adne looked at Connor sharply. “What?”

He shook his head to silence her, keeping his eyes on me.

I swallowed hard. “I was with Shay outside Efron Bane’s club when your men came after us.”

“Go on.” Monroe’s jaw tightened.

“It was my job to protect Shay. I killed one of the men on sight.”

“Stuart,” Lydia murmured. She and Connor stood alongside Ethan like two sentinels.

“Are we done talking now?” Ethan’s voice was quiet.

“Keep your head,” Anika said. “Winning the war is what matters. Wars make casualties.”

“Her kind make the casualties,” Ethan snapped.

“Look at her, Ethan. She’s just a girl,” Monroe said. “Remember what we’ve talked about. The Guardians aren’t what they seem. She may be able to help us bring them over to our side.”

The gentleness of his words startled me. I wasn’t too keen on his calling me “just a girl,” but I was glad enough that revenge wasn’t what Monroe was after. Unfortunately his perspective wasn’t shared by everyone in the room.

Ethan’s face contorted, twisting with outrage. In the next moment his crossbow was off his shoulder and aimed at me.

“Stand down, Ethan!” Anika shouted.

Connor wrenched the weapon from his hands. “Maybe you should leave.”

“I don’t think so,” Ethan replied without looking at Connor. “What happened to Kyle?”

“Other Guardians showed up,” I said, watching Shay step in front of me, almost blocking my view of Ethan. “They said the Keepers wanted him alive.”

Ethan nodded, the veins in his neck throbbing. “And?”

“They brought him to Efron Bane for questioning,” I said. I had to close my eyes, abruptly awash in the horror of that night—the way Efron had leered at me, how my skin had crawled at his touch. The sickening sensations gave way to rising anger. Let’s see him try that again—this time I won’t sit still and take it.

“Were you there?”

“Yes.” It felt like I was back in that office, hearing the Searcher’s screams while Ren gripped my hand. I shuddered.

“Did you do the questioning?” He looked calm. Too calm.

“No.”

“Then who did?”

“Ethan, this has gone far enough,” Monroe interrupted. “You know what happened to Kyle. We saw him at Rowan Estate. It’s over; let it go.”

Ethan glared at Monroe. “I have the right to know what happened to my brother!”

Brother? Ethan’s hateful glances, his constant sullenness—all of it made sense. Twinges of sympathy pinched my chest. I cleared my throat, which was suddenly thick as Ansel’s face flashed in my mind. “I’m sorry you lost your brother. I have a brother; if anything happened to him . . .” What was happening to my brother? And to Bryn, who is as close to me as a sister could be?

He turned wild eyes on me. “So tell me—”

“Wraiths,” I said quickly. “They always use wraiths to interrogate prisoners.”

“Wraiths?” His voice was strangled now. “They gave him to wraiths?”

His eyes closed for a moment, then his hand went to his waist. I saw the flash of steel as he drew a dagger from his belt. My body tensed, ready to shift in the next moment.