Did Ian remember that about me? I couldn’t tell, but it was obvious I couldn’t trick him with my vapid-date façade. He’d either seen right through it or he remembered the truth.

“These shoes are ridiculous,” I agreed, kicking them off. Why did modern women torture themselves with such contraptions? “I also hate how stiff my hair is, the stench from this perfume, and this gods-awful dress I can barely move in. Fuck it, I’m showering and starting over.”

Ian’s laugh followed me as I went back into the bathroom. “I’ll wait here.”

A quick shower, blow dry, and normal amount of makeup later, I put on a black silk pantsuit. It was chic enough for a date while also giving me pockets to store my weapons. After my near-escape from the Mycenae ruins, I’d never be without them on me again, especially at night when demons were free to roam.

Ian had on black pants, a black jacket, and a deep umber-colored shirt that should have clashed with his hair but didn’t. Instead, his auburn hair and the shirt looked like different shades of an ever-deepening flame. I tried not to focus on that by wondering what he had planned. Paris’s many landmarks, clubs, opera houses, and restaurants certainly gave him no shortage of options. But after thirty minutes, Ian pulled up to the last place I expected: an amusement park.

I stiffened. “Why are we here?”

“Someone with your long life-span has already eaten at all the finest restaurants, drunk all the best wine, seen all the museums, attended countless operas, and been to so many clubs, they all look the same,” he replied. “But I wager you’ve never been to one of these simply for a fun evening out.”

A strangled laugh escaped me. “You’re right. The last theme park I went to was no fun at all.”

He turned the car off. “This one will be.”

I almost refused to go inside. Then I realized I couldn’t ask for a better reminder of why I had to get away from Ian. Dagon had murdered Ian at an amusement park. He must not remember that, but I did.

“Can’t wait,” I said stiffly.

I maintained that stiffness through the first hour. Then my iciness began to thaw. This park couldn’t be more different from the one we’d battled Dagon at. That had been a broken-down shell filled with the silence of long abandonment. This was an elaborate wonderland of rides, stores, and soaring attractions, like the fairy-tale castle that loomed over the main park.

Granted, at first all the excited squeals from the children reminded me of the demons’ death cries from that day, but by the second hour, I was smiling at the screeches. When was the last time I’d been surrounded by screams of joy?

By the third hour, Ian had cajoled me into riding some of the park’s many attractions. He enjoyed them with his usual abandon, but what surprised me was that I enjoyed them, too. For a few moments, acting like the children around me allowed me to let go of the constant stress, fear of failure, and sadness that had consumed me the past several weeks. How had Ian known that I needed this? I hadn’t even known it myself.

By the fourth hour, I was grinning as I let the rollercoaster whip me around with the kind of force I only felt when locked in a death match. I even raised my arms and let the wind play with my hands as the cars hurtled us toward the bottom. When the ride came to a stop, I said, “Again!” with the same greedy glee I’d heard from countless children this evening.

Yes, I was thousands of years too old for this, but so what? I had the rest of my life to act my age.

Ian laughed, flashing his lit-up gaze at the attendant. “One more time for both of us.”

“One more time” turned into three, until my head spun from the repeated g-forces and the simple joy of reveling in the moment. By the time fireworks broke out over the castle, signaling the park’s closing, I was happier than I would have thought possible at the beginning of the night.

“This was nice,” I said as I watched the sky explode with colors above us.

He laughed. “Normally, I’d take such faint praise as failure, but from you, it means tonight was a smashing success.”

“Yes, your record of showing your dates a good time is still intact,” I assured him.

“I do have a reputation to maintain,” he said with a sly grin. Then that grin faded and his expression turned serious. “In truth, I wanted you to have a good memory to replace the wretched one of the two of us at that other theme park.”

The blood in my veins turned to glass. Ian remembered that?

“Now, what were my last words?” he asked almost casually.

I was so shocked, I was stuttering. “W-what?”

“My last words before I died. What were they?”

I took several steps backward, then hit a metal gate. A quick glance revealed that Ian had picked a deserted place with no exits to spring this on me. I couldn’t fly away from him, either. The brightly lit park had too many security cameras.

“I figured out why my body read as new to Leila,” Ian went on in that deceptively causal tone. “It’s why I have a demon’s abilities without the demon brand, and why I no longer owe Dagon my soul. I died, yet here I stand. Care to tell me how?”

“Ian . . .” I couldn’t tell him I’d saved him. I refused to saddle him with a debt he’d feel honor-bound to repay.

“I think I know,” he said lightly. “Granted, my first glimpse of the Grim Reaper was so terrifying, it was easy to forget his real appearance, but his hair is quite distinctive.” He paused to run a hand through mine. “So are his eyes, and your blood isn’t vampire, demon, or ghoul. Knew you were more than a vampire, but I hadn’t remembered what that ‘more’ was. I do now. You’re half of whatever he is, so either you or he plucked me out of hell and brought me back.”

Dammit, he knew too much! I had to tell him something.

“It wasn’t hell.” I met his gaze, steeling myself. “Dagon had been hoarding souls he made bargains with inside himself. We didn’t know that until we killed him and he burned through one of them to resurrect himself. Then he killed you and swallowed your soul, so the darkness you remember is being trapped inside him. It’s also how you absorbed some of his power. I had my father pull you out because you’d saved my life earlier that night, so I saved yours as repayment, making us even.”

You owe me nothing, hung unspoken in the air between us. I wanted to stress it, but that would make him suspicious. No, I had to act nonchalant.

Ian stared at me, his gaze relentless. “I remember part of that story very differently. Dagon didn’t take my life—I shoved that last bone blade through my eye myself.”

The memory scalded me so deeply, I flung him away. Before I could blink, he grabbed me. Everything blurred, and when it stopped, we were in an empty section of the vast parking lot, the noise from the now faraway park fading in the distance.

“Why did I do it?” he continued. “I must have told you.”

“I don’t remember,” I lied.

He stroked my cheek, his touch gentle despite his iron grip on my arms. “My last memory was the look on your face. There’s no chance you forgot any of it.”

There wasn’t, even if I lived another four-and-a-half-thousand years. But I still couldn’t tell him. It hurt too much . . .