The sight would’ve awed me, but it was nothing compared to hearing her name spoken aloud by someone else for the first time since I’d been human. For a moment, the past swallowed me so completely that I wasn’t Veritas, Law Guardian for the vampire council, any longer. I wasn’t even Ariel, beloved adopted daughter of Tenoch and secret biological daughter of the Warden of the Gateway to the Netherworld.

I had no name. I wasn’t worthy of one. I wasn’t even worthy to suffer and die for my god, Dagon, but he permitted it so others could see his magnificence when he raised me from the dead. After that, it was their turn to die for Dagon. If they truly believed in him, Dagon would raise them back to life, too. He’d proved that by raising Ereshki, and he’d gifted me with her presence so I was no longer alone in my cage. If Dagon didn’t raise his other sacrifices back to life, then they hadn’t truly believed in him. Perhaps the people in the next town would . . .

“Ereshki?” The harshness in Ian’s tone snapped me back to reality. “The bitch who conned you into continuing to believe in Dagon so he could keep torturing and murdering you?”

“What?” Yonah said.

At the same time, Ereshki screeched, “I did not do any of that! I don’t know you! Why would you say such things?”

Rage and regret over all the lives Dagon had brainwashed me to help him take made my voice hoarse. “If you’re not the same person who helped Dagon murder thousands by pretending to be his victim while all the time you were his ally, then you won’t have a birthmark shaped like a crescent moon on your left hip.”

I should have been satisfied to see her face pale when I ripped her purple ball gown to expose her hip so Yonah could see that the mark was there. But I didn’t. I still felt so choked by her betrayal when I’d been at my most helpless that my throat felt as if it had been suddenly stuffed full of razors.

“I never got the chance to ask you why,” I rasped. “Why did you bother to befriend me first? You could have convinced me of Dagon’s deity without pretending to love me as a sister. It’s that cruelty I can’t forgive, let alone understand.”

She’d backed as far as she could into the corner of the room, her heartbeat sounding like a drummer banging away on steel lids.

“I don’t know you.” An anguished whisper as she frantically glanced between me and Yonah. “I have never seen you before now. I have no idea who Dagon is, either. You know I don’t!” she wailed, directing that, oddly, at Yonah. “I remember almost nothing before waking up in that ditch five weeks ago!”

I felt the color drain from my face while my stomach dropped as if I’d come to a sudden stop after a long fall. She had almost no memory beyond the past five weeks? No. No. She couldn’t be one of the newly resurrected souls . . . could she?

She could. Ereshki had bargained her soul away to Dagon before we met. I’d overheard that when I learned of her betrayal on the same day that Tenoch rescued me. Of course Dagon would’ve collected on Ereshki’s debt a long time ago, and how like him to bottle her soul as his own personal resurrection fuel instead of delivering it to its intended destination.

That meant she was probably telling the truth. She didn’t know me because my time with Ereshki had been tied to Dagon, and my father had yanked all Dagon-related memories out of her when he brought her, Ian, and the other souls back to life. She wouldn’t have had cause for those memories to linger the way they had for Ian, either. She’d cared nothing for me.

“Bugger,” Ian said, echoing my suspicions.

I forced a neutral expression onto my features even though I was close to screaming at this cruel twist of fate.

“Yonah,” I said in an admirably controlled tone. “We need to talk.”

Chapter 28

Yonah, Ereshki, Ian, and I stood on opposite corners of the elegant drawing room on the third floor of the mansion, one full level away from the festivities. Of course, things were less festive now that the ball’s guest of honor had been hustled upstairs by Yonah’s guards. Yonah had summoned them because he hadn’t trusted me or Ian to secure her.

Wise of him. Despite her memory loss, a part of me still very much wanted to kill Ereshki. From the glares Ian shot her way, so did he. The only reason Ian probably hadn’t slaughtered Ereshki himself was because he wanted to watch me do it.

“We appear to be in a quagmire,” Yonah said, starting with the obvious. “Ereshki was brought to me three weeks ago by a loyal ally who’d found her in an Iraqi marketplace, screaming in terror at the planes overhead and the vehicles around her.”

A harsh snort left me before I could stuff it back. I suppose that would be terrifying, if the last thing Ereshki remembered before that was camels for transportation.

“This ally quickly realized Ereshki was suffering from more than normal mental health ailments,” Yonah went on. “Her last memories were from ancient Mesopotamia. Ereshki also exhibited mild supernatural abilities as well as having altered blood. All the above put her in danger from Law Guardians, demons, and Red Dragon dealers. Thus, this ally sent her to me, and she has been nothing but gracious and grateful—”

“Oh, she’s good at that act,” I interrupted, bitterness sliding like venom through my veins. “I fell for it, too, even when I was being repeatedly tortured and murdered.”

Yonah stared at me for a long moment. Then he sighed. “Many refugees over the centuries came to me with the same story: a beautiful vampire-witch named Ariel with silver eyes and white-blonde hair streaked with gold and blue saved them. As if there was any doubt that this was you, no fewer than six of them recognized you at the ball tonight. For all that you have done on behalf of those who are now my people, Ariel, I thank you. But”—now his tone hardened—“my gratitude does not include giving you Ereshki as a sacrifice for your vengeance. Whoever she was when she wronged you, she is not that person any longer.”

The rational part of me agreed with his logic. The rest was screaming, That’s for ME to decide! I’d bought that right with my blood, and I was all that was left of Ereshki’s other victims, too. They also deserved long-denied justice being served to her.

That’s why I couldn’t trust myself to speak at Yonah’s arrogant declaration that I had no say in Ereshki’s fate. Worse, I could feel my other half stirring, drawn by my rage. It wouldn’t take much for that half to assume control again. She looked for weaknesses to exploit all the time now.

Ian glanced at me, then settled into his high-backed antique chair as if he had nothing more important to do than make himself comfortable. “You’re being shockingly naïve,” he said to Yonah in a companionable tone. “No wonder you couldn’t stand living in your former world. Must have been hell.”

With how Yonah’s face darkened, he didn’t appreciate the quip. “I know who you are, too, boy,” he replied coldly. “Unlike Ariel, nothing I’ve heard commends you.”

Ian grinned. “Then you heard exactly what I wanted you to hear. No one suspects a scoundrel of allying with righteous causes, so I’m not on any of the wrong radars. Let me tell you what you don’t know—Dagon is coming for this girl, so you endanger everyone on your island every moment that she is here.”