Chapter 20 · He Wants a Body

Dorian's staring at my hand like it just killed someone.

Maybe it did. The gold-white light is gone now, but I can still feel it under my skin—hot, alive, waiting. My palm's smeared with his blood and mine, and the burn on his arm is just… gone. Smooth pale skin where there was charred flesh a minute ago.

"Don't." My voice comes out rough. "Don't say it."

He looks up at me. His face is blank, that perfect court mask, but his eyes are wrong. Too wide. Too still.

"You're Wren," he says.

Not a question. A verdict.

I pull my hand back and wipe it on my dress. The silk's already ruined anyway. "I'm Iris. I've always been Iris."

"Your bloodline—"

"I didn't know." The words taste like a lie even though they're true. "I grew up in a studio apartment in Brooklyn. My dad taught art history. My mom died when I was six. Nobody ever mentioned hunters or blood magic or any of this."

Edwin's still pressed against the far wall, white as a corpse.