“Can you hotwire it?” I called as Danaus jumped onto the boat.

Wordlessly, he walked over to the wheel and knelt before it. I was stepping onto the boat when I heard the sound of breaking plastic as he ripped the panel off. He fiddled with the wires for a moment, causing the motor to sputter and cough. I was skilled with some mechanical items, but had yet to learn the fine art of hotwiring a vehicle. When I needed to go somewhere, I usually hijacked a driver as well, saving myself the trouble. Unfortunately, most people were still asleep at this hour and I didn’t want to try to track down a private taxi driver.

An impatient remark nearly leapt from my tongue before the motor suddenly roared to life. Danaus rose to his feet and shifted the boat into reverse. As he dropped it into drive, I pointed toward the Lagoon and he launched us into the darkness, moving me away from the safety of a resting place for the daylight hours.

“Where are we going?” he asked after a couple minutes. We had left the Guidecca Canal and entered the Lagoon. The dark waters opened around us, the gentle waves rising and falling in a hypnotic dance. Lights danced in all directions, cold and distant, as if taunting me with promises of protection from the sun that was rising closer to the horizon. The immediate area was a thick, inky blackness, a swamp of night created by the waters—a sanctuary that was chosen only as a last resort.

“Head for that island, San Clemente,” I said, pointing toward a swath of land another ten minutes away. A large hotel rose up out of the darkness, a handful of its windows glowing against the slate-gray sky. A neat row of lamps lined the sidewalks, wrapping around the island. “That’s where the Coven resides most of the year. It started as a monastery but was converted into a hotel in the past century. There are other buildings on the island, including the main hall for the court.”

“Why are we going there now?” Danaus asked, turning the boat and putting on more speed. His eyes jumped up to the sky for a second, possibly judging the time left until the sun officially rose.

“We’re not,” I replied, forcing back a smile. “Turn off the engine.”

His head jerked toward me, his brow furrowed in confusion, but he also wordlessly slowed the boat to a stop before killing the engine.

Standing next to him, I spread my legs as wave after wave rocked the small craft, lapping at its sides. “I want you to scan the area for naturi.”

“Now?” he demanded in surprise. His eyes darted again to the sky, which was growing lighter by the minute.

I gripped the seat in front of me, my nails biting into the plastic. “Yes, now. Just do it. We don’t have time for a debate.”

With a frown, Danaus stared out at the Lagoon. His powers surged out from his body, ripping through me as if made of nothing more than smoke. I flinched but didn’t move. Its warmth wrapped around me in a snug cocoon, holding me tightly, but it lasted only a few seconds before it dissipated.

“I can’t search all of the city,” he said at last. “That island is cloaked in some kind of magic. Everywhere else is clear, but I can’t verify the island.”

“I suspected as much,” I murmured. I could sense the creatures through the barrier. Even without using much of my powers, I could tell there were more than two dozen nightwalkers on San Clemente, not to mention the nearly three hundred humans. However, I couldn’t sense the naturi. No nightwalker could, as far as I knew.

But I could with help from Danaus. I had been able to sense them briefly when we combined our powers at the Themis Compound. This was stupid and extremely dangerous, but I had to know. I had to know what we were walking into tomorrow.

“I need your help,” I slowly said in a low voice that barely reached above the sound of the breaking waves. “I have to know if there is a member of the naturi on that island. When we were linked in England, I could sense the naturi. We have to do that again. I’m the only one who can push through their protective barrier.”

Danaus nodded and held out his hand to me. Hesitantly, I lifted my hand, but I still didn’t take his.

“We can’t kill anyone on the island. We can’t even try. Don’t think it, Danaus, or I swear I will destroy us both,” I warned. “Let’s just take it slow.”

It took a great deal of effort to force myself to take his hand. The pain for our last joining was still fresh in my mind, and while I had recovered, I was in no rush to experience it again.

Lucky for me, it was different this time. The power didn’t run screaming into my body, but slowly flowed in like a small woodland stream. It trickled up my arm and into my chest. The warmth seeped into my bones, filling my body. But then it changed. The power expanded in my bones until I thought they would splinter and break.

“Too much,” I whimpered, struggling to keep to my feet. I tightened my grip on the chair before me but could no longer feel it. There was only Danaus’s hand and the steadily increasing pain.

“I can’t slow it any more. Focus,” he said. His voice sounded distant, as if he were on the other side of the Lagoon. The sound of the water hitting the side of the boat had faded.

Focus on the island.

This time the words came as a command in my head. Thoughts about the pain starting to rip through my limbs ebbed and my mind focused on the island that bobbed ahead of us. It took only a moment, but I found what I was looking for. A member of the naturi lay sleeping on the island. By the size, I was willing to guess that it was probably a female, maybe of the light or wind clan. I made one quick scan of the buildings but knew I wouldn’t find another. It didn’t matter. One was enough for me.

“Stop,” I said in a hoarse voice, struggling to release his hand.

I felt Danaus hesitate, his hand still tightly gripping mine. His thoughts were a jumble, but I understood the feeling. Frustration. One order from him and I would torch every nightwalker on the island. He wouldn’t get another opportunity like this one.

“Stop!” I cried, my voice cracking. I jerked my hand but couldn’t break Danaus’s grip. I was fighting the power burning in my body, trying to halt its progress as it raged through me.

Angrily, Danaus released my hand and I dropped to my knees. He was breathing heavily, leaning on the steering wheel, but he looked to be in better shape than during our first attempt at this little trick.

My bones ached and my muscles burned and throbbed with a pain that I was becoming well acquainted with. Yet it wasn’t as bad as earlier in the evening. I’d recover soon enough.

“You would have been tempted too,” he breathlessly said, struggling to straighten.

“But I wouldn’t do it,” I croaked, leaning against one of the seats in the boat. “We made a bargain.” I put my head down on the seat and closed my eyes, listening to the sound of the water hitting the side of the boat. “Don’t worry. You’ll get another shot at them, I promise.”

Something had died inside of me, leaving a small, heavy corpse curled up in the pit of my stomach. I never had much respect for the Coven, but I’d always believed their ultimate goal was to protect my kind. I believed they would protect us all.

Countless centuries ago the Coven had been created by Our Liege to help establish some kind of control over the growing number of nightwalkers that were filling the earth; to establish order in the chaos. Four ancient vampires were handpicked by Our Liege to hold court and pass judgment when Our Liege chose to be absent. During the centuries, Elders were killed in power struggles and evil schemes, but the feel of the court never changed. It was a place of horrors and dark fantasies. The Coven was about power and control.

But in the end I also believed it was about the protection of our kind. The Coven was created to protect all nightwalkers as much as it was to protect humans. The naturi had slaughtered nightwalkers through history like animals. For nearly countless ages they hunted down and destroyed thousands of humans and vampires, believing both races to be a pestilence on the earth. Nightwalkers had sealed the naturi from this world, and we have protected that seal. Why would the Coven suddenly turn its back on that history?