“I guess that’s a no,” he said.

For once, he was using his full Amplified strength. I couldn’t break loose. I glared up at him mutinously. “You’re cheating,” I said.

“I’m employing necessary self-defense measures.”

“And, what—you’re just going to keep me here indefinitely?”

“You could try telling me what’s going on with you,” he suggested.

“I thought you needed to be taught a lesson.”

The smile he gave me now wasn’t a smirk—but it was close. “How’s that working out for you?”

My glare went from mutinous to murderous.

He laughed, then rested his forehead against mine. “All right, brat. Let’s try this again. If I let you go, are you going to play nice?”

I responded by biting his lip.

The bite became a kiss, and the kiss was hot and dizzying. Any thought of retaliation evaporated. Leon released my arms, and I looped them about him, one hand in his hair, the other tracing the ridge of his spine. His hands slid down me, and his mouth trailed along the hollow of my throat.

When he stopped again, I opened my eyes to find him grinning down at me. “I win,” he said.

Breathless, I gaped at him. It took me a second to realize what he was talking about. I’d stopped amplifying.

“That’s not fair,” I panted.

“Now who’s distracted?”

His mouth came down on mine again before I could answer.

There was no sign of Iris during the following week, and no further Harrower activity. The Cities were quiet—but it wasn’t a calm sort of quiet. It was tense, expectant, like a breath being held. The Guardians were on edge. Iris’s role in the hunting and harming of Kin girls had not been forgotten, and her culpability in their deaths would not be easily forgiven, if that was what she was seeking. I thought of Anna Berkeley, the girl I’d hoped to save, her blond hair and the plum-colored coat she’d worn. I thought of slashed ankles. A street turning red.

Since the Kin had no courts, and no way of bringing Iris to trial, the Guardians—in conjunction with Esther and the elders—were formulating a plan.

“The system isn’t perfect,” Mom said. “But it’s the only one we have.”

For once, I didn’t want to know the details. My hope was that Iris would simply never resurface. It could be that the Beneath would swallow her once more, I told myself. Just carry her off into the farthest recesses, into the dark heart of the void, and she would never again breach the surface. Maybe she was happier there, as Shane had said. Maybe she had only meant to say good-bye.

I didn’t believe that, but I didn’t have many other options.

Tink had been talked into continuing her training and patrols, but since she’d learned of Iris’s involvement in the Harrower attacks, she hadn’t asked me to come along again. In fact, she’d asked me not to come along again.

“If I’m going to swim in the ocean,” she’d said over the phone Tuesday night, “I’m not doing it with blood in the water. And you are a giant gaping wound.”

“Way to flatter a girl,” I’d said.

“Sorry, but I’m not the one who drew a bull’s-eye on your back. All I’m saying is, I would prefer not to creep down dark alleys with you just now, okay? We can still see each other during the day.”

“Tink, are you breaking up with me?”

I almost heard her rolling her eyes. “Trust me. When I break up with you, you’ll know it,” she’d said. I figured that wouldn’t be anytime soon, however, since she was still traumatized by her near-poultry experience. A few of our friends had organized a barbecue for the following afternoon, and she needed me to drive her to the lake.

Though thunderstorms had ripped across the sky all Tuesday evening, turning the horizon a sickly sort of yellow, Wednesday morning dawned clear and bright. Droplets of rain still clung to the grass when I awoke, but they’d melted away by the time I loaded up Mom’s car with potato chips and French onion dip—my contribution to the barbecue—and headed for Gideon’s house.

I hadn’t seen him since the baseball game, but he seemed considerably improved. He looked healthy, and even happy. There was no indication of that panic I’d sensed in him, and his brown eyes were warm and untroubled. He grinned as he hopped into the car, his hands full with a bag of charcoal and a can of lighter fluid. At some point in the past few days, he’d acquired a painful-looking burn on his arms that was already beginning to peel. Since I’d actually remembered sunscreen, I tossed the bottle at him and ordered him to slather himself with it while we drove to pick up Tink.

“No Leon?” Tink asked as she climbed into the back. Instead of sitting and buckling her seat belt, she shoved bags of food out of the way and draped herself across the seat, propping her feet against the window.

“He’s working, and then he has class,” I said.

She wrinkled her nose. “That’s no fun.”

Tink’s philosophy was that half the point of having a boyfriend was being able to show him off. I laughed. “Agreed.”

The beach at Lake George was busy enough that we could hear splashing and a low hum of chatter all the way to the parking lot, but Kit and Erica had arrived early and secured a picnic table. They were both sitting on top of it, waving their arms wildly as we approached. Next to them was a much more subdued boy in glasses and a baseball cap, who turned out to be Erica’s cousin from Wisconsin. He glanced up from his phone long enough to say “Hey” and then spent the rest of the afternoon texting his girlfriend.

Since Gideon claimed that Belmonte children learned the basics of barbecue around the same time they learned the alphabet, he was put in charge of the grill. While Tink made straight for the water, I sat in the grass next to him and handed him the hot dogs and burger patties Kit had packed into his parents’ cooler.

I pictured a four-year-old Gideon standing next to his father on their patio and decided he had to be exaggerating. I adored Gideon’s family, but I had to admit they weren’t the most graceful of creatures. The majority of his childhood stories involved shrieks, tears, tantrums, and trips to the emergency room. A few years ago, his middle sister had actually had to have her thumb sewn back on after a disastrous incident involving a hayride and a tractor. “How is it that none of you set yourselves on fire?” I asked, sucking on a piece of ice I’d stolen from the cooler.

“I said the basics,” Gideon replied.

“And what are the basics of barbecue?”

He grinned again. “Lesson one: don’t set yourself on fire.”

I shook my head.

I was able to relax as the day wore on. The sun was warm, but not blistering, and the water just cool enough to provide a pleasant contrast. The storms appeared to have passed by. A few tufts of cloud drifted lazily above, but there were no flashes of light across the sky, no rumbles of thunder. Tink, Gideon, and I rested in the sand between swims. I lay back on my towel, shutting my eyes and feeling the sun on my face.

Then I snapped into awareness when Tink asked Gideon, “When’s your next game?”

I sat up in time to see Gideon tense. He’d been drawing little circles in the sand with a twig, but now he stopped, hunching his shoulders and closing his fist. Around us, the sounds of the beach faded, the peals of laughter and squealing of children suddenly distant. I heard the twig crack. “I quit the team,” Gideon said, tossing both pieces of the stick into the nearby crabgrass.

Tink and I exchanged a glance. A furrow appeared in her brow, but all she said was, “Oh.”

Gideon shrugged and smiled, rising to his feet. “Maybe I’ll play again next year. I haven’t decided. I’m going swimming.” Without waiting for a response, he took off toward the water. He paused a few steps in, the current lapping at his ankles, and turned to wave.

Beside me, Tink had fallen quiet. We watched as Gideon vanished into the lake, propelling himself from the shore with long, sure strokes. Sunlight glinted off the beads of water in his hair, and then he was below the surface, lost among the ripples and waves.