Claimed by Sarah Fine Page B

the screen as Rylan slid his rook across the board. “No idea.”
    The guard stood in front of the screen to let it read his facial biometrics. “Mr. Ferry. You have a visitor.”
    Rylan looked up at the camera, his brown eyes sharp. “Who?”
    “It’s me, Ry,” said Dec. H e’d expected to feel fury at seeing his brother again. The last time the y’d been together, Rylan had shot him in the neck and left him to die. If Aislin hadn’t showed up and assumed the power of the Charon, Dec wouldn’t have made it. He shuddered at the memory of those few desperate moments when he felt his grip loosening, when h e’d stared at the ceiling of Galena’s apartment and wondered where h e’d go—Heaven or Hell. “I want to ask you about some stuff.”
    Rylan rubbed his knuckles along his unshaven jaw. “Come on in.”
    The guard drew his finger across the video screen, and the door clicked, swinging open. “Ten minutes. That’s the Charon’s policy,” the guard told Dec. “Press the emergency button if you need us sooner than that.”
    Rylan was standing next to his table, smiling. “That’s not going to be necessary, Charlie. I think Dec could handle anything I threw at him.”
    The guard nodded at him. “Sure, Mr. Ferry.” He gave him a polite smile and closed the door, locking Dec in.
    Dec turned to find Rylan watching him. “I didn’t expect you to come,” Rylan said quietly.
    “I didn’t expect to, either. I pretty much thought I was done with you. Turns out I’m not.”
    Rylan pulled out the chair at the table. He pushed it toward Dec, its metal legs scraping along the floor, then backtracked and sank onto the single bed, the only other place to sit in the room.
    Dec sat down in the chair. “How’s mortality treating you?” Aislin had stripped Rylan of his immortal status in the aftermath of his murderous scheming.
    “I haven’t been this achy since I was a teenager with growing pains.”
    He hadn’t been a mere human since then, either. “Has she sentenced you yet?”
    Rylan tilted his head. “I figured sh e’d keep you in the loop, Declan. She always seemed to trust you. What’s changed?”
    “Don’t try that mind-twisting shit with me. Aislin can tell me when she’s ready.”
    Rylan held up his hands. “I wasn’t twisting anything. I just thought the two of you were close.”
    Dec didn’t feel that close to Aislin right now. He wasn’t quite sure where she stood when it came to Galena and the potential repercussions of her work. But he wasn’t about to admit that to Ry. “I have some questions.”
    Rylan leaned back, looking totally relaxed. All his desperation from last week seemed to have melted away, replaced with his usual smooth veneer—and the barely perceptible cunning underneath. “And you think I have answers? I’ve been locked up in here since Aislin took over.” He raised his eyebrows. “Wait, has something happened?”
    “I do think you might have answers,” Dec said, avoiding his brother’s last question. “Did you choose Mandy, or did she choose you?”
    Rylan had worked with Mandy, a Ker, to kill seven people, including Dec and Ry’s father. The y’d hurt countless others—including Galena—in the process.
    Rylan pursed his lips. “Why should I tell you that?”
    Because Luciana had said her attacker’s eyes had glowed red. “I thought the Kere couldn’t make a move without Moros knowing. Aren’t they all psychically connected to him or something?”
    “More like soul-connected. But Mandy realized she could get around that. She came to me after learning about Galena Margolis. She said sh e’d resented Moros for decades and was dying to take him down, and sh e’d finally found the way to do it.” He shook his head. “She seemed to really hate the guy. Anyway, she showed me that she could kill by choice, not just by command, and she offered to help me become the Charon—for a price.”
    “And it was that easy for you, to betray our