This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

drone?”
    Harris rolled his eyes. “What about you, August? Good-looking mons—” Phillip shot him a look. “—kid like you. Anyone special?”
    â€œBelieve it or not,” said August as they stepped out into the night. “My options are limited.”
    â€œNah, you just gotta expand your parameters. Look beyond your—”
    Phillip cleared his throat. “Who’re we visiting tonight?” he asked, scanning the street. August shifted the strap on his shoulder—he’d moved the violin into a different case, one that looked like it was made for a weapon instead of a musical instrument—and unfolded the paper Leo had given him. It was a profile. A victim. August tried not to use that word—victims were innocent, and this man was not—but the term kept getting stuck in his head.
    â€œAlbert Osinger,” he read aloud. “259 Ferring Pass, 3B.”
    â€œThat’s not too far,” said Phillip. “We can walk.”
    August considered the paper as he fell into step behind them. A grainy photo was printed below the words, a capture from a video feed.
    Sometimes people brought cases to Henry Flynn, looking for justice, but most of the targets came from the footage. South City had its own surveillance, and Ilsa spent most days scanning the feeds, searching for shadows other people couldn’t see, ones that shouldn’t be there. The mark of someone whose violence had taken shape. A sinner.
    Corsai fed on flesh and bone, Malchai on blood, and whose it was meant nothing to them. But the Sunai could feed only on sinners. That’s what set them apart. Their best-kept secret. It was the seed of Leo’s righteousness, and the reason all FTFs were required to be shadow free. It was also why, in the early days of the Phenomenon and the mounting chaos, Leo had chosen to side with Henry Flynn instead of Callum Harker, a man with too many shadows to count.
    â€œWe are the darkest acts made light,” Leo liked to say.
    August supposed they were a kind of cosmic clean-up crew, created to address the source of the monstrous problem.
    And Albert Osinger had officially been labeled a source.
    The boots ahead of him came to a stop, and August folded the paper, and looked up. They were on the corner of a gutted street, most of the lights dead or flickering. Phillip and Harris had their HUVs out, beams slicing back and forth on the pavement. They were looking at him expectantly.
    â€œWhat?”
    Phillip cocked his head. Harris jabbed a finger at a building. “I said we’re here.”
    The apartment building looked run-down, five stories of chipping paint and cracked brick. Brokenwindow glass littered the curb where it had been bashed out and boarded over using iron nails. A nest, that’s what they called places like this, where people burrowed down as if waiting out a storm.
    There was no telling how many people were holed up inside.
    â€œYou want us to come in?” asked Harris.
    They always offered, but August could tell they’d rather keep their distance. The music couldn’t hurt them, but it would still take its toll.
    August shook his head. “Watch the front.” He turned to Phillip. “And the fire escapes.”
    They nodded, and split up, and August made his way up the front steps. A metal X had been fashioned across the door, but it wasn’t pure, and even if it had been, it wouldn’t have stopped him. He pulled an access card from his coat pocket. An FTF tool, skeleton-coded. He swiped it, and inside the door, a lock shifted, but when he turned the handle, the door barely moved. Stiff or barricaded, he didn’t know. He put his shoulder into the metal, and shoved, felt the bottom lip scrape the floor for several grating inches before finally—suddenly—giving way.
    Inside, the stairwell itself was a mess of boxes and crates, anything that could be used to help hold back the night if it