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wasn’t here when the Midnight was put into my tea.”
    â€œYou said certain servants are trusted with your food,” Noel pointed out, an exquisite, enticing scent twining through his veins, one that had nothing to do with the gardens. “Yet your focus is clearly on your inner court in the hunt for the traitor. Why?”
    â€œThe servants are human. Why would they chance the lethal punishment?” she asked with what appeared to be genuine puzzlement. “Their lives are already so short.”
    â€œYou’d be surprised what mortals will chance.” He thrust a hand through his hair to quell the urge to reach out, twist a blue-black curl around his finger. It continued to disquiet him, how easily she drew him when nothing had penetrated the numbness inside him for months—especially when he had yet to glimpse the nature of the power that was at the root of her reputation. “How many servants do I have to take into account?”
    â€œThree,” Nimra informed him. “Violet, Sammi, and Richard.”
    He made a mental note of the names, then asked, “What will you do today?”
    Obviously still annoyed at him for daring to disagree with her, she shot him a look that was pure regal arrogance. “Again, it’s nothing you need to know.”
    He was “only” two hundred and twenty-one years old, but he’d spent that time in the ranks of an archangel’s men, the past hundred years in the guard just below the Seven. He had his own arrogance. “It might not be,” he said, stepping close enough that she had to tip back her head to meet his gaze, something he knew she would not appreciate, “but I was being polite and civilized, trying to make conversation.”
    Nimra’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “I think you have never been polite and civilized. Stop making the effort—it’s ridiculous.”
    The statement startled a laugh out of him, the sound rough and unused, his chest muscles stretching in a way they hadn’t done for a long time.
    Nimra found herself taken aback by the impact of Noel’s laugh, by the way it transformed his face, lit up the blue of his eyes. It was a glimpse of who he’d been before the events at the Refuge—a man with a hint of wicked in his eyes and the ability to laugh at himself. So when he angled an elbow in invitation, she slipped her hand into the crook of it.
    His body heat seeped through the thin fabric of the shirt he wore rolled up to his elbows, to touch her skin, his muscles fluid under her fingers as they walked. For a moment, she forgot that she was an angel four hundred years his senior, an angel someone wanted dead, and simply became a woman taking a walk with a handsome man who was beginning to fascinate her, rough edges and all.
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    T hree days later, Noel had a very good idea of how the court functioned. Nimra was its undisputed center, but she was no prima donna. The word “court” was in fact a misnomer. This was no extravagant place with formal dinners every night and courtiers dressed up to impress, their primary tasks being to look pretty and kiss ass.
    Nimra’s court was a highly functional unit, the capable skill of her men and women evident. Christian—who showed no sign of thawing to Noel’s presence—handled the day-to-day business affairs, including managing the investments that kept the court wealthy. He was assisted in certain tasks by Fen, though from what Noel had seen, it was more of a mentor-mentee relationship. Fen was passing the torch to Christian, who might’ve been older in years, but was younger in experience.
    Asirani, by contrast, was Nimra’s social secretary. “She rejects the majority of the invitations,” the frustrated vampire said to him on the second day, “which makes my job very challenging.” However, the invitations—from other angels, high-level vampires, and humans eager to