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than I expected. I have no choice but to comply with her wishes, whatever they may be. Like any good sergeant taking orders from his general, I bow my head and brace for it. “What is my assignment?”
    “If you truly wish to return, then it won’t trouble you to kill Alrik Dagursson.”
    I peer up, caught off guard. “I beg your pardon?”
    “Master Alrik Dagursson,” she says. Her patronizing tone makes it clear I’m trying her patience. “ He is your assignment. Or will you refuse this request, too?”
    My reaction is instant. Can’t. Won’t.
    “It’s decided,” she says calmly. “Promise me you’ll kill Dagursson, and I will allow you to return to that place. To that beloved”—she waves a dismissive hand—“ rock of yours.”
    “But—”
    “There…is…no… but .” Her power fills the cave, surrounding me, like a force pressing on me. It feels as though the air has been sucked from the cave, making my blood roar and my skin buzz. “Unless your plan is to kill Alrik, you are forbidden to leave this island.”
    I’m not even certain I understand. I’ve never been asked to assassinate a vampire—and Dagursson isn’t just any vampire. He’s one of the Directorate’s inner circle. He’s ancient. A Viking. Impossibly powerful. Likely invincible. To try to murder him would mean my death.
    “You wish me to…kill him?” I repeat, buying time to think. Dying isn’t what bothers me—I know firsthand that there are worse things a man can endure. I refuse to kill Dagursson until I discover what he knows of my family.
    “Yes. Kill, Ronan. You remember how to kill. You will dispatch Alrik Dagursson in whichever way you see fit. Slay him. Stake him.” She gives a bored wave of her hand. “Immolation, decapitation, exsanguination…however you wish to do it.” Her eyes meet and hold mine for a long moment. “Does this trouble you?”
    I dare not tell her the truth—I won’t share my vulnerability with any vampire. “It’s too great a risk,” is the excuse I use instead. “Dagursson is powerful. If I attempt an assassination and fail, I risk exposing everything we’ve worked for. Perhaps if I were to kill Alcántara instead—”
    She waves that away. “Yes, yes, I know your thoughts on Hugo. You suspect he killed your family, et cetera, et cetera. And I tell you Alcántara is just a pawn. A dog, panting for scraps. But Dagursson…” She gives a wolfish smile. “He is the keeper of their lore. He knows much about our history, our lineage. And knowledge is their primary weapon against us—take that away and they have nothing.”
    I picture him in Alcántara’s office, bent over an ancient scroll. Knowledge makes him impossibly powerful. He is the keeper of Freya’s bloodline. My own.
    The need to know what he knows warps my vision. “Usually I unquestioningly execute your orders, and yet—”
    “Then execute Alrik,” she says at once. Power fills the cave even more thickly and robs the air from my lungs. “I have had enough of your impertinence, child.” Though she speaks in barely a whisper, her voice echoes painfully in my skull. “You will kill Alrik Dagursson, or I will kill your Annelise.”
    An invisible force seizes my throat—clutching, squeezing, choking. It’s fear. I forgot what it felt like. “I beg your pardon?”
    Candlelight catches her yellow hair and gleams. Her smile, too, gleams. She’s amused now, like a bullying schoolgirl—but her fangs, long and shining, remind me she hasn’t been a girl for over a thousand years.
    Rather than answer me, she turns to address the female vampires standing at silent attention behind her. “Do you see, my daughters? Do you see how this is perhaps a good idea regardless? If Annelise were dead, then our Ronan wouldn’t want to return to his precious Isle of Night. Annelise would make a worthy vampire, it’s true”—she pauses thoughtfully—“and yet she’d be just as worthy a sacrifice. She strikes me as overly