She could have made the skylight with one easy leap, but the collar’s range extended to the roof as well. She would be dead before she touched open air.

Most of the time, she sat. She could be very, very quiet and still. But she was starting to get hungry. She was used to regular meals.

The noise of the water in the fountain was enough to baffle her hearing much of the time. (Honestly, how could anyone think with that racket? It didn’t seem very meditative.) But she caught some conversations here and there. Konrad on the phone, making dinner reservations. Konrad with a patient, reassuring her that her breasts had never looked better. Konrad ordering a nurse to inject Botox.

Tania heard all this and filed it away in her perfect memory without really listening to it. She was bored out of her mind.

She was sitting like a statue when the door to the atrium clicked open.

A voice echoed from speakers set in the ceiling.

“I’ve opened a pathway from the garden to the first operating room,” Konrad said over the intercom. “Please join me there.”

A click, then his voice was back again. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what happens if you stray from the path.” Another click, then silence.

Tania thought about disobeying, but that would only bring a shock from the collar. There was no way Konrad would try to retrieve her himself.

She had underestimated him. That was obvious from the new jewelry she was sporting. Her mistake was treating him as if he were human. She should have known better.

So she got up and walked down the hall, directly to the first operating room.

The operating room was lit up like a Vegas casino. All the overheads were at full intensity, and several more surgical lamps had been dragged into the room. There wasn’t so much as a single shadow in a corner.

Tania winced, still sensitive from the UV burn he’d given her the previous night. “Does it have to be so goddamn bright in here?”

Konrad sat on a stool by the operating table. He gave her a distracted smile. “Yes.”

There were parts on the table. Some looked organic. Others looked metallic. And several looked like a horrible fusion of both.

“I’ve been thinking about you. And Cade. Well, your entire species, actually.”

“I’m sure we’re all honored.”

“There’s something very infantile about the vampire,” Konrad said. “The liquid diet. The suckling. Just like a baby. And the childlike belief that death will never come. It makes you arrogant. Rather careless. Immortality came to you as a fluke. You have no idea how precious a gift it is, and so you waste it.”

“You didn’t just want an audience tonight, did you? Because if that’s the case, I might want you to press that button.”

He put down his scalpel and probe, then picked up the remote. “I’m going to assume you’re being sarcastic, rather than suicidal.”

“You’re going to kill me eventually.”

“True. But later is better than sooner, isn’t it? No reason to rush it.”

Tania looked down. “No. There isn’t.”

“Exactly,” Konrad said. “As a matter of fact, I do have an errand for you. I need you to get some human bones for me. From consecrated ground. A complete skeleton, if possible. I’d go myself, but you know how that ends up. You rob one grave, then before you know it, mobs are lined up outside your home with torches . . .”

Tania’s expression indicated she didn’t find Konrad as amusing as he did. She waited for him to clear a path to the exit, but Konrad wasn’t done with his lecture.

“This actually brings me back to my point. You don’t need anything but blood and yet you acquire money. Lots of it. I find that curious. Why would something like you bother with all the trappings of being human? You don’t need to move in the daylight world at all. Do you know what I think?”

“I think you’re going to tell me.”

He gave her the distracted smile again. “I think you still cling to the human world. Because Cade moves in that world. You stay attached to it, and you stay attached to him. It’s fascinating, really,” he said. “I’ve never seen one of you capable of this level of self-delusion. Not even Cade.”

“What do you mean by that?” Tania was suddenly interested.

“I’ve lived a long time,” Konrad said. “Everything always comes down to three things. Love and money are the first two. You wouldn’t take my money, but you’re not actually capable of love. So that only leaves the third.”

“And what’s that?”

“Fear,” Konrad said. “You’re scared of him. You’re trying to appease him with your pretend affection. But part of you hopes I do manage to kill him. Because someday, he’s going to come for you, Tania. Just like all the rest of your kind.”

Tania’s face betrayed no emotion at all. “Maybe that’s true,” she said. “Maybe Cade will kill me. But you won’t live to see it.”

“Another threat? I should think you would have realized by now, you’re not going to win.”

Tania ignored that. “I had a therapist once,” she said. “He tasted bitter. But before he died, he told me some things about projection. That’s where you imagine other people have the feelings you’re having. You talk so much about me being scared of Cade. I think you’re afraid of him.”

Konrad snorted. “This is a rather transparent attempt to insult me.”

“Maybe. But if you’re so smart and you want Cade dead, why not do it yourself? Why put the commission out there? Why boss around your government friends?”

“Cade is an insect. I don’t need to dirty my hands with that kind of work.”

“And yet, you had that whole setup in your house. Lights, this collar. Like you planned it for him. You know what I think? I think you’re a coward. You want him dead more than anything, but you’re terrified of him.”

Konrad’s face darkened. He picked up the remote, and, for a moment, Tania thought she’d gone too far.

For a second, Tania savored the novelty of being scared.

He turned his back, dismissing her. “Go,” he said. “If you’re not back in an hour, I press the button. Be a good girl and you’ll get a pint of blood when you get back.”

“Which door?” she asked.

Konrad pointed at a back door.

“Feel free to use the alley. You should feel right at home.”

Tania walked toward the door. But Konrad had to get in the last word.

“The trap was never meant for Cade,” he said. “For one thing, he’d never have been stupid enough to let it happen to him.”

Biting back a reply, Tania left. Konrad wasn’t going to simply kill her now; he was going to avenge the insult. It was going to be long and painful. She considered going past the one-hour deadline, just for an easier way out.

But she had to admit he was right: there was no reason to rush it.