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She’s offering to make one of us a god.”
    “She can do that?” Kieran asked her father in disbelief.
    Bran answered, his deep voice resigned. “Aye. She can. She can give it all up and become mortal.”
    The heirs went silent. And Sebastian was no exception. Athena was willing to give up her immortality, to be human, to get her kid back.
    Zaria gazed over the assembly with a satisfied expression. “I’d suggest watching your backs from now on.” She pivoted and sauntered to the door, waving a hand as she went. “Good luck. You’re gonna need it.” And then she disappeared into thin air.
    As soon as she left, Bran glared at each Novem head. “Stop. Stop it right now. Do not let this divide us. That’s exactly what she wants, and you know it.”
    “The Hands are currently in the library, correct?” Simon Baptiste asked quietly, flipping a pen through his fingers.
    A shiver went down Sebastian’s spine.
    Simon was known for his excesses and cruelties. He stayed just barely within Novem law, but everyone knew there were heinous crimes done in secret, things the group could never pin on him. His son, Gabriel, was fast becoming like his father.
    No one answered Simon. They all believed the Hands were there. Sebastian half expected all of them to run for the door. The kind of power Athena was offering was staggering. Yet no one moved. No one wanted to be the first to show where their loyalties lay.
    “We must agree the Hands stay in the library,” Michel said, glancing around the room. “We must vow never to let what was said here go farther than this room. To do so would mean chaos, betrayal, murder, war.”
    “Michel is right,” Rowen said. “This is our home. If word gets out, the library will be under siege. We’ll be hunted for knowing how to get inside. Your heirs will be hunted for any knowledge they might possess about the library. We must agree to do nothing.”
    “What about Ari?” Gabriel asked. “She knows how to get inside. She’d be the one Athena or anyone else goes after.”
    “She doesn’t know how to get inside on her own,” Sebastian said, giving Gabriel a look that promised retribution.
    “Sebastian is right. I let her into the library,” Michel said. “She does not have the blood or the ward combinations to get inside herself. Only we do. But we must agree. We must not speak of what happened here tonight or we are all targets.”
    “Targets, or betrayers ourselves,” Nikolai Deschanel spoke up. “Do I put my trust in all of you? Do I do nothing while the rest of you grasp at immortality, at godhood? Or do I strike first?”
    The question hung suspended in the room. The Novem’s collective energy became thick, making the room hot and stuffy. Sweat beaded on Sebastian’s skin.
    Traitor he might be, but Sebastian knew he had to get those Hands out of the library before someone else did—if they were even there. He wouldn’t do it for immortality. He’d do it for Ari.
    “We should give them back,” Nell Cromley said. “Doesn’t that solve everything? Just send them back before this whole situation blows up.”
    “The heirs can be dismissed now,” Soren Mandeville said.
    After vowing their silence, the heirs were let go. Sebastian was the first to exit, drawing in a deep breath of untainted air. He didn’t stop until he was on the second floor. He was shaking, adrenaline still speeding through his system like a rocket. His boots thudded across the long gallery that fronted Jackson Square below. At oneof the arched windows, he stopped and dragged his fingers through his hair.
    Hunter followed and parked himself on the other side of the window, his gaze somber as he stared. Hunter was older. He’d been imprisoned by Athena and set free with Michel when Ari had escaped her cell, rescuing the lot of them. “Athena knows exactly what she’s doing, I’ll say that for her.”
    “Master of strategic warfare and all,” Sebastian said dryly.
    “She has it all planned out,