Alex knew she had a talent for mistakes, a way of turning error into outright disaster. Gift became curse, opportunity became some fresh chance at horror. There were violin prodigies, people who could pick up a language after hearing it once. Alex had mastered the art of the fuckup—elaborate, operatic, inevitable. But nothing in her long, pathetic résumé compared to the mess she had made of this moment.

She could hear the chorus of demon and human voices, though whether they were cheering or booing or groaning in dismay, she couldn’t be sure.

“Darlington,” she pleaded. “Danny.”

But the monster before her did not understand. The bands at his wrists and neck had turned black. His gaze was flat and inhuman. If he recognized her, if he cared, there was no sign of it in the dark sheen of his eyes.

He snarled, stalking toward her, his head lowered, his curved horns gleaming. She had seen him crush a body with those horns, felt the prick of his claws sink into her hips.

At some point in the grim march of her life she had started to believe she might make something of it, that she could coax it into a less perilous shape. She had spent years balanced above a chasm and she had bobbed and weaved and shuffled and grunted her way across, always finding a way to regain her footing, to keep her many failures from turning into a permanent fall. But now? The final blunder.

She had known she might die tonight. She had believed she was ready. Her plans were made, her house in order. She could save the others and keep herself from the worst of it. At least that was the idea. But she was a two-bit criminal, a bottom dweller. She hadn’t been made for grand quests or hero’s work.

And here she was in this dark place, at this late hour, and she saw it would be her last. Deep down she had known she couldn’t keep walking the tightrope. She wasn’t fast enough, smart enough, or rich enough to right herself in any permanent way. A bobble, a dip, the world swayed. The only surprise was that she had managed this feat of balance for so long, that she would not die in a filthy bathroom in Santa Cruz, or a run-down apartment in Van Nuys, or even in the arms of an overdressed vampire, but at Yale, its gargoyles and stone scholars watching in silent judgment, and at the hands of the one person who wasn’t ever meant to hurt her, the man she had gone to hell and back to save.

Death was here at last and he was beautiful.