My lie had set her at ease and given her a borrowed sense of security. But I wanted her to have those both permanently. I wanted her to have a real life, free from compulsion, humiliation and pain. And I only knew of one way to make that happen.

I needed to talk to her sister alone—a chance to convince her to do the right thing, not just for Steven, but for Kori, too. Kenley Daniels was the source of so much trouble, but she might also be the solution.

But Kori couldn’t know what we were planning, because she’d have to report me to Tower.

“So, what do you want to do today?” Kori asked, and I struggled to wipe my thoughts from my expression. She couldn’t know what I was thinking about until it was done.

“I don’t know,” I said, stirring my coffee. “How would you spend your last day as a free woman? What should I absolutely see before I sign?”

“The fork in the river,” Kori said without hesitation. “My favorite place in the city. There’s a park on the south side, right where the river splits, and you can see all three districts from there. And there’s this vendor in the park that serves the best hot dogs in the city. The secret is the potato bread buns.”

“Hot dogs?” I laughed.

Kori shrugged. “Jake said no more bars. He didn’t say anything about hot dogs in the park.”

“Do they have sauerkraut?”

“Of course.”

“I’m in. Let me get dressed.”

I threw on some clothes, and then Kori and I took a cab to the fork in the river, because she couldn’t shadow-walk into a park in broad daylight. I don’t know what I was expecting to see, but the carousel surprised me.

“My parents took us here once when I was a kid,” she explained, leading me along the waist-high wrought-iron fence containing a crowd of children waiting their turn for a ride. “I was about five, so Kenley would have been three, and Kris was probably almost seven. I rode that black one, with the gold reins.”

“Of course you did.” The carousel horse she’d pointed out was one of only three not painted in some pastel shade with a white mane. Her horse was more dignified, and probably a little creepy from a child’s perspective, its lips pulled back from its teeth like it was in midwhinny.

“I fell off and busted my knee on one of the bolts on the floor,” she said, watching the carousel turn. “My mom swooped in to pick me up while my dad sprayed all the blood with bleach solution.” She stopped walking and crossed her arms over her chest. “I wonder if any of it’s still there, in the cracks.”

“If so, there’s no way it’s viable,” I said, but I’d misunderstood her intent. She wasn’t worried. She looked…interested.

“Isn’t it weird, how we leave little bits of ourselves everywhere we go? Like, there’s part of me in that carousel, and part of it in me. I still have the scar on my knee.” She frowned then, and looked away from the carousel. “There’s a part of Jake in me, too.” She rubbed her left arm, where the tattooed chain links would be beneath her sleeve. “They’re sealed with his blood. Not enough to use against him, unfortunately. Just enough to make it feel like you don’t belong to yourself anymore.”

And that was true. That was the whole problem.

“So, where are those hot dogs?” I asked, eager to change the subject. Smart-ass Kori was fun, and even angry Kori was usually entertaining. Scared Kori made me want to fight. To find a way to accomplish the impossible. But I didn’t know what to do with melancholy Kori. She seemed directionless. Lost. Not like Kori at all.

“It’s a little bit of a walk, but it’s worth it,” she said, altering our course toward a winding sidewalk.

“Does Kenley like these dogs, too?” I asked as we walked. “Think she’d like to join us for lunch?” Admittedly, my approach was less than subtle, but I was running out of time and options.

“Kenley’s a vegetarian. Which is why I eat out so often.”

“Oh. Well, maybe—” I started, but Kori grabbed my arm and pulled us both to a stop, suspicion thick in the arch of her brows.

“What’s with your interest in my sister? She’s not into you, and Jake would never…”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” I insisted, but she didn’t look like she believed me. So I told another lie, and I wasn’t sure whether I should feel guilty or grateful that I’d had enough practice to carry it off. “I’ve never been bound to anything, and I feel like I’m diving right into the deep end with this. I just…I want to get to know the person who’s going to be sealing the binding. I want to know I can trust her.”

“You can’t,” Kori said, and I frowned. “You can’t trust any of us,” she continued, and that didn’t make me feel any better. “Soon, you won’t be able to trust yourself.”

“That’s comforting.”

“Don’t get me wrong. You’ll like Kenley. Everyone does. But she has to do whatever Jake tells her to, just like the rest of us.”

“What was she like before the syndicate?” I asked. If I couldn’t talk to her directly, maybe I could at least get a feel for her personality in preparation.

“She was sweet, but gullible. Powerful, but naive.”

“You said she got into some trouble?”

“Yeah. Kenley had trouble making friends as a kid, and that got worse in college, until her roommate found out about her Skill. Poor Kenni thought this little bi—um, this little monster was really her friend, so she gave her a little bit of her blood. The roommate said she needed it to get an aggressive ex out of her life. Kenley didn’t realize she was being used until this Tracker tracked her down through one of the bindings and scared the shit out of her. Turns out the roommate had been using Kenni’s blood for everything from revenge on a volleyball team rival to making sure her boyfriend stayed faithful.”