He looked at me for a long time, judging, evaluating, appraising. He did that a lot. “Come here. I want to show you something.”

He walked to the other end of the apartment, disappeared through the doorway. He didn’t wait to see if I’d follow, but I did. I was curious to see what kind of sanctuary a man like Liam Quinn needed.

And when I stepped through the threshold, I wasn’t sure if it was a sanctuary so much as an ode to the biggest bed I’d ever seen.

This room ran nearly the entire length of the apartment. The bed faced another wall of windows, its carved headboard situated against a half wall that, I guessed, probably hid entrances to a bathroom and closet. The footboard was nearly as long and just as ornately carved, both of them curved around the edges of the thick mattress.

I walked toward it, ran fingertips across glossy wood.

I looked up, found him staring at me, felt warmth creep up my neck. It wasn’t often I was caught staring at a man’s gigantic bed.

“This is beautiful,” I said, like a confident appraiser.

“Thanks. My paternal grandfather was a furniture maker. But that’s not what I wanted to show you. Come here.”

I nodded, followed obediently around the half wall. As I’d guessed, it hid doors to a bathroom and closet, and a small office area. And that was what he’d wanted me to see.

The office held a long desk with a pencil cup and a notebook. Above it, the wall was covered with dim photographs, news-sheet clippings, handwritten notes, all radiating from a map of the city stuck with pins of different colors. Colored twine connected them in a very grim art display.

The largest photographs were of a girl with long dark hair and shining brown eyes. In one, she was a toddler with dark pigtails and a dress that poofed with crinoline. In another, she was an adolescent wearing jeans and a vintage purple LSU shirt, her long hair in a ponytail.

“Her name was Gracie. My baby sister. She was sixteen.”

I looked back at him. He ran a hand through his hair, and I realized as he stared at the pictures, the mementos, that he looked tired, like a man who’d been fighting for something, or someone, for a very long time.

Pity tightened my chest. “I’m so sorry. What happened?”

“She was killed by a wraith.”

My mouth went dry, and my stomach went cold. A wraith—the thing I could become—had killed his family. No wonder he’d wanted me off the streets. And probably part of him hated me to the core.

I tried to stay cool, nodded. “When did she die?”

“Seven months ago.” He moved forward, stood beside me as he looked over the board he’d created. “She was only ten when the war started. She survived that, only to be killed by a wraith.” He pointed to a star near in the Garden District. “She was killed here. The rest of the black dots represent other wraith attacks. I’ve been tracking them.”

They were scattered randomly across the city, with no pattern that I could see. “And what have you learned from that?”

“We’re supposed to believe wraiths don’t think. That they’re violent, aggressive, and will attack whoever’s closest. But attacks are increasing. There have been twenty-four attacks in New Orleans in the past four months alone. And they’re becoming more complicated.”

The hair on the back of my neck lifted, his words spurring a memory. “What do you mean ‘more complicated?’”

“I think they’re showing more independent thought. More planning. Scoping out prey. Attacking in pairs, like the wraiths tonight. Killing together.”

I opened my mouth, nearly said what I’d seen, but couldn’t get past the fact that it seemed insane.