“You need backup,” Jay insisted, pulling my gaze to him. “No way should you be out in the wild—not with everything that has been going on. And now we have who knows who spelling the dead?” He shook his head, rising so fast from his seat that his chair tipped over backward. “No. I’m not letting you do this shit by yourself.”

He’d said that before. The same damn day he’d gotten those scars on his neck. “Are you ready? Usually fledglings need a year fo—”

He stood, banging on the table with his fists. “Don’t give me that shit. I’m barely a vampire to begin with,” Jay hissed through elongated fangs so different from Ingrid’s. Where hers were needle-like second set of teeth, his were just sharpened longer versions of his canines. “See?”

Instead of answering Jay, I stared at his maker, Björn. Jay had eaten regular food like I had. He drank coffee and juice. He hugged me without issue and sat right next to me even though—apparently—I still had blood in my ears.

It gave me hope but not much.

“Is he really ready to leave the nest? After two days?” I asked, flicking Jay in the arm when he tried to squawk a protest. “I’m not asking you. I’m asking the man who’ll be held responsible if you decide to lose your mind and kill someone. Fledglings are given a year to be presented to the queen. If they can’t pass her test, they die. If they hurt a human, kill an innocent, or expose the race, the maker and the fledgling dies.”

Christ on toast, he was being a stubborn brat about this shit and it was serious. He was only alive because of Björn’s help. He was only here because Björn allowed him to be. My best friend in the world was only breathing because Björn had taken on a progeny of his own.

Jay crossed his arms, glaring at me like I was telling him something he knew already. Maybe he did know, maybe he didn’t, but this petulant attitude was getting us nowhere.

“What if you’re not ready, and you kill someone, huh? What if you expose the arcane world to humans—humans who are all too ready to kill each other, let alone anything different from them?”

Because I’d helped Ingrid take out new vampires with no control. I’d kept their secrets. I’d cleaned up their messes. Every part of the arcane was a bloody, deadly mess.

And I was the fucking maid.