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watch. It was later than she’d realized. “In about fifteen minutes, all the voting booths are going to relay the votes to the witch who organized this. The magical tally will be instantaneous. There’s no way to get it wrong, defraud it, or duck the responsibility of winning.”
    “Sure, that’s what they say on the news, but do you really trust them?” Geoff asked.
    Deirdre didn’t need to trust them. She knew the all-powerful witch who had designed the spell—Marion Garin, a terrifying fourteen year old girl who was half-angel—and Deirdre had no doubt that it would work exactly the way it was supposed to.
    But her unpleasantly close personal relationship with Marion, the Office of Preternatural Affairs, and all things Rylie Gresham wasn’t common knowledge among Stark’s people. She didn’t plan on allowing that to change any time soon. Her authority was tenuous enough without Stark’s presence.
    If they found out that she was a traitor, she’d be ripped apart by vampires.
    Deirdre and Geoff spent the remaining moments in uncomfortable silence. She kept turning the tablet on and then off again. She couldn’t bear the tension of watching reporters predict the election’s outcome.
    She didn’t have to be watching the news when midnight hit.
    Cries drifted above the city. They started a few blocks away and rippled through the nearby buildings.
    Deirdre had expected the building storm of rage to end once the election ended. Instead, it felt like it was reaching a new fever pitch. The screaming—she hadn’t heard anything like it in weeks.
    “What the hell?” Geoff asked.
    Deirdre went for the tablet. Geoff got there first. He picked it up, hit the power button, and propped it against the wall where both of them could see.
    They caught January Lazar’s statement mid-sentence.
    “—close of polls, the unseelie have won the election,” January said. “The results are indisputable. The new Alpha for all North American gaeans will come from the unseelie faction.”

III

    Deirdre didn’t need to summon Stark’s people back to the high-rise. They were already waiting for her there when she returned, converging from the shadows of night.
    The vampires beat her there, anyway. There was no sign of the shifters yet. Once night fell, few things moved faster than vampires.
    Walking into the high-rise’s lobby to face a sea of bloodless faces made Deirdre stop dead in her tracks.
    Lucifer stood in front of them all, arms folded.
    An admonishment hung on Deirdre’s lips. She wanted to scorn them for failing to stay outside, where they could have been doing crowd control. They should have been trying to stop the riots. They should have been saving lives.
    “You said we’d win,” Lucifer said. “Stark was going to put us into power.”
    Deirdre didn’t dare watch the vampires surrounding her, even though they were stepping forward to enclose her in a circle. She couldn’t make herself look weak in front of them, even if there was no reason to be afraid. They were vampires, dry and dusty, and she was a phoenix, a creature of flame.
    She was stronger than them. All of them.
    That was the theory, anyway.
    In reality, she couldn’t summon her flames and the vampires had numbers on their side.
    She wasn’t confident Gianna and the shifters would back her up if the murder attacked.
    Deirdre put on her most authoritative voice. “We didn’t have reason to think that Stark would lose, much less that he would lose to the unseelie. Nobody has even seen Melchior for days.”
    “Nobody has seen Stark in days, either.” Lucifer didn’t have to make the accusation outright. Deirdre knew what he was asking. It was the same thing that the packs had been asking ever since Deirdre took over Stark’s affairs in his absence.
    Where is Everton Stark?
    “Stark’s got better things to do than deal with you.” Deirdre was getting good at the steely voice and dead eyes, inviting Lucifer to challenge her authority.