Deidra Arlan held two favors from a vampire lord and no way to spend them. She had learned long ago how to feed a hungry thing just enough to make it useful. Now she wanted more than scraps. She wanted the occult court that once used her as a pawn. But favors were only worth what a door they opened, and every door she knew was shut. So she came to Nathan Roberts to ask for one. The manor sat crumbling at the edge of the fields. Ivy split its stone. Its windows hung broken like knocked-out teeth. Nathan waited in the wet dark of the front room. He wore a black suit with a red vest, spotless in the ruin around him. He did not sit. He did not offer her a seat. "You've come to name a favor," he said. "One of two." Deidra stayed near the doorway. She trusted thresholds. "I want a name. The court that meets in secret. The one that plays with people like game pieces. You know how to reach it." Nathan studied her. He did not blink, the way old dead things forget to. "I know it," he said. "Then that's my favor. An introduction. A seat at their table." "No." The word landed flat. Deidra kept her face still. "You owe me." "I owe you two favors," Nathan said. "A seat at that table is not a favor. It's a burial." He turned to the cracked window. "They don't seat outsiders. They swallow them. You would arrive as a guest and leave as a pawn again." Deidra felt the floor shift under her plan. She had wanted the front door. He was telling her the front door was a mouth. "Then what do the favors buy me?" she asked. Nathan faced her. "Leverage. Not a chair. A grip." He let the silence stretch. "There is a woman inside my own walls. A blood witch. She curses on behalf of my rival. She hides in a room I am supposed to believe is empty." Deidra understood before he finished. "She serves the court." "She serves the one trying to take my house. That one sits at their table." Nathan's voice did not rise. "Find her. Learn who she answers to. Bring me that, and you will hold something the court fears more than they fear you." Deidra weighed it. A seat was a trap. But a secret was a knife. She had never won a room by knocking. She won rooms by knowing what walked through the walls. "That spends both favors," she said. "It spends one," Nathan said. "The witch is my problem too." Deidra almost smiled. He was letting her think the plan was hers. "Where is the room?" she asked. Nathan told her. Then he said the thing that changed everything. "She already knows you are coming. My rival has ears I have not cut yet." Deidra had wanted a foothold. She had gotten one. It was inside a house that already knew her name.