“The plan was for Rita to use the Athenaeum’s magic to fight Ignatius, win you back fair and square, and get out of there.” All too obviously, that didn’t work. “He knew we wanted you more than what Rita was worth to him, so he wouldn’t take it. So, we improvised.”

Bet Ignatius really regrets that now.

“I didn’t expect holding him down to work as well as it did,” Lambert shrugs. “If he’d looked like he was breaking out? Yeah, I would have cut and run. For once, we had the advantage over a fae. If it had been Nightshade or anyone else, I would’ve done the same thing.” Lambert pauses, amends more honestly: “All right, I would have tried a lot harder to kill Nightshade. Point is, I thought he’d be useful, alive or dead.”