Chapter 26

Four months after Bree disappeared, Mariah rides with Valec to Eclipse, Daeza’s club. Valec is anxious because Mariah is impersonating a Grand Dame with the Heart of the Grand Dame around her neck, and he warns her not to bargain, accept favors, or reveal what the Heart can do. Mariah insists she can handle the mission, though Valec stresses that this requires restraint rather than Bree-style chaos.

Inside, Valec presents Daeza with a tribute: anger taken from a politician. Daeza accepts and banters with Valec, revealing familiarity with him from decades earlier. Daeza calls Valec a Shadeling and presses him about the Nightshade who sired him, but Valec refuses the subject and insists he is the son of Pearl, the woman who raised him.

Mariah studies Daeza through her Medium senses and sees active nonliving energy and a dark, restless spectre beneath Daeza’s skin. Daeza mentions that Valec and Mariah are not the night’s only visitors: two other Shadelings came before them, and the bloody floor suggests those meetings turned violent.

When Valec begins to make his request, Daeza stops him and demands that Mariah speak instead, claiming a Grand Dame’s statement cannot be twisted by Valec’s trickster tongue. Under pressure, Mariah says they seek the demon known as the Hunter, or the Great Devourer. Daeza says the Hunter is impossible to find directly because he changes forms and now works through emissaries, but she knows of an event in one week where two emissaries will attend.

Daeza explains that Valec cannot go because the event is hosted by Mikaelaz, another Shade, and Valec’s presence could start a deadly turf war. Daeza then exposes Mariah’s disguise, revealing that she knows Mariah is not a true Grand Dame and is only wearing the Heart as cover; Daeza also reveals that her own youthful body is a stolen skin. Daeza offers Mariah a fake identity and an invitation to the auction, and despite Valec’s objections, Mariah accepts, setting herself on a new undercover mission.