Prologue

The sound of boots echoed down the orphanage hall. I sat on my bed, clutching the edge of my blanket, watching the man walk in. He wasn't like the others who came to "look around." His eyes were sharp, like he could see right through me, and he moved with a confidence that made the whole room feel smaller. Diablo. That's what the adults called him, and even at five, I could tell his name carried weight—something heavy and unspoken.

When he looked at me, everything else disappeared. No one had ever looked at me like that before. He didn't smile, didn't say much, but somehow, I knew. I didn't understand it at the time, but I think I knew my life was about to change.

The adoption happened fast. One minute I was eating bad soup in the drafty dining hall; the next, I was sitting in the passenger seat of a beat-up car that growled like it might fall apart. Diablo didn't talk much during the ride. When he finally said, "You'll be safe now," I didn't know what to think. I didn't even know what safe felt like.

Then there was Ajax. My new brother. He was only a year older, but you wouldn't know it from the way he carried himself—arms crossed, head held high, like he owned the place. The first thing he said to me was, "You're smaller than I thought." Not exactly a warm welcome, but over time, we figured each other out. He became my shadow—or maybe I became his. Either way, we stuck together.

When Nyx showed up five years later, everything shifted. She strode in like she owned the house, her heels clicking against the floor in a rhythm that felt out of sync with the rest of us. "This is what you call a home?" she said with a laugh that wasn't really a laugh. Diablo didn't seem to mind. He even laughed along, but his laugh was different—a low, rough sound that made me uneasy.