Page 85

"You idiot," I whisper.

Lachlan blinks, caught completely off guard. "What?"

"You absolute, colossal Scottish idiot." I reach up, planting both hands against his stubbled cheeks, forcing him to look directly at me. "First of all, I am not Lord Alistair or Lady Rowan. I survived four years in the American foster care system, six years of underfunded doctoral research, and a parasitic narcissist who stole my life's work. I do not die easily. I survive out of sheer, unadulterated spite."

A startled, disbelieving puff of air escapes his nose.

"Second of all," I continue, running my thumbs along the sharp line of his cheekbones. "Last night I drank a chalice full of necrotic Sanguine poison, and instead of dying, my body unmade it into ice water. My magic didn't eat me alive. It gave me a headache and a nosebleed, but I am still sitting here, completely intact, lecturing a naked seven-foot bear."

"Vivienne—"

"Shut up, I'm making a point." I drop my hands from his face and reach over to the nightstand, snatching the thick, heavy envelope Elizabeth Anne shoved into my hand before we escaped New Orleans. "Third of all, we have this."

Lachlan’s gaze drops to the envelope. The dark crimson wax seal, stamped with a snarling bat and an hourglass, glints in the morning light.

His brow furrows, the bodyguard instantly returning to replace the grieving lover. "Where did you get that?"

"The ancient vampire granny who told Julian St. George he was an incompetent fop," I say, shifting around so I'm sitting cross-legged on the mattress, the sheet pulled securely over my lap. "She called herself Elizabeth Anne. She slipped it into my hand right before you teleported us out of the ballroom."

I slide my thumb under the heavy wax seal. It snaps with a brittle, dry crunch, releasing a faint whiff of dried cloves and bitter almonds.

I tilt the envelope.

Something small, heavy, and metallic slides out into my palm with a dull chime, followed by a folded square of thick, yellowed parchment.

I pick up the metal object first. It’s an antique brass dial—a flat, circular key about the size of a silver dollar, etched with concentric rings of celestial glyphs and tiny, razor-sharp teeth along the outer edge. It looks like the internal gear of a sixteenth-century pocket watch, except the center is set with a cloudy piece of rough quartz.

Which is weird as hell.

Not that anything about any of this has been normal.

I sigh.

"What is that?" Lachlan asks, leaning over my shoulder. The heat of his bare chest presses against my back, his chin resting lightly on my shoulder as he peers down at my hands.

"It’s an armillary dial," I murmur. "It’s basically a sundial.”

I unfold the parchment.

The spidery handwriting inside’s written in dark sepia ink that looks a bit too much like dried blood for my taste. It isn't in Latin, thank goodness, because I’m sick to death of translating that. It’s in French, archaic and too formal, but perfectly readable.

I read it aloud, translating on the fly:

"To the stray wolf wearing Midnight’s velvet: If you are reading this, you have more of your bloodline’s stubborn iron than he anticipated.

Do not attend the Second Summons. The Council’s Ascension Trials are not an ancient rite of peers; they are an execution chamber designed in 1782 to weed out any House that threatens Sanguine’s monopoly. The trials do not test your blood—they poison it, drop by drop, until the unmaking turns inward and eats the heir from the marrow out."

Behind me, Lachlan’s breath hitches. His entire body goes rigid as a stone pillar.

"What did she say?" he rasps, his hand coming down on my shoulder with sudden, bruising force. "Read that line again."

"They poison it, drop by drop, until the unmaking turns inward and eats the heir from the marrow out," I repeat, turning my head to look at him.

The color has completely drained from his face. His mouth is slightly open, his eyes staring blankly at the parchment as if the words are rearranging his reality.

"The sickness," he whispers, his voice cracking. "Alistair's fever. Rowan's madness. It wasn't the house magic. It wasn't their bloodline." He looks at me, horror and fury warring in his expression. "They poisoned them. The Council poisoned every single one of them during the trials. Fuck me. Fuck them. There was— It wasn’t my fault. I should have known. Christ. I should have seen it.”

The puzzle pieces in my head slam together.