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Rose Ashby was nothing like her father. She was kind and real, a rarity in a world made up of superficial and materialistic people. When she’d come to Jin two years ago, asking him to make sure her still-human, critically ill brother never left the hospital a vampire, he couldn’t say no—not when there were fates worse than death.
She was the closest thing to vampire royalty.
Because Arthie never revealed a secret unless she had a bigger one waiting right behind it. She saw Jin watching her.
Madam Mabel Ever killed them. Slowly. She couldn’t care less about the effects of the toxicants she used in her cosmetics—so long as they had immediate results and took long enough to rot her high-paying customers.
“No,” she said with a bittersweet smile. “I will always have you to thank, Jin.” Such a strange thing, to be appreciated by a woman for killing her beloved brother.
But Matteo had warned them that getting into this secure area was impossible without possessing a key or being imprisoned, so she had no choice, really.
“Here,” Matteo agreed, “at the crossroads of your past and your future.”
She stood in a blurred street, lamps scattered like souls, her head tilted toward a full moon as if she were a wolf calling for her love. There was something hollow about the piece, haunting and lonely.
If he somehow found himself in possession of a pearl-studded silver barrette and a carved jade fountain pen when he finally made it to the empty foyer, it wasn’t his fault.
“If Jin doesn’t reach us before Athereum security does, we—” That was more than reason enough to leave him to the wolves.
She loved Jin in a way she would never speak aloud, in a way that made her feel weak and foolish. In a way no one but he loved her back.
“I thought we were talking about the EJC’s exports.” Penn picked up his cigar. His face was grave when he nodded. “We are. The exports are vampires.”
“I woke up a vampire. I hadn’t known what I was, only that I hadn’t been dead long enough to become a ghoul. I was as terrified as the others were, and to this day I cannot fault them for attacking me in turn. And no one can fault a body for its innate sense of self-defense.
“The Wolf of White Roaring attack was fabricated in order to instill fear,” Penn said. “Vampires had lived in relative secrecy. For decades. Until the Ram decided otherwise, forcefully turning the Wolf of White Roaring into a half vampire and unleashing him upon the city so that the Ram could sweep in and save it. But no one knew that was only the beginning.”
“What do you do when you’re angry?” Her voice was tight, and the way she asked the question made Arthie think the emotion was foreign to her. Arthie understood. “I let it fuel me and everything that I do, but it’s important to note the difference between fuel and dictate.”
Jin caught the candy and the life drained out of him. It was him. Penn was their weekly visitor who had argued with Jin’s father the night before the fire. Jin made a sound that was half laugh, half sob, and all hope.
A resource. That was what his parents had become. Not a mother and a father and a friend and a loved one, but yet another commodity for the Ram to exploit.
Spindrift was founded on blackmail and threats. It only made sense that they would save it using the same.
The Ram. Fear dropped like a stone inside of her. “My ledger.”
But louder than that voice was the certainty that her mother did know.
“I loved you, Felicity, but you did this to yourself,” she said with a resigned sigh. Loved. Was that in the past tense? She didn’t hear it over the thundering in her ears.
Because that was the nature of man. Born to nurture, determined to destroy. Fitting, Arthie thought. At least Jin wasn’t here in this nightmare returned.
“When I—I didn’t see either of you at first, I was worried I had left my old life behind only to lose my new one, too.” Her new life. Was that what she thought of them? Of him?
“If only that were true. I loathed you, Arthie. I hated you for the span of a heartache before I realized how much I craved you. And I know you yearn for me the same.”
“Why don’t you let go?” she asked suddenly. The words burst out of her. “Why live for the dead when you have a life of your own?”
“How long can vengeance last?” “An eternity. Until they suffer the same fate, until justice is struck.”
“What’s happening to me?” she had asked, voice rising. “You must live for those who will not,” he said.
They didn’t know she’d come to realize something: She didn’t need her parents to feed her. No one could care for her now but herself.
Later, much later, once the skies had cleared and she’d put enough distance between her and Ceylan’s shores, an Ettenian ship found her. One lone girl in a boat full of blood.
“Fascinating,” he said, more to himself than to her. “You’re alive, but also a vampire. I’ve been trying to find someone like him.”
Her growth trickled to an end when she neared sixteen. Her heartbeat petered to a halt. She cast a shadow but not a reflection. For she wasn’t near death when she was fed a vampire’s blood.
Arthie shook her head when Laith sank to his knees in front of her. She had ached from restraint, from holding herself back, ever since that last glass of coconut water. “I’m dangerous,” she said, but she felt herself giving in. She had nothing left to lose. “As am I,” he murmured, and her fangs elongated for the first time in years at the smooth cut of his voice.
“I should kill you,” she whispered. “Rip you to shreds. Tear you apart for even thinking you could take Calibore from me.” Understanding dawned in his dazed eyes. He had known it was inevitable.
From Matteo, something struck her differently, setting her at ease. Like a part of her was settling into place.
She blinked, and the light painted him anew in the same beauty as his work. Was there more to Matteo than she saw?
The Ram should have realized destroying Spindrift wouldn’t make them cower in fear. They were beaten down, yes, but they were stronger now. There was nothing more dangerous than those with nothing left to lose.
She felt bad knowing Arthie and Jin had lost something dear to them while she was delighted at what she had gained: a family. As much a family as the Casimirs could be. One day she was an outsider, the next, she was simply included in every meeting, adding to every conversation, and joining every trip.
“Is everything in order?” she asked. Matteo blinked at her as if he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. Arthie scowled. “I don’t take well to being stared at. I believe I’m called exotic in your tongue, if you didn’t know.” “My tongue is quite capable, darling,” Matteo assured her. Something prickled in Arthie’s chest. “And I’m more than happy to demonstrate.”
“You went with lilac.” The color of your beret, he wanted to say, but it sounded stupid of him now, even if it had seemed like a good idea when he was ordering the jacket at the tailor.
Only the Ram’s eyes were visible, bright and cerulean.
And Flick had a single, harrowing thought: She always did think her mother had remarkable eyes.
Lady Linden was the Ram. That was when Arthie knew her plan had gone horribly wrong. Because the Ram didn’t know about the press. Lady Linden did.
Penn was there, here, shielding her and going for Laith’s throat in the same instant.
Calibore. Arthie. His other half in this world of destruction. She would never, ever fire it herself. Not when they knew what it was capable of.
The Ram stood in his path, and Jin knew with sinking clarity that his end was near. She cocked a revolver, small and dainty, and fired.
The Ram’s bullet struck his heart. Jin stumbled. Fell. One knee hit the cold, hard floor, then the other.
He didn’t know he was changing her life by leading her through the unburned side of the kitchen to a barrel full of the same green coconuts. He didn’t realize it wasn’t because of her love for them that she used her ingenuity to create an icebox to preserve as many of his father’s coconuts as they could, until years later when she found her footing and began importing them herself.
“I believe a vampire can subsist on coconut,” his father had once said. “And not blood?” Jin had asked, eyes wide.
“Only the Ceylani coconut seems to do the trick, though they need to have some blood in them for it to work.”
“You joined that voyage when you were ill, when you knew she would be in close contact with you, when you knew that medical care would be lacking on a ship that was likely one of the first to leave Arawiya in a long time,” Arthie said. “You made her sick. She would have been fine if you had seen her potential, rather than lying to yourself that she needed saving.”
