Once Upon a Dark October

Chapter Fifteen

T wo days following Morrigan’s lost bout with Sonia, we found ourselves in the crypt again, below the earth with the dripping coastal rock and musty brine cloaking the stagnant room. Misting gusts blew in off the shore every so often, though I couldn’t figure out its source. Josephine’s alchemical fires kept the cavern at a temperature that even my fledgling blood couldn’t protect me from. Morrigan had insisted this was the safest room within the estate to practice wielding my sorcery.

And now that I was here, with centuries-old vampire blood—vampires who could’ve been my coven-mates if a disastrous fate had not intervened—watching over me, the fear and thrill and expectation sent me reeling. The hammering of stone driving into metal pounded against my temples. Morrigan was tacking up Sonia’s invitation to one of the crypt’s pillars, not that I needed or wished to have another reminder. Her blood had painted a gruesome abstract, claret-dark and rusted to the parchment.

“Are you doing all right over there, Elspeth? You’ve gone pale again,” Gwen said, her voice drifting languidly through the crypt. Morrigan had asked her to accompany us for my first few lessons, explaining that we needed another vampire without blood sorcery in their veins to help me learn certain vital skills.