Chapter 9 #2
In the heavy silence that followed, I watched the shadows crawl across the floor toward the wall-sleepers. Theron hadn’t noticed that while he was busy perfecting his “noble scowl” in the washbasin, I’d been gathering a handful of honeyed crusts stolen from the kitchen.
I’d laid a careful trail from the damp floorboards of the larder, through the shadows between the central cots, and straight into the padding of Theron’s pillow.
Now I watched the red ants march up the legs of his bed like a conquering army. It would take a great many bites before he realized what was happening, but there were plenty of them to do the job.
A moment later, Theron twitched and slapped his neck. Then he thrashed, limbs flailing.
I pulled the thin blanket over my mouth to hide my grin.
Within seconds, the other wall-sleepers were a tangle of flailing limbs and blurred mouths, their faces contorted with what I assumed were very creative curses I’d never have to hear.
Pointed fingers stabbed the air in my direction, but I merely offered a slow, vacant shrug.
I kept my expression as hollow as they believed my mind to be defective and couldn’t possibly understand why they were dancing a jig at midmorning.
Eventually, they slumped back into their cots with sour faces, defeated by an enemy too small to fight.
Not long after, the vibrations from Marcus’s snoring pulsed through the floor in steady, rhythmic thuds, as if he was still at his forge, hammering red-hot iron in his dreams.
Part of me envied how easily he drifted off, as if nothing strange had happened. But he didn’t have a cold request from Lady Ilyana knotting his stomach and tightening his throat.
Soon, the telltale signs of their deep sleep surrounded me. Slack jaws hung open, drool gleamed occasionally in the dim light, and chests rose and fell rhythmically.
An hour later, I flexed my fingers. Flakes of gray ash scattered like dead snow from my knuckles, falling in tiny spirals to the floor. The angry red welts on my forearms had faded to pink lines that would vanish soon.
The mansion had settled into its daytime bustle. I slipped into the kitchen, where the day staff prepared food for the human residents.
“Pitcher for Lady Ilyana,” I attempted to say to one of the chefs.
The words tumbled out as my tongue fumbled, clumsy and thick as though coated in peanut butter.
For all I knew, it might have come out sounding like pick me a baby llama.
I pointed upward to the guest wing, letting my expression convey equal parts urgency and boredom.
Without looking up, she slid a silver pitcher across the stone counter. The lie sat cleanly in my mouth. Nobles made requests at odd hours, and servants who questioned them didn’t last long.
Now, I had a legitimate reason to be anywhere in the mansion. Even where I shouldn’t be.
“Thirsty,” Nibs reported. I lingered beside the sink. While the head cook’s knife kept its steady rhythm, I let the mouse out for a quick drink. He dipped his tiny paws, took a few eager sips, and then darted right back into my pocket.
I navigated corridors that stirred up memories I’d rather forget. The route to the guest quarters took me past the servants’ hall, where I had first learned sign language from a servant who’d lost his hearing in the coal mines.
Those had been simpler times, when all I had to do was avoid the wrong end of a vampire’s temper. Now, I was one of them, trapped in this cursed existence.
Yet at least I was still myself, unlike some of the others. I had seen what prolonged vampirism could do. How it leeched away everything human and good, leaving only hunger and cruelty behind.
As if my musing mind had summoned her, when I rounded the corner into the guest wing, a figure blocked my path. Razira.
My breath caught. Before the change, Razira had been a house servant, devout and kind.
A follower of Aetherius, she’d found joy in the sun’s warmth while she discreetly served.
She used to sneak me leftover bread. Then, she disappeared not long after another dear friend, only to reappear recently as one of the Turned.
“Finn,” she mouthed. “What business does a stable hand have in the guest wing during daylight hours?”
She’s performing. I could see it in the stiff set of her shoulders, the way her disdain felt practiced. I kept my head down, eyes fixed on her mouth, playing my part, and gestured to the pitcher.
Her eyes narrowed. “Why would you be delivering blood?”
I feigned confusion and shrugged.
“Don’t play dumb with me, you flawed pest,” she hissed.
I pointed to the blood again and attempted to step around her. I kept my eyes locked on her mouth. It wasn’t a choice, really; it was how I navigated the world. At least she didn’t mumble.
“Useless,” she spat, though her gaze softened for a fraction of a second. “Be quick about it, then.” She swept past me.
The guest wing loomed ahead. My grip tightened on the pitcher. It was an excuse, not protection.
Lady Ilyana’s door waited like a verdict, cracked open when I reached it. I told myself this was routine, that she wanted something mundane. I wasn’t walking into a trap. Yet fear curled low in my gut, and I knew better than to dismiss it.
I knocked, feeling the vibrations travel up my arm.
My pulse quickened with fear. This was how servants disappeared.
She opened the door, her posture perfect. However, something in the way she held herself with coiled tension spoke of violence rather than noble breeding.
She was beautiful in the way all Born vampires were, with an effortless, predatory grace that made my clumsy existence feel even more inadequate.
You wanted to see me, ma’am? I signed, keeping my head bowed but my eyes up.
She motioned for me to enter. Her hands moved, slow and careful. How… She paused, fingers hesitating mid sign, then corrected herself. How are you feeling?
I set the pitcher on a nearby table and flexed my shoulders. Healed. The burns are gone.
Good. She gestured toward the pitcher. Is that for me?
I nodded. She smiled and poured a glass, then handed it to me. I hesitated; servants weren’t supposed to have the fresher blood the nobility sipped, but she pressed it into my hand anyway.
Sit. She indicated a chair as she settled into her own.
I obeyed, watching her hands. There was something about her technique, small quirks in how she formed certain letters…
You have questions, she signed. Her hands moved with more confidence now.
Not trusting her intentions, I put down the glass. Many, I admitted. Starting with how you survived direct sunlight.
Her lips curved in what might have been a smile. What if I told you I wasn’t really Lady Ilyana Krudelbach?
My heart skipped a beat.
I would say, why are you telling me this? I signed back carefully.
Her gaze lingered, not idle, but probing. She didn’t speak, didn’t blink, just watched. The corner of her mouth twitched, and a pulse fluttered at her throat. Tell me, do you remember learning sign language as a child?
The question caught me off guard. Of course. Old Henrik taught some of us servants. Why?
Do you remember a girl who could never get the sign for “church” right? Always signed “chocolate” instead, no matter how many times Henrik corrected her?
A chill ran through me. There had been only one person who’d made that mistake consistently, despite Henrik’s increasingly frustrated corrections. A dhampir girl who’d practiced signs with me in stolen moments between chores.
Yet that was impossible. That girl had disappeared years ago, presumably escaped or dead in the hours after Prince Lazrael’s murder.
She couldn’t be here, wearing another woman’s face. Could she?
She stood and pulled up her sleeve, then reached for her bracelet and pulled it off. I thought she was going to offer it to me as a bribe.
A glamor fell away from her like a waterfall.
The haughty, high-cheekboned face of Ilyana Krudelbach dissolved, replaced by the freckled nose and fierce, determined amber eyes of the girl I grew up with.
Sidney. Her features were gentler than Ilyana’s but not untouched by her bloodline.
A trace of her grandmother lingered in the cut of her chin, an echo of the woman who'd tormented me my whole life.
Her auburn hair caught the faint light, and the scars on her fair skin mapped a life I knew. She stood tall in a long-sleeved dress that clung in all the right places. The sleeves did little to hide the subtle definition of her arms, the quiet power beneath her elegance.
She’d grown up. The girl I remembered had been replaced by a woman who carried herself with a quiet confidence, a grace that made it impossible to look away.
She was more beautiful than I’d ever imagined she could become, every feature sharpened and refined with time.
Longing stirred in me at the sight of my first and only crush, an ache I thought I’d buried years ago.
Her chest was more than enough to fill my hands if I dared to reach out, if I could convince my suddenly clumsy fingers they remembered how to function. The gentle curve of her hips transitioned seamlessly into a figure that could draw the attention of the most disciplined soldier.
Holy shit, I signed, forgetting to be polite. My hands twitched. One wanted to reach out, to confirm she was real, while the other wanted to clench into a fist.
“Sidney,” I breathed. I hadn’t said it aloud in years. Is it really you?
She nodded, and for the first time since I’d seen her in the courtyard, she smiled. Really smiled, not in the reserved manner of Lady Ilyana.
Hello, Finn.
A thousand emotions crashed over me at once. Joy that she was alive. Anger that she’d left us behind. Relief that she’d somehow survived. Hurt that she’d never tried to contact me. Affection that had never quite died.
I wanted to leap up and embrace her, to demand answers, to rage at her for disappearing. Instead, I just sat there like an idiot, staring at her face.