Chapter 28
Sidney
I headed to Mathias’s quarters as soon as the sun set. He lived in one of the spacious suites set aside for nobility to live here long term. Most of Nemea’s council preferred their own estates, but apparently not the Lord Regent.
I knocked on his door and waited with my arms folded.
Mathias answered a minute later. He hadn’t yet donned one of his high-necked coats, which left the defined muscles of his arms visible through the material of his shirt.
A smirk twisted his mouth as he must’ve caught the way I’d briefly admired his physique.
“Good evening, Lady Ilyana.”
“Lord Regent,” I answered in a cool tone. “I’m here for my set of spelled restraints.”
“Of course. Come in.” He stepped aside, holding the door for me. I could’ve refused and excused my rudeness with the desire to hurry, but something had caught my eye.
Mathias went into the next room while I wandered to the far wall of his living room.
It was covered in framed portraits and sketches.
City lines, sunrises, people—all etched in charcoal by a practiced hand.
I reached out to touch the edge of one depicting a dark-skinned woman whose face was lined with age.
A cloud of charcoal-lined curls haloed her head, and her eyes shone with kindness, immortalized on the parchment.
“Do you like my art?”
I startled and turned. Mathias stood in the doorway, holding a plain wooden box in one hand.
“You made these?” I didn’t know why I was so surprised. I’d just never considered how he must’ve had a different life before the Trials of Succession. “Your work is so lifelike. Is this your mother?”
I gestured to the portrait I’d been admiring. He came over, stopping next to me, close enough that I could feel some of the heat off his skin. It’d be too easy to lean in to him and give in to a moment of his solid support.
“Yes. Right before she died.” He traced the edge of the frame with the weight of a single, melancholic moment.
The pad of his finger alighted on different frames as he spoke.
A house rendered in shadows and the window-covered face of a great mansion.
“We used to live in Vesperia, far from here. My parents were glassblowers. My father was the practical one. He spent years on end making windowpanes.”
As he traced the side of a sketch depicting a mosaic window, I scanned the wall, seeing no hint of a man who looked like Mathias.
“And my mother believed in making art from anything. Even scraps of broken glass. When I didn’t show promise in the family business, she showed me how to make my own kind of art. ”
“What brought you to Pythia?” I asked.
Mathias didn’t respond. His hand fell to rest by his side, and his face went oddly blank. He tilted his head. Maroon eyes darted in his head, inspecting the charcoal sketches or perhaps the room itself.
“I…can’t recall,” he said in a bewildered murmur. Putting his free hand to his forehead, he staggered back a couple of steps.
He shuddered, and my brows drew in concern. “Lord Regent?”
With a shake of his head, he stood tall once more. “The second trial is soon,” he said. A second voice echoed under his tone, so soft I could’ve been imagining it. He cleared his throat and opened the box, showing me a set of manacles covered in mage runes resting inside.
I eased toward him cautiously, as if he were an alligator with this box I needed resting inside his open mouth. “Are you all right?” I asked.
“Of course, Lady Ilyana.” He spoke with his usual authority-filled inflection, a single dark brow raised since I’d dared to question him. “All that matters is that you complete the task and continue to serve the Flask. Take this tool and go.”
Unnerved, I did as he said and headed back to my room. I didn’t know what was going on with him, but I didn’t have the time or energy to devote anything more to questioning one of my enemies. Even if, for the space of a heartbeat, I’d seen the unmistakable glitter of fear in his eyes.
There was a knock at my door while we were preparing to leave. The evening was young, but the journey across the city to the House of Whispers would take the better part of the night.
I answered with annoyance at the interruption, just to recoil from the face waiting for me.
It was Lord Clement. Though we hadn’t met, his resemblance to Emmeline was unmistakable.
He was all business, his golden eyes leonine, piercing and predatory.
A pair of vampiresses flanked him, holding bundles of parchment and writing kits.
“Lady Ilyana, if we may have a moment to speak,” he said.
“By all means.” I stepped aside for them to enter.
Finn and Zane retreated to the bedroom. I’d figured it would be easier to navigate around Clement’s truth-seeking magic if he was only speaking to one of us.
“Can I get you all some refreshments?” I offered.
“That won’t be necessary. We only have a few questions for you. Please, make yourself comfortable.”
I sat with them, not missing the casual arrogance of him inviting me to relax when he was a guest in my space. The two scribes set up and flipped their notes to clean pages, quills at the ready.
“My darling Emmeline speaks well of you,” he began, baring his fangs in the merest of smiles. “I understand that you’re in some sort of early-trial alliance.”
“That’s right. I wouldn’t have survived the first trials without help.”
A familiar weight pressed on my forehead where Clement’s gaze was resting. It felt exactly like when Emmeline used her magic on me. His expression didn’t change. It seemed Nemea’s old inquisitor accepted technical truths just like his daughter did.
That didn’t stop the tremble in my fingers. I hid it by keeping my hands in a tight hold in my lap.
“I’m afraid I cannot fully wish you well, but I admire your good taste. You probably know what this visit is about,” he said. I merely nodded, and his attention sharpened on me. “Did you kill your fellow candidate for the throne, Genevieve Mercier?”
So direct. It required the same sort of answer in return. “I did not.”
He released a weary sigh. “It’s never so easy, is it?” he murmured. One of his scribes made a forced titter in response. “Do you know who might’ve had a reason to want her dead, Lady Ilyana?”
“Well, she is a candidate in a trial to the death.” I shrugged. “So don’t all of us desire her death on some level? Besides that, I heard she came out of the labyrinth without a single living member of her old Devotion. Perhaps it was one of their family members?” I suggested.
Quills scratched across parchment. Clement’s unblinking stare remained focused squarely on me. I set my spine to keep from shifting in discomfort. “Anyone else?” he pressed.
I couldn’t say no; he’d notice the lie. Razira was at the forefront of my mind.
I worried for her, wondering how she’d answer when asked bluntly about Genevieve.
“I witnessed her lose control of herself and fully drain a blood servant. Some humans have ties to the Temple of Aetherius, you know. Perhaps she murdered the wrong person and a slayer made her pay for it.”
The three of them recoiled before the scribes noted it down. Inwardly, I felt badly for the human staff. If Lord Clement hadn’t thought to question them before, he would now.
“One last question. Where were you that night?” he asked.
The question I’d been dreading but also expecting. I didn’t have to tell him everything, only enough for him and his scribes to connect curated facts strung into an incomplete account and assume I’d been in the mansion the whole night.
“You may be aware I’d just finished the bonding ritual to take my first two devotees.
We were a bit engaged that evening.” The scribes smirked knowingly as they wrote, while Clement didn’t react at all.
“After that, I was here planning for the next trial and practicing my new magic. I haven’t gotten the hang of it yet.
” Quite the understatement at this point.
“And then I spent most of the night in the great hall after the Lord Regent ordered all candidates and their Devotions within the mansion to be sequestered.”
I forced a neutral expression, the courtly mask Ilyana would wear. If they accepted my answer, then they wouldn’t ask me about Lorelei. They’d assume I wasn’t connected to her murder.
Lord Clement softened his stance and finally glanced away from me. “Well, I wish you luck with your new magic. It took my Beloved a few weeks to get the hang of using mine.”
“Time I can ill afford to lose,” I sniffed.
“Isn’t that the truth?” A feline smile crossed his lips. “I shall not take any more of it from you, Lady Ilyana. Thank you.”
It took all of my self-control not to breathe a sigh of relief until I had the door shut behind them.
We set out with enough supplies to last us a few days in enemy territory.
There’d be no need for Finn’s rat-based deterrent plan for Tahlia, because I didn’t intend to return to the mansion until we had a nemesis shackled in spelled restraints.
There was, indeed, no time to waste. We were on day four of the trial and the second week of my disguise.
Zane gathered up a few odds and ends; then we set off on horseback for the House of Whispers.
We took a rural path through the outskirts of the Crimson Wharf borough, where Ash could follow from the trees.
Boris and many of Finn’s rodent friends hitched a ride with him. The mastiffs trailed behind us.
I heard many small voices from the animals but focused on one like Finn taught me. My horse, who maintained a sizable distance from the tree line. “Predator. Run fast. Faster. Rider not scared?”
I patted her neck and tried to reassure her with magic.
But her attention was too firmly fixed on Ash to hear me.
Either that, or I truly couldn’t speak to animals mentally like Finn could.
The idea of it burned. I was inadequate, half a vampire, and thus half as strong as either mate I called mine.
We didn’t set foot on Whispers land until we were in Phoenix Ascent, the borough which held their mansion stronghold.
It was situated to the southwest of the borough, several miles from the symbolic bridge we’d crossed that marked the change of territory.
We were close to Harmony as we wandered through a patchwork of human settlements.
Land here was cheap—vampires wanted their food sources close.
I glanced around, expecting something to be markedly unique, from the architecture to the faces of the few people out this late at night. But I could be wandering downtown in the Gilded Yard instead for as little difference as there seemed to be.
There was nothing that identified a Sanguine or a Whispers vampire on sight. The differences were always political. So as long as we kept our heads down, we wouldn’t stand out.
I took off my bracelet and pocketed it, visiting a couple human inns as myself. I looked mostly human, so I had little trouble finding us a room for a couple nights.
Finn sent off his rats to scout again, but this time, we joined them.
We observed the House of Whispers from a safe distance.
Under the cover of Zane’s silken shadows and my stuttering ones, we confirmed a few things we already knew.
Like when the guard shift changed or the few blind spots left in their nightly rotations.
One by one, the rats returned with tidbits of new information. I picked up some of what they were saying to Finn, like glimpses of faces as seen from below. Some excellent nostril views, unflattering even to the fairest of bloodsuckers.
Along with that were names. “Sabine. Sabine. Sabine,” whispered the rats.
Flashes of a pale brunette and the chainmail shirt she wore over ordinary clothes. Was she expecting danger? Well, of course she is. One of the candidates has already tried to kidnap her.
The rats gave us other names, which we wrote down. With their help, we had an idea of who resided in the mansion’s largest rooms.
After a couple hours, we retreated to our inn room before the incoming sunrise. Finn updated the map of the mansion while Zane and I poured over the list of names. Some were instantly recognizable.
“Isn’t she the vampiress who makes your ears bleed when she screams?” he asked.
I crossed off her name immediately and moved on to the next.
“I don’t recognize this one,” I mused. When Zane didn’t either, I underlined the name and placed a question mark beside it.
Together, we were able to identify half of the names as members of the new queen’s council. She’d invited fresh faces into some spots, though not all of them were present in the mansion. I assumed most had estates of their own, like Lorelei.
The rats had noted a male who lived in a corner suite alone.
His name was Noir. It rang a vague bell, but I couldn’t figure out why it sounded familiar.
Zane snapped his fingers. “Isn’t that the retired assassin?
His name has been on the ‘old and vanished threats’ board since we started training as slayers. ”
“Oh, yes. He’s a living legend.” As any vampire who’d lived long enough to “retire” would be. He probably still worked in a lesser capacity, training Whispers vampires to fight and kill for their queen.
As hearsay would have it, he refused to fight slayers, typically disarming them with a pat on the head instead. He’d tell them to remember his mercy and suggested they turn their blades on Sanguine vampires instead. A true believer of the saying “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
I’d once taken an interest in him, as he was reported to have a number of unpredictable magical traits. He was a walking enigma. Many deaths were attributed to his name, all of them Sanguine vampires.
“Maybe he’d be amenable…” I mused aloud.
Zane narrowed his eyes at me. “Amenable to what, exactly?”
“Helping us kill a few more Sanguine vampires, of course.” I tapped his name. “What do you think the Flask will do with the nemesis we bring back?”
“It probably depends on whether the Flask sees a use for them or not. Anyone could be a servant.”
Or entertainment for it. That’s the only reason the Flask tolerates me.
“He’s perfect,” I stated. “We’ll capture him tomorrow night.”