Chapter 18
Ahand settled on his shoulder, and Will flinched, but it remained there.
“Mr. Frank,” the voice repeated sharply.
“Mr. Arcos?” Confused, Will turned around. It took him several seconds to connect the man, the voice, and the place.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Without waiting for an answer, the ambassador pushed him up the stairs.
“Where is Elodie?” Mr. Arcos asked as soon as they reached the outer edges of the party.
But the traces of what Will had seen still clung to him. He felt as though he were leaving filthy footprints across the red carpet.
“I lost her,” Will admitted, straightening his shirt in an attempt to recover some semblance of composure. His hands were slick, and he had to wipe them on his pocket square. Mr. Arcos’s hand fell away from his shoulder, but the warmth of his touch remained. Will clung to it.
“I suspected as much when I saw you in the courtyard. I could not leave immediately, and it appears I was too late.”
Only then did Will truly look at him. He still wore nothing but his shirt, a streak of dried blood stuck to his forehead.
Yet here, in the orange glow of the lamps, Mr. Arcos looked warm.
He was no longer the moonlit master of beasts, but a man with tired eyes, shadows under them, and hollow cheeks.
Concern and reproach mingled in his features.
“Thank you. You have a talent for finding me.”
Mr. Arcos merely grunted, shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, and suddenly looked weary beyond his years, but was trapped somewhere between being too young to change anything and old enough to bear the full weight of life on his shoulders. And Will was one more burden.
“All of you use vampires as though they were cattle. Worse than cattle…” Will could no longer hold the words back.
He leaned against an inlaid cabinet and only then noticed that his fingers were trembling, his silk handkerchief filthy and crumpled.
Perhaps Mr. Arcos did not keep vampires on leashes or chain them down for sex, but he fed them to his chimeras.
To him, they were worth no more than pigs.
Mr. Arcos sighed and turned his face away. “No one in this city dies of old age. Sooner or later, we all end as vampires or fodder to them. That is the curse of this place. The only question is how long we endure before it catches up with us.”
“The more magic you use, the more blood you drink, the closer you come to the curse,” Will summarized. “Then why are you and Duchess Ormonde so reckless with it? Why risk your lives for this rivalry?”
Mr. Arcos shrugged. “We would do nothing differently even if we knew our time was running out.”
“It is still wrong… Those are—were—people.” In the Capitol, every guest down there would have been imprisoned for doing such things to animals, let alone human beings.
“Under the law, vampires are considered dead. Killing one is therefore not a crime. Necrophilia is, however, and what you witnessed would lead to charges if it had not happened here, in the Red Hand’s mansion.”
Will shuddered. “Can they still feel anything? Do they understand what is being done to them?” His voice broke, and Mr. Arcos’s mouth tightened.
“Perhaps. They can no longer tell us. Certain reflexes remain when someone succumbs to bloodlust, as do fragments of their personality. Those fade with time, and most lose every trace of reason. But you must never underestimate them. Those who have been turned for longer hunt like cunning animals. They organize themselves into packs and abduct victims so they can feed from them for days.” Mr. Arcos squared his shoulders, and his gaze grew cool again.
“Understandably, their human appearance inspires your compassion, and it speaks well of you that you feel disgust for their abusers, but never mistake vampires for harmless victims. Make one wrong move, and they will tear out your guts.”
Will couldn’t forget the girl’s tear-filled gaze, something so painfully human set against the bloodshot whites of her eyes.
“But enough. We are going to find Elodie.” With that, Mr. Arcos strode ahead and led Will into the crush of the ballroom.
Will kept his eyes fixed on the man’s broad shoulders as he moved through the crowd as though the house belonged to him, as though he were more than merely a guest.
They found Elodie locked in an intense discussion with an older gentleman with dark skin and an immaculately cut, stiff suit, though as they drew closer, the exchange revealed itself as playful sparring.
He was a handsome man, with a pointed beard and neatly pressed salt-and-pepper curls.
She looked up in surprise when she saw the two men approaching.
Her red paint remained perfectly demonic.
Mr. Arcos pushed Will forward with one hand on his shoulder as though returning a runaway schoolboy. “Keep a closer eye on your pup before something happens to him.”
Then he vanished as though he could not escape quickly enough, leaving Will with Elodie, who pursed her lips in disapproval.
“When will you learn that breaking rules in Bloodgrove has consequences?”
The gentleman beside them laughed in surprise. “Elodie, allow the poor man some enjoyment. It is his first ball.”
After one dark moment, her expression brightened again, her polite and charming mask clicking back into place. “Forgive me, Duke Wilkinson. May I introduce my interior designer, William Frank?”
Will bowed. “I believe I had the pleasure of meeting your mother, Your Grace.”
“How?” Elodie asked, but the duke smiled.
“When my mother learned from the Red Hand that a train ticket had been purchased, she insisted on buying one herself so that she could be the first to see who was honoring our city with a visit after so long.” Duke Wilkinson smiled at Elodie.
“Duchess, you are as full of surprises as ever. But even as a child, you had a particular eye for beauty. It is no wonder that the first thing you undertook after your father’s death was a renovation.
” His pale eyes glittered with mischief.
“You are growing into the perfect woman.”
Before long, Will was forgotten, and the two of them dove back into conversation. That suited him well. He waited in silence for the morning to come and set him free.
The morning glowed pink as Will climbed into the carriage.
The sun was shining when Will fell into bed.
From that night on, he slept with the curtains open.