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The necromancer that Raphael had failed to locate—I’d find them. I’d give them the book.

I’d give the monsters something to fear.

Chapter Forty-Three

I had lived inrags for the better part of my life at this point. Rags were bordering on an overstatement, actually, since even the most worn material was quickly commandeered by those bigger and stronger. There had been nights I’d wished more strongly for fresh, soft, dresses than I had food.

And I would happily have agreed to never wear anything but those rags again if it meant I didn’t have to endure one more minute of this dress fitting. Between Amalthea’s exacting sense of aesthetics and standing half-naked while two vampires worked to mold the tarps to me, tension had every muscle in my body on the brink of cramping.

“No, that’s not quite right,” Amalthea murmured to the seamstress for what must have been the tenth time since we’d arrived.

The seamstress obliged and moved the bodice a sliver higher.

It was three days after I’d first come here with Amalthea. Three days since I’d been cornered by Titus. Three days since I’d kissed Raphael in the blood den. Now, I was standing on a raised platform like a mannequin. Amalthea went back and forth over hemlines and skirt designs and sleeve shapes and everything else I’d never wanted to know about with the vampiress shop owner and head seamstress, Bertha. At my feet, another vampire was pinning the skirt in place.

I’d soaked the fabric of my back with how much I was sweating, but I endured it. Apparently there were no human dressmakers to help.Thea is here. I repeated those three words over and over again like a spell.Thea is here, Thea is here. She wouldn’t let anything happen. And maybe I wanted to prove Titus wrong. To provemyselfwrong.

When Amalthea had proposed dress shopping… it wasn’t that I wanted for clothing by any stretch, but I hadn’t wanted to disappoint her. Friendship was a foreign thing for me. The closest I’d come was a relationship with my half-brother, but that had been secret.

“Maybe a jot lower,” Amalthea mused, and once again the shift was adjusted. “Sam, what do you think?”

I thought I’d rather skip whatever event this dress was intended for, but that would hurt Thea’s feelings. Instead I said, “I’ll defer to you.” Because I couldn’t tell the difference between this position and any of the past dozen.

The witch nodded.

A sharp pain hit my calf. “Ouch!”

“Oh, my lady, I’m… sorry…” The seamstress pinning my legs trailed off, seeming transfixed. She’d accidentally stuck me with a pin.

She was still, in the way only vampires could be, staring at the spot of blood that had spilled onto the fabric.

I was frozen like a rabbit that had realized it was all too close to a hungry kobold.

“Be more careful,” Amalthea snapped. Her tone was harsher than I’d ever heard, but already the tingle of magic lit around me, the slight pain disappearing. In her hand was a now-blank card that must have contained the healing magic. She’d activated it almost immediately.

“Oh, my lady, I am so, so sorry,” the vampire at my knees stammered. “It was an accident, I swear. Please don’t tell the king!”

Bertha pushed the girl away. “My sincere apologies, Lady Samara. I assure you, I do not tolerate this sloppiness in my shop. I’ll see that the girl is dealt with.”

I stiffened at the tone in the seamstress’s voice. “What do you mean by that?”

“A proper beating, I assure you. Something that will make an impression no matter the immortal healing. And of course, I’ll pull out her fangs.”

I stared at Bertha and her certainty faded a fraction. “I can pull the fangs out again if that’s not to your satisfaction. Or would you like to administer a beating of your own as well?”

For a moment, I was so angry I was struck still. Always with this brutal, barbaric form of justice. When the shop owner parted her lips again to add whatever else to the girl’s unending list of punishment, I found my voice.

“You won’t be doing any of that.”

The girl cringed.

“Of course, Lady Samara, I didn’t mean to imply I would take away this privilege from King Raphael. If he prefers to take his justice personally, I would never dream of interfering.”

Whatever the girl thought Raphael would do, it had her shaking. After what I’d seen in his court, I understood why. I’d never seen a vampire so afraid, not even Janessa when Raphael had ordered her lover’s death. I thought of them as fearsome, near all-powerful creatures.

But looking at her peering up at me with beseeching eyes, lip quivering, all I could think was that I had no doubt looked the same way at Nelson more times than I cared to remember.

“To be clear,” I said slowly, “in your view, justice for mistakenly pricking my skin with one of the severalhundred pins currently wrapped around me warrants beating and mutilation.” Before I could be misinterpreted again, I added, “Or worse. To you, that’s fairness?”