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“Something wrong?” Raphael asked as I fell behind a step.

I hurried to catch up. Awful clenching in my stomach aside, I didn’t dare fall away from the protection of the vampire king.

“No, no. I was just thinking perhaps I could, um,notgo to meet this vampire Amalthea.”

Raphael chuckled. “Amalthea’s not a vampire.”

I stumbled.

“She’s not?”

“Damerel is home to more than just vampires. If it wasn’t, we would starve.”

That was true, but it didn’t make me feel better. Obviously there were humans the vampires fed on, but just by the way Raphael spoke of her, I knew there was more to this Amalthea. “So she’s a void, like me?”

“Amalthea is a witch.”

A witch? In the Vampire Kingdom? All I could do was blink in surprise as Raphael threw open a massive wooden door. Gone were the carpeted palace halls, replaced bypacked dirt. The cavern was large and mostly empty, with a weapons rack at either end of the space, and a few benches. In the center was a woman. Nobility of some kind, judging by her posture and finery.

“Amalthea,” Raphael said in greeting.

“Raphael,” she replied, without any of the deference that should have come from speaking to a king. “You know, just because I knew you’d be here didn’t mean I knew when. I’ve been waiting for half a day. And it’s so dusty here. You might have arranged a luncheon for this introduction.”

Raphael shrugged. “Then you should have found us at luncheon.”

The witch blew out an exasperated breath. “You know that’s not how it works. I saw ushere.”

I at once understood why Amalthea, a witch, was in the Vampire Kingdom.

Amalthea wasn’t just a witch.

She was an oracle.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Then you know whatwe’re about to do, and you still came dressed like this?” Raphael sounded exasperated.

That in itself was about as shocking as being in the presence of an oracle. Raphael was never anything as mundane asexasperated.

“I accounted for that. I weighed my desire to do your bidding exactly with my desire to make an impression, and the latter won.”

Amalthea was a voluptuous woman, elegantly dressed in large swaths of flowing fabric. Unlike my practical wool, hers were layers and layers of gauze, intricately embroidered in varying patterns. Her hair was silver, with shocks of white and blue lowlights that matched her gray eyes. Orgray eye, rather. A decorated glass orb sat in the left socket, moving with the right one as she appraised me in turn. Her face was made of circles, with round lips, full cheeks, and puffy eyes, which gave her a youthful appearance. Her skin had the warm tones under it that the vampires lacked.

Yet she was as unnatural as the vampires. A witch who could see in the future.

Raphael had brought up the Witch Kingdom’s treatment of seers at Apante. Was she the reason?

“So you believe you can undermine my plans.”

I would have quaked if Raphael had spoken that way to me, with icy accusation. Amalthea gave the vampire king a dismissive wave. “Relax, Your Majesty. I thought of that.”

On unspoken cue, the doors behind us opened once more. My spine stiffened at once. If Amalthea was the consummate witch, the male who stepped in was utterly vampiric. His skin was the color of the running moon, his hair a shade lighter and slicked back before tying off at the nape. He wore a uniform of some kind, black with a purple emblem on the shoulder. While Amalthea was close to my height, this vampire was nearly as tall as Raphael, and more muscular.

He bowed to Raphael immediately.

“My king, I understand you have need of me.”

“Iademos,” Raphael acknowledged. “I’m afraid once again our witch has decided she knew better and brought you here. I didn’t yet want vampires around—” He cut offwith a glance at me and turned to Amalthea. “It’s unwise to go against my wishes, Oracle.”