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“I was the strongest, and I was the most ruthless,” Raphael continued. “The years when I came to power… I didn’t waste time on politicking. There are those who excel at it, and they have a place. But me? It was a brutal, brutal thing.”

“What do you excel at, then?” My voice was soft.

He held my gaze. “Truthfully? Surviving. At any cost.”

He was a survivor. Like me. It was hard to imagine us having anything in common, but when he said those words, I heard the savage truth. I recognized it like I recognized my fingertips.

We were closer now. In that moment, I didn’t want to survive—I justwanted. My heart fluttered, the mental shields I’d worked on only half in place. There was no way Raphael missed that, and yet he was still so close.

But I’m leaving.

And I wouldn’tsurvive Raphael.

“Will you tell me what it’s like beyond Damerel?” I whispered.

If Raphael was surprised by my sudden conversation change, he didn’t betray it. He pulled away and returned moments later with a giant scroll. He pulled the low table closer to the couch and laid the map open for us.

I blinked. I hadn’t actually seen a map since childhood, and even that had only been due to the tutors my mother had insisted on.

The map itself was a work of art, but my eyes skipped over the ornamentation and tried to refit this map into my worldview. I didn’t remember Eurobis being so large. I planted my finger on a mountain range in the middle. “Is this really Damerel?” The letters were curved in an ornate script. No map from the Witch Kingdom would have named the vampire capital.

He bent closer, shoulder to shoulder with me, even though he could see just fine with his vampire vision.

“Though I rule the so-called Vampire Kingdom of the West, we’re more of a barrier between the two halves of the continent.”

“So what’s over there?” I moved my hand to the middle-left of the map.

“Other magical creatures capable of reasoning inhabit the rest of the continent. You’ll find kobolds and ogres, but there are other beings of power who have claimed territory.” Raphael moved his fingers to the back of my hand. I jolted at the contact but let him adjust my fingersto the north corner. “The shape-changers live here.” He moved my hand down to a peninsula so narrow it could have been an island. “The Winged Ones are here. There are more magical mortals, like your witches, only they don’t use magic in the same ways.” He withdrew his fingers and gestured to the rest of the map. “The fae have several strongholds, constantly changing alliances. You would encounter them…” He trailed off uncharacteristically.

I’d encounter them when I left. “Do you think I could manage there? I’m just a void.”

“I think you couldthrive,” he rasped. “It’s not the Witch Kingdom, where you have magic or you’re mud. There are many ways to live there.”

I pursed my lips. I hadn’t ever thought of it as unfair. It was just how things were. Besides, witches shared their magic with the rest of us through cards. That we paid for.

I turned away from the thought. “Have you spent much time in the rest of Eurobis?” He certainly knew about it.

“I cannot. The southern and northern kingdoms have closer ties. We trade through them, most often.”

Trade. The Witch Kingdom was locked between those kingdoms; we had no one to trade with. Sometimes it disconcerted me how much more to the world there was now that I was ostensibly in the world of monsters.

And soon I’d get to see an entire new realm.

By myself.

“Would you… visit me, once I’m settled?” The thought, silly as it was, slipped through before I could catch it on mytongue. The late hour made it too easy to say these ridiculous things.

He drew closer, his cedar scent licking at my senses, our knees touching. “Samara, there is nowhere in this world I would not go if you wished me to.”

He couldn’t lie. I stilled, my body frozen while my heart raced faster and faster.

“Too much truth?” His tone was teasing, yet his eyes were still serious.

Yes. It wouldn’t be a simple thing, wanting Raphael like this. It would destroy me. There was no denying it. Not after this night.

But it would turn me into what they thought, another human for the king to use. I had to translate the book and leave—

“Samara?”