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Her sword was drawn as she said with lethal calm, “Back the fuck up.”

The man paused, cocking his head to the side. “A Daughter of the Night and an apothecary’s daughter together? What a curious thing.”

“We saw you get off that ship,” Juliette said. “Where are you arriving from?”

“I am visiting some of my kin who reside here,” the man replied. “How did you two get here?”

“We live here,” Nuri snapped back, pulling her scimitars from her weapons belt.

“But you are not from here.”

“Who are the family that you are visiting?” Juliette asked.

“I do not know their names here,” he said. In the moonlight, Scarlett could make out the half smile that filled his face as he said it.

“Then how will you find them?” Nuri asked.

“Blood magic I suppose. That is what brought me here in the first place.”

The words snagged in Scarlett’s memory. Blood magic. Dracon, the assassin who had murdered her mother, claimed such a thing as well.

“What does that mean?” Juliette snapped.

“Do you reside among the humans?” the man asked instead, again with a tilt of his head.

“Where we reside is none of your concern,” Nuri said through gritted teeth. Scarlett had never seen someone get under her skin so easily. “What is your business here? With your family?”

“I have been wanting to come visit them for a long, long while,” the man said. Then he took a step towards them.

“Do not come any closer,” Juliette snarled, leveling her sword at his chest.

The man seemed to sniff at her. “How interesting your own family is.”

“I will only ask you this one more time,” Juliette growled. “What is your business here?”

“And should I decline to answer?” the man asked, looking alarmingly unfazed.

“Then you shall meet my sister.”

Faster than any of them could detect, the man had Nuri in his arms. At her throat was a blade blacker than Scarlett had ever seen.It seemed to devour the dark around it. “A Daughter of the Night does not frighten me,” he sneered, his voice going cold, “and it has been quite some time since I have tasted one myself.” He bent his head down and then licked up the column of her neck.

“You’re a lunatic,” Nuri breathed.

“She is not the sister I was referring to,” Juliette replied coolly.

Scarlett had been inching forward as she had watched everything unfold. From the shadows, she hurled a knife striking true, directly into his thigh. Before he could react, Juliette had moved and knocked his dagger from his hand, pulling Nuri away from him. Scarlett could see the fury in Nuri’s eyes, but it was nothing compared to the rage on the man’s face. His black eyes glittered with ire as Scarlett stepped from the shadows to stand before him. He was clutching his leg. In the moonlight, his blood looked black as it soaked into his pants.

“You shall pay for laying a hand on my sister,” Scarlett purred, casually strolling towards him.

“I shall make you scream.” His cool, cultured voice was replaced with a hiss as he pulled the knife from his leg and threw it to the ground. His nostrils flared, and he straightened, taking her in. “The rumors are true. You are here.”

“You’ll have to be more specific,” Scarlett said. “There are a lot of rumors about me.”

The man glanced between the three of them. “You are not sisters bonded by blood,” he hissed again.

“You’re right. Our bond is stronger than that,” Scarlett retorted.

Fog was creeping in. Fog so thick it was like shadows themselves. The man smiled at them, a vile, wicked thing, as Nuri and Juliette began to circle him. “A Daughter of the Night, an apothecary’s daughter and a daughter of fire and water and more it seems,” he mused. “I was warned there were guardians in this city. I did not believe their claims.”