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She asked, “What were those repulsive beings that forced me here?”

“The Gaolers, demigod enforcers. Those phantasms imprison anyone who breaks the laws of the Lore. With eyes like yours, it’s clear how you earned your way here.” Had her purplish irises been blue before the redness set in? “Your crime is stamped upon your face.”

“Is it, then?”

Bloodlust.If a vampire drained too many victims to the quick, his or her mind would turn soft, eyes reddening. In time, they would lose all their faculties.

Silt tried to imagine this creature dragging down prey. Dragginghimdown. As he waited for revulsion to hit, he asked, “How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

“So young.”This tender little leech has been busy.

“And your age, sorcerer?”

“Millennia.” Taken with the lost years of Poly, he’d been alive for eons.

“Do you remember how you got here? Did they force you through a gateway? Have you seen anyone else?”

Her accent pinged some memory in his subconscious, but he struggled to dredge it up. “Two bounty hunters captured me and turned me over to the Gaolers.” He ran a forearm over his brow to mop sweat. “Those four delivered me here.”

As he choked back vomit, she turned her exploration to the rest of the cave, searching for a gateway that didn’t exist. “Then there must be a portal.”

For them.Silt’s research indicated Nightside was a sealed dimension that only the Gaolers could access. Throughout the ages, he’d posted steep rewards for information about any immortal who’d escaped. Zero takers.

She investigated the walls, scenting every cranny. The vampire was one among the predator class of Loreans; her senses would outstrip his, despite her young age. She tugged at jutting rocks with mounting impatience. “The Gaolers stop time, don’t they? If they possess such a power, how can they be fought?”

“They can’t be.”

She flicked a dismissive hand at him. “Well, not by you, obviously.”

Leech!He parted his lips to curse her but only heaved again.

When she headed to the entrance of the cave, he expected her shoulders to slump at the sight on the horizon. Instead, shestraightened them. Raising her face, she inhaled the air. Then she turned back to him with a look of disgust. “I thought Sorceri kept themselves up better than this. Yet there’s no denying the stench.”

“The stench of what?” He sniffed himself.Smelled worse.

Eyes cutting, she enunciated the word: “Dissolution.”

He didn’t deny it, wouldn’t even if he could. Between all his vices, he’d reached oblivion every night. For lifetimes.

She continued, “You’ve achieved a robust bouquet: wine, women, and drugs, with threads of general decay.”

“And you, maneater, smell like bloodlust, so pot and kettle and all that.” Another lie. Her delicate scent was mist mixed with woman, and it addled his brain like opium.

“Any other talents you’d care to declare before I leave you behind like dross?”

I possess a secondary Sorceri power that everyone always forgets about.“And where will you go?”

“Behind this cave, I scent nothing. It must be the edge of the realm. So I will go forward and search past that distant volcano.”

“How will you cross the floodplain? There must be a hundred miles of lava rivers.” Earlier, he’d watched as some cooled, leaving open paths, but then another river would pour in. The constantly changing labyrinth would incinerate any misstep. “You’ll get burned alive.”

“Not if I’m very lucky. And very fast.”

“That volcano could be spewing lava on the other side as well.”

“Possibly. But what other option is there? Surrender in this dismal cave without even a fight?”