Page 34 of A Steeping of Blood (Blood and Tea #2)

JIN

Jin hurried behind Arthie into the Horned Guard carriage and closed the door behind them, leaving the unconscious captain behind.

They had little time to waste. The carriage dipped to one side and straightened as Matteo got in the driver’s seat outside, quickly joining the line of carriages waiting to pass into the fort.

Jin was numb. Arthie had told him nothing changed.

The plan was still the same, because she had planned for this.

Jin wanted to lash out and say she was wrong.

That they— he hadn’t seen this coming, but my parents could be on the wrong side had been a prevalent thought since he’d begun his search anew.

Perhaps they were being blackmailed or were biding time, but did that make their actions any different?

He felt the sharp points of his fangs—that he still hadn’t mastered retracting at will—and remembered his first thought: If he had changed, how could he have expected them not to?

Switching sides isn’t a change , he told himself. It was a tragedy.

At his core, Jin liked to think he was still the same person that he was a decade ago. Arthie pulled back the curtain and glanced outside as an imposing shadow fell over them.

“The fort,” she whispered, gaze tracking its height.

Birds cried out in the lush trees, chirping tunes he’d never heard in Ettenia. Coconut trees loomed above. They were everywhere, much like the coconuts piled in his parents’ house before it had burned down. Before, when his father had been in search of a way to improve the lives of vampires.

Before he’d joined the Ram.

She looked back at him, and he didn’t need light to see the pity in her eyes. “The plan remains, did you hear me? If we have to lead them out at gunpoint, I’ll do just that. If we have to knock them out and drag them, we will. But we’re here to ruin the Ram’s machine.”

Jin wanted to hate every word spilling out of her mouth, but she was right.

This wasn’t about him or his parents. This was about taking down the Ram—tearing down the EJC and her crown in one fell swoop.

The woman who killed him. Who treated Flick like she wasn’t worthy of love.

Who made Matteo into something he was not.

Who ruined Arthie’s homeland and countless more.

And if his parents were a part of it, stealing them away would be an even larger blow to the Ram.

“The fort is huge,” Jin said, trying to contribute. “Where do we even begin to find a sanatorium?”

Arthie was still staring out the window. When the gate opened for the carriages up ahead, she pressed her face to the glass as Matteo slid open the grate and glanced inside, draped in the bloody tint of his umbrella.

“Can you see the sanatorium?” Arthie asked, just as he spoke.

“To the sanatorium, I’m guessing? There’s a sign, believe it or not.”

Hiding in plain sight. Like the Athereum. Like Lady Linden beneath her mask. Like Spindrift.

She nodded. “As close as we can.”

He closed the grate shut again without a tease or grin. He was as nervous as they were—or as Jin was. Arthie didn’t look concerned in the slightest.

The carriage rolled forward again, then again. Voices picked up, barked laughter and snide words as men tried to sound tough in the heavy heat. They were nearing the gate.

“Almost through,” Arthie said, and perhaps it was her words, or the shriek of another devil bird in the trees, but dread coiled tighter in Jin’s stomach.

Something was going to go wrong.

Arthie leaned back, closing the curtain and crossing her wrists, pulling on the apprehended-criminal act she was going to give the guards when they opened the door to inspect inside, and then Jin heard it: the shouts.

They were coming from behind them.

Arthie straightened. “Revolver?”

Jin nodded. “I have it.”

Matteo opened the grate. “It’s a guard. He’s—oh, he’s pointing at us.”

“Get us inside,” Arthie insisted. Up ahead, the guards were still waving the line of carriages forward.

Matteo inched the horses toward the gate, halting and moving at command.

Jin swallowed a growl at their slow progress.

Through the window, Jin could see the spiked gate suspended just above them when Matteo halted.

That would be a terrible way to go.

“They stole the captain’s carriage!” came a shout from behind them.

“I think they’re talking about us,” Jin said matter-of-factly. “We need to make a run for it.”

“Arthie? I must say I agree with him,” Matteo called.

Arthie pressed her lips thin, clearly weighing their options. The shouts were getting louder. The guards were coming toward them.

“No,” she said finally. “How far do you think we can get on foot? Press on. We still need to get inside.”

With a grunt, Matteo spurred the horses forward. They protested against him, and Jin spotted a number of guards crowding within the gates. Damned considerate steeds. But Matteo pressed on, nudging guards out of the way until they finally made it inside.

Jin and Arthie both jumped when a hand thumped on the carriage doors. This was not going to plan. Arthie hid Calibore. Jin folded his bullet belt under the waistband of his trousers.

The doors flung open to a slew of guards, and Arthie squeezed Jin’s hand before they were dragged outside without warning. He didn’t have time to grab his hat. Arthie was pulled from the other side and thrown at him. She stumbled, Matteo grabbing her before she could fall.

Well, they had made it inside the fort at least.

The stone walls rose around them. There were no shops or houses here.

It was a compound, full of Ettenians and Ceylani walking to and fro, either in the uniform of a guard or a worker, accepting packages or running duties or loading weaponry.

Women in saris carried baskets overhead, delivering food.

Coconut palms fanned the dusty ground with their leaves, and horses loitered with oxen.

Here, under the archway that seemed to run along the fort’s perimeter, Jin gripped his umbrella tight, ready for a fight, but the guards had surrounded them. Even if the three of them managed to overcome this cluster, they were inside and the gate was shut. Guards were everywhere.

They couldn’t fight their way out of this.

One of the guards snapped his fingers in front of Jin’s face.

“Care to tell us why you stole my colleague’s cab?” he asked. He was dressed in the same-colored uniform as the captain they’d apprehended. That was likely why he was looking at Matteo with an extra level of disgust.

“Can they understand us?” another guard murmured.

“Is it stolen if it’s in front of you?” Arthie replied in perfect Ettenian. A number of the men looked surprised.

“And yes, we understand ruffian quite well,” Jin said, and when the rest of the guards turned their attention to the captain for his response, two of the younger guards remained staring at Jin.

The captain gave them a mirthless smile. “Ah, we have ourselves some Ettenian jokesters.”

The pair of younger guards continued staring at him, murmuring to each other, studying Jin like a bug under a glass.

He tried to catch what they were saying, but not even his vampire hearing was of any help.

There was too much else happening at once, including a roaring in his ears, worsening his disquiet.

He opened his mouth to snap at them, but when he did, one of them dropped his gaze to Jin’s mouth with a gasp, as if his suspicions were confirmed.

Jin’s fangs.

“Vampire!” the guard shouted, pulling out his weapon and aiming it at Jin. In seconds, the entire platoon of guards had followed suit.

Jin froze. Fear dragged a finger down his spine. As the guards circled tighter around him, Arthie and Matteo were forgotten. He couldn’t see them, couldn’t sense them nearby. Had they snuck away? That was a good thing, he told himself, even if it didn’t feel like it.

“Do we shoot?” the guard asked, as if their guns could hurt him. They were acting like he was a rabid animal. Like he was standing here, baring his teeth.

Jin took a slight step backward. The guards followed, the circle tightening.

Only then did he notice their weapons: They weren’t regular rifles. They were loaded with a strange kind of dart that was filled with a luminescent green serum. Jin didn’t know how much damage it would do to a vampire, but he wasn’t particularly ready to test it out.

He remembered distinctly, after he had been turned, trying to find the benefits of being a vampire. At least I won’t have to worry about dying. And then he’d gone and journeyed to a place where they were weakening and weaponizing vampires, and now threatening to kill one.

“No,” the captain said, stepping closer. Jin weighed the advantage of pulling out his revolver and shooting him. He found none. “It’s useless dead.”

It? Jin snarled.

“We’ve got a better use.” The captain nodded to a guard, and then his hands were pulled behind him and clamped in cuffs before he could react. His umbrella clattered to the ground, a piece of his heart being flayed and flung away.

“Move, and spikes will deploy,” the captain warned him. He turned his head. “Get this thing inside.”

Before Jin could react, the guards began pulling a sack over his head, and it took every ounce of effort not to search for Arthie in the shadows.

Days ago, Jin had been ready to leave Arthie in the dust. He had been ready to leave her behind in Ettenia and sail to Ceylan himself.

But he wasn’t a child; he wasn’t silly. He needed her, and she needed him.

He was half her brain. He couldn’t help her if they were separated.

“What about the other two? Where’d they go?” one of the guards asked. The captain ignored him, and another guard gestured to him to be quiet and pulled him along.

Jin stomped his feet, trying to draw their attention. It worked. Several of the guards shouted. He was whipped around, and that was when he caught one last glimpse of her under the cover of a stack of trunks.

We were made for trouble, you and me , he tried to convey with his eyes before the darkness swallowed him whole and he was dragged away.