Page 59 of A Steeping of Blood (Blood and Tea #2)

FLICK

Flick had never wished for anything as much as she did now.

She wished Arthie wasn’t seated with a monster in a carriage.

She wished Jin’s parents weren’t bleeding on the cobblestones of the home they’d left ten years ago.

She wished the Ram hadn’t ambushed them at the docks, and that Flick had been able to properly warn the others.

She didn’t know why Arthie had given herself up as the Ceylani vampires were turning the tides. Arthie would say she had her reasons, but she hadn’t been imprisoned for days that echoed like a lifetime. There was no telling what the Ram might do to her.

Meanwhile, Flick and the others were in the comfort of the Athereum. They were safe, but that didn’t fill Flick with the relief she thought it would.

“Arthie said not to come for her,” Matteo said, pacing back and forth in the hall outside their rooms.

“Well, we are,” Jin replied. He didn’t look sad, really. He looked numb, empty—emotions Flick didn’t know how to contend with herself. He flipped the coin Arthie had given him. “And thanks to you, we’re in sparkling-new outfits.”

Matteo scowled.

When Arthie and the Ram rumbled away, her black-clad forces had climbed into their carriages and done the same.

The slaughter was over, but the vampires were not sated, unwilling to board Sidharth’s carriages that arrived a moment later.

It wasn’t until Matteo warned them that the Horned Guard cordoning off the area would paint them as the culprits that everyone moved.

Jin had wanted to head directly to the Council, but Matteo had gestured to their bloodstained clothes and grimy skin, and not even Jin could argue against a shower. So here they were, in the Athereum.

Flick stifled a scream now as something wet and rough ran along her arm. “Opal!”

The kitten meowed indignantly in response. Her eyes were wide, affronted at having been left alone, but her tail was high, swishing in contentment at their return.

“I know, I know,” Flick replied, pulling her into her lap. Opal immediately began to purr. “I didn’t mean to be away so long.”

In hindsight, two days was nothing. No one would understand if she told them just how long those days had felt.

“What happened on Ceylan?” she asked, determined to forget.

One side of Jin’s lips quirked into a wry smile. “I had my head shoved in a sack, found my parents, watched Arthie burn down thousands of duvins’ worth of resources in the fort, and rushed back to find you.”

Matteo snorted. “That’s the gist of it. He also commandeered a moving carriage in the middle of traffic.”

Flick gasped. Before she could berate him, a shriek echoed and Chester came tearing through the hall, Reni and Felix on his heels.

“Flick!” Chester shouted, wrapping his arms around her. He smelled like sugar and sunlight. “We were so worried, we was! We tried looking for you, but none of our runners had a clue!”

“I was underground,” Flick said quietly. “Not an easy place to find.”

He whirled to Jin. “We’re sorry, Jin. We tried to keep her safe.”

“I suppose I can forgive you,” Jin said with an overly dramatic sigh, but then he looked back at Flick. “What happened?”

This time, his voice was a death sentence, spiking her blood with a promise to do horrible, horrible things to anyone who hurt her.

“I found coordinates in the ledger, and when I realized they led to a place close to the palace and the tribute, I thought I’d find out what her plans are, but her men found me first,” Flick said. “It’s a bunker, sprawling under the palace. I couldn’t explore it in its entirety, but—”

Flick stopped. How was she meant to describe the cage full of girls and boys? How was she to talk about the helplessness in their eyes, the knowledge that their monarch was worse than the vampires she blasphemed across the country?

“What is it?” Matteo asked.

“I found the people she’s been kidnapping off the streets.”

“In the bunker?” Jin asked.

Flick nodded grimly. “They’re caged in a room.”

“But why? If she was kidnapping them under the guise of vampires slaughtering innocents on the street, she wouldn’t need to worry about keeping them alive.”

Flick cradled her wrists in her lap. She hesitated to call the Ram heartless when she always had been. It was Flick who hadn’t been any wiser. Still, she was worse now.

“She’s going to turn them,” Flick said. “They—I spoke to the kidnapped. She’s going to turn them on the day of the tribute.”

Jin took a sharp breath. “And?”

Everyone knew the story of how the Ram came into power. She appealed to the masses by creating the Wolf of White Roaring and taking the reins. She was careful with her chaos and greed. Now Flick wasn’t so certain she would be.

“I don’t know,” Flick said. “Unleash them onto the streets while the rich and powerful are safe in the palace, perhaps?”

“Not if we get to them first,” Matteo said quietly. “We’re not letting the Ram replicate the massacre from twenty years ago.”

Sidharth brought in a tray holding several flutes filled with crimson and a cup of tea for Flick.

Matteo took one of the flutes and offered it to Jin.

Flick wondered if he’d taken her gift on the ship, if he knew why she’d given it to him: to tell him that she accepted him no matter what.

She didn’t care that his heart no longer beat, or that he couldn’t walk out into the sunlight.

But at the same time, she did . He had lost so much of what he enjoyed. He had died, even if he had returned seconds after. That was the core of it, wasn’t it? Being a vampire meant mourning one’s own death forever and ever.

Flick took the flute from Matteo, doing her utmost not to let the smell of the blood twist her features, and extended it to Jin herself.

“Another gift? Felicity, you spoil me,” he said, soft and despondent, though a smile wavered on his lips.

He took a dainty sip at first, his eyes brazenly lifting to hers.

Heat rose to her cheeks. She wondered what it would be like to have her own blood staining his lips.

To have his fangs at her throat, his tongue smoothing the goosebumps rising even now with the thought alone.

He took another sip, then another, downing the rest in one quick swig.

He swayed, relief and satisfaction wrapped in a deep-throated sigh.

“Much better,” he said in a low tone that made her shiver.

“The carriage is ready whenever you are,” Sidharth said. “My driver will take you to the Horned Guard minister, if you have his address.”

“I do,” Matteo said, and rose to his feet. “How are the vampires?”

“I’m glad we had the foresight to clear out a wing for them,” Sidharth said.

“There’s a good number, eh? And I had almost forgotten how many of them were members.

I can’t say everyone’s happy to be here, but they understand the situation.

None of us ever saw the Athereum becoming well-nigh a prison, but it’s only temporary. ”

Flick hoped so, for all their sakes.

“They’re acclimating well thus far. We’ve given them each coconut water, as instructed, and will continue to monitor and aid as necessary.

They have rooms, free rein of their wing.

They’ll get through. Oh, and”—Sidharth handed something to Jin—“we found these on your father’s person. I thought you should have them.”

It was a book, bound in leather the same deep shade of green Jin favored in his suits.

It was bursting with notes and slips of paper shoved inside, wrapped tight with cords to hold everything together.

Flick didn’t know if they were notes from his work or a diary, but she was glad Jin had another piece of his father to hold on to.

“I am sorry, Jin,” Sidharth murmured.

Jin took it, jaw clenched as if he, too, was just barely holding himself together. Then he looked at the others. “Right. Let’s go meet the Council.”

The Council. She froze.

“What is it, Flick?” Chester asked, tilting his head at her. “What’s wrong?”

What was she to say? She hadn’t forged the invitations Arthie had asked her to send out, nor could she. Flick had overheard Arthie’s instructions at the docks. She knew what Arthie wanted her to do. And Flick couldn’t. This was the moment she had been dreading. The need for her talent.

She stared at her fingers, at the tremor she couldn’t shake.

Holding anything was a pain, but holding something steady would be near impossible.

She had tried. A cramp rendered her useless in moments.

She values her hands very much, and I don’t see her using them to the fullest extent after this .

The Ram couldn’t get Flick to return to her, so she had ensured she was useless to Arthie and Jin too.

“I can’t,” Flick whispered.

“You can’t what?” Jin asked.

She tried to elaborate and explain, but tears crowded her throat. Instead, she tugged on her sleeves, pulling them just above her wrists.

Her skin was bruised in shades of purple and green.

“She—” He broke off with a growl and stood up, directing his next words at Sidharth. “I need a medical kit.”

He didn’t ask her what happened. He didn’t press her for answers, and for that, she was strangely grateful.

Sidharth led them to another door without question. “This way.”

She glanced back at Matteo before the door closed behind them, an apology leaping to her tongue for the delay, but his brow was creased, his expression pained as he stared at her arms. He knew what it was like, she realized. He was an artist after all.

Jin dropped a hand to her lower back, guiding her behind Sidharth to a lavish washroom complete with a bench. Sidharth pulled a kit from the vanity drawer and spread its contents on the counter before leaving with a little bow.

Flick sat down as Jin riffled through the different ointments, bandages, and creams with his back to her. He was quiet, unnervingly so. Was he upset that she wasn’t going to be able to contribute to their plans in the way that they needed?