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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

WILLIAM

I drift through the room, my form flickering with turbulent emotions I can’t quite control. Rage, jealousy, desire, and something deeper that I dare not name. The memory of our kiss lingers like fire on my lips. For a brief, impossible moment, I felt her warmth against me. Or did I? I can’t even tell anymore. It shocked me, hurt me, and when I thought she lied about it, it hit something deep inside me I haven’t felt since I was alive.

My magic.

That inherent part of me that made me special, put me on SilverGate’s radar. The only Sanguinarch they had ever seen, heard of. SilverGate hunted me for my childhood years, begging me to be part of their institution. Even the oldest professors had only read about creatures like me in ancient, crumbling texts .

Blood was everything to me. Not in the crude, predatory way of vampires who merely consume it for sustenance. They drink blood; I communed with it. Where they saw food, I saw infinite possibilities, a universe of secrets and power in every crimson drop.

The vampires never quite understood. They’d watch me with those hungry eyes as I worked, transforming blood into forms of magic they couldn’t comprehend. How could I explain that perfect moment when blood reveals its memories to you? When it willingly surrenders the history of the creature it once flowed through? Not Blood Magic. Too common. Any third-rate supernatural can use it in spells. But for me, blood wasn’t just an ingredient or a power source. It was a symbiotic partner, a living essence that transformed within me, becoming something gloriously new and powerful.

I wonder if there will ever be another like me. In all my research, I found only whispers of other Sanguinarchs throughout history—perhaps one born every few centuries, often mistaken for vampires or blood warlocks before their true nature became apparent.

If only I could feel that connection again, to reach out and touch the living essence flowing through her veins. Even as a ghost, I can sense the echo of it, calling to the nature I thought was dead. Her blood is special, perhaps even more unique than mine.

Seeing her with the vampire and the fallen angel stirs something primal in me. They can touch her, taste her, feel her warmth. I can only watch, an impotent spectator to her existence. Yet that kiss... that impossible connection...

The door opens, and Isolde steps in, her face covering up a deep fear I can see in her eyes. She closes the door and leans against it, exhaling slowly.

“William,” she calls softly. “We need to talk.”

“I’m here.”

She straightens up and studies me, those blue eyes searching my translucent form hovering by the window. “Did you feel it?”

“Yes,” I croak. “It’s impossible. Ghosts can’t interact physically with the living.”

“And yet,” she says, crossing over and reaching out toward me. Her hand passes through my chest as expected, but there’s a whisper of sensation, like static electricity, where we intersect. “Something is happening between us.”

“It was a fluke,” I say, trying to brush it off so the crushing disappointment doesn’t continue to torture me. “Nothing more.”

“I disagree.”

“That’s your prerogative.”

She rolls her eyes, those pretty, pretty eyes that do things to me.

“What happened with the restricted section?” I ask, changing the subject before she can continue tormenting me with this inquisition.

She sighs, dropping onto the edge of her bed. “We found out why I was locked away my whole life.”

“And?” I press, floating closer.

“Have you ever heard of The Collectors?”

The name sends a ripple through my spectral form, causing me to flicker momentarily. “Yes. I’ve heard whispers. Even in my time, they were spoken of in hushed tones.”

“What do you know about them?”

“The Collectors are an academic society that studies supernatural phenomena through highly unethical means.”

“They turn rare creatures into living grimoires,” she says flatly. “And apparently, female twin vampires are their crown jewels.”

I drift closer, horror washing through me. “That’s what they want you for? To make you into a grimoire?”

“According to the book we found, yes. They’ve done it twice before to female twins like me. The victims remain conscious, eternally aware while being read and studied.” Her voice breaks slightly. “Can you imagine a worse fate?”

“No,” I admit, remembering my death with sudden gratitude. That fall from the Bell Tower, where I landed on a magical death spike, seems quite pleasant compared. At least my suffering had an endpoint, no pun intended. “This explains everything. Your isolation, your brother’s freedom to attend SilverGate while you remained hidden.”

“Blackridge knows,” she continues, rubbing her temples. “He basically admitted that SilverGate collects rare creatures too, just not in the same grotesque way. He’s using us as case studies.”

This isn’t new information for me. “Hmm, quite. Blackridge has always been an opportunist. Even in my time, he was collecting unique beings under the guise of education.”

“For fuck’s sake. Why do all you males seem to think it’s okay?”

“Because we are all learning, Isolde, just in different?—”

“Don’t,” she interrupts me, putting her hand up. “You sound like Blackridge.”

“Well, he was a mentor, and he is correct about this institution. Most who come here are aware. It’s why they are here.”

“Yeah? Well, I didn’t know fuck all until I was shoved through a portal and landed on the courtyard soaking wet!”

I move closer, wanting to comfort her, but unable to touch. “Isolde, I understand your anger. Being thrust into this without preparation?—”

“You don’t understand anything!” she snaps, shooting to her feet. “I was kept in the dark my entire life, and now I’m expected to just accept that I’m some valuable commodity to be fought over, protected, or transformed into a fucking book!”

Her power flares visibly, a shimmer of defensive magic crackling around her like static electricity. The stone walls crack slightly, responding to her distress.

“I do understand what it means to be hunted for what you are.”

She looks at me, her anger momentarily replaced by curiosity. “What were you, William? What made you so special?”

I hesitate, wondering if I should reveal this truth. But she deserves honesty from someone, at least. “I was a Sanguinarch.”

“A what?”

“A blood architect. Not a vampire, not a warlock, something different. I could communicate with blood, shape it, learn from it. Blood revealed its memories to me, showed me the lives it once sustained.”

Her eyes widen. “A blood architect? Is that why SilverGate wanted you?”

“Yes. I was the first Sanguinarch they’d encountered in centuries. My abilities made me a prize student.” I drift closer, my form wavering with the intensity of the memory. “Blood isn’t just sustenance, Isolde. It’s a living archive of experience, of power. In my hands, it became something transcendent. ”

“Like what?” she asks, sitting back down on the bed, her anger momentarily forgotten.

“I could extract memories from blood, reshape its properties, even create temporary constructs from it. With enough blood, I could build doorways between places, manifest creatures from nightmares, heal wounds that would kill others.” I pause, watching her expression. “The professors here saw me as the missing piece in their understanding of Blood Magic.”

“That’s why you were researching dimensional boundaries. You were trying to use blood to create pathways between worlds.”

I nod, impressed by her quick understanding. “Precisely. Blood carries the essence of its donor’s reality. I theorised that with the right combination, I could create stable passages between dimensions.”

“And someone killed you for that knowledge,” Isolde says softly.

“Yes. I was close to a breakthrough when I was pushed from the Bell Tower.” My form flickers with the memory of falling, the rush of air, the sickening impact. “Someone didn’t want me to succeed.”

“So you’re not a vampire, not a warlock, not immortal?”

“I wouldn’t say I was immortal, no,” I say dryly, and she giggles. “But I wasn’t exactly easy to kill, either. The thing that got me was the spike. ”

“Spike?” she asks, her eyes widening.

“I fell on a spike and bled out. It was a gruesome death. I still see the eyes of the student who found me the next morning.”

Isolde pales, her hand rising to her throat. “William, that’s terrible. And you’ve been trapped in this room ever since.”

“This room was my sanctuary. My laboratory. I conducted my experiments here, away from prying eyes.” I hover near her desk, remembering the equipment that once filled this space. “When I died, my spirit anchored to where I felt most alive.”

Isolde stands and walks to the window, looking out at the Bell Tower silhouetted against the dark sky. “We have something in common, then,” she says quietly. “Both hunted for what makes us special.”

“The difference being you still have a chance to escape your fate,” I point out.

She turns to face me, determination hardening her features. “I’m not going to become anyone’s grimoire. And I’m going to help you find out who killed you.”

“Bold promises from someone who has The Collectors hunting her.”

“I can multitask,” she retorts with a flash of that defiance I’m growing to admire. “Besides, solving your murder might help me understand SilverGate better. Knowledge is power, right? ”

“Indeed.” I drift closer, studying her.

“Did you ever ward this place?” she asks suddenly with a frown.

“Why?” I ask curiously.

“Maybe the wards are stopping you from leaving.”

“How do you figure?”

“If you set them with your blood to recognise you, it doesn’t recognise you. But since you are in here, you are trapped by them. Does that make sense? I’m thinking out loud.”

“An interesting theory. I never considered that my confinement might be deliberate rather than a natural consequence of my death.” I stare at her with wonder. She has a remarkable brain. It works in ways most don’t. “My wards were intricate. Traps almost,” I admit, circling her thoughtfully. “I used my blood to create a sanctuary where my experiments couldn’t be detected. A bubble of secrecy within SilverGate’s walls.”

“And now they’re your prison,” she murmurs, those brilliant blue eyes tracking my movements. “Could we break them somehow?”

I pause, considering. “I don’t know. All wards break on the death of the creature who set them up. So they shouldn’t exist.”

“Except you are still here, and your magic knows it, it just doesn’t know-know it. ”

“In which case, I am fucked because I have no blood to undo them.”

“Blood Magic can be undone by blood of similar potency.”

“Says who?” I ask with narrowed eyes.

“I may have been a shadow student taught behind enchanted walls, but I’m not dumb. All I had time to do was read, study, learn. There was this one book. Mastery of Blood Magic. It was my grandfather’s. I read it once. It was a bit complicated and boring, all theory, no practice. But it said that any Blood Magic could be undone with the right intent and the right blood power.”

“Wait.”

She drops her fangs and slices her wrist over the tip, ignoring me. “I want to try,” she says firmly. “If I’m going to face The Collectors, I need all the allies I can get, and you’re trapped in here, unable to help me beyond these walls.”

The scent of her blood is tangible. Even as a ghost, I can sense its power—rich and complex, alive with possibilities that make my non-existent heart race.

“If I’m so special, and these are blood wards, then my blood should speak to them.”

“You will need to find the sigils,” I say, not wanting to hope, but this creature, this powerful vampire, has ways of dredging up the emotion I thought was as dead as my magic. “Four of them, east to north. ”

She nods, moving to the eastern wall first. Her fingers trail over the ancient stone, seeking what only her blood might reveal. I watch, transfixed, as she presses her bleeding wrist against the cold surface.

“Here,” she murmurs, and I see a faint glow where her blood touches the wall, illuminating a sigil that’s been invisible for a century. The symbol pulses, responding to her, ancient magic recognising something kindred in her essence.

“It’s working,” I whisper, hardly daring to believe it.

Isolde moves methodically around the room, finding each hidden sigil with uncanny precision. South wall, west wall, and finally north, each time her blood reveals what’s been hidden, each symbol flaring to life before absorbing her offering.

When the fourth sigil accepts her blood, a ripple passes through the room. I feel it like a wave washing over my spectral form, a loosening of chains I’d grown so accustomed to, I’d forgotten they existed.

“William?” Isolde watches me, her eyes wide. “Did it work?”

Tentatively, I drift toward the door. For a century, this threshold has been an impassable barrier, the limit of my eternal prison. I brace myself for the familiar resistance, the painful repulsion that always forced me back.

It doesn’t come .

I pass through the doorway into the corridor beyond, a surge of exhilaration flooding through me. “I’m free.” The words hang in the air, vibrant with emotion I haven’t felt in a century. I drift further into the corridor, marvelling at the sensation of space opening before me. “Isolde, you’ve done it.”

She follows me out, her face alight with wonder. “I can’t believe that actually worked. Go, Gramps.”

I spin in a slow circle, drinking in the familiar yet changed hallway. The portraits on the walls are different, the sconces modernised, but the bones of SilverGate remain unchanged. “After all this time,” I murmur, “I’d forgotten what it feels like to move freely.”

“Where will you go first?” she asks, her eyes tracking my ghostly form as I float higher, testing the boundaries of my freedom.

“The Bell Tower,” I reply without hesitation. “I need to see where I died. Perhaps there are clues, echoes of that moment, that might reveal who killed me.”

Isolde nods, understanding immediately. “I’ll come with you.”

“No,” I say firmly. “You have enough problems without adding mine to the list.”

“That can wait,” she says. “Besides, I’m safer moving around than sitting in my room like a target.”

I can’t argue with her logic, and selfishly, I want her company. “Thank you, Isolde, for what you’ve done for me.”

“It’s the least I could do,” she interrupts with a small smile. “Besides, I need all the supernatural allies I can get right now. Even dead ones.”

We move through the corridors together, her solid form and my spectral one making an odd pair. Students passing by shiver as they walk through me, some sensing my presence without seeing me, others completely oblivious. Isolde watches their reactions with fascination.

“They can feel you,” she observes. “Some of them, at least.”

“The more sensitive ones,” I agree. “Those with an affinity for death magic or spiritual energy. To the rest, I’m just a cold spot.”

The academy is bustling, the evening hours bringing the stone hallways alive. Moonlight filters through the occasional window, casting long shadows that seem to reach for us as we pass. The Bell Tower looms ahead, its silhouette stark against the night sky.

“It’s taller than I remember,” I murmur as we approach. The massive structure rises into the darkness, its upper reaches lost in shadow and mist.

Isolde pauses at the entrance, her hand on the ancient wooden door. “Are you sure you’re ready for this? ”

“I’ve been waiting a century,” I reply, my voice steadier than I feel. “I need to know.”

She pushes open the door, revealing a spiral staircase that winds upward into darkness. The stone steps are worn in the middle, hollowed by countless feet over the centuries. Cobwebs hang in the corners, and the air is thick with dust and the metallic tang of old blood.

She moves up the spiral staircase with that vampire ease as I float beside her.

“Did you come up here often?” she asks, her voice hushed in the enclosed space.

“Only occasionally. The tower was used primarily for astronomical observations and certain rituals that required elevation.” I pause, memories flooding back. “The night I died, I came here to test a theory about dimensional barriers being thinner at higher altitudes.”

“Were they?” Isolde asks, glancing at me as we continue our ascent.

“I never found out. Someone made sure of that.”

As we climb higher, the air grows colder, and the stone walls are slick with condensation. Isolde’s breath forms small clouds in front of her face.

“Did you feel that?” she whispers suddenly, stopping on a landing.

“What? ”

“A shift in the air. Like we’re being watched,” she says, her gaze scanning the darkness above us.

I focus my spectral senses, reaching out to feel what she’s detecting. There’s a presence, subtle but unmistakable. “You’re right. We’re not alone.”

She tenses, her defensive magic coiling visibly around her fingertips. “Collector?”

“No,” I murmur, drifting slightly ahead. “It feels familiar. Like an echo.”

We continue upward, the spiral staircase narrowing as we climb. Isolde’s footsteps are nearly silent, her vampire nature allowing her to move like a predator. The air grows thinner, colder, heavy with memories that press against my consciousness.

“We’re close,” I whisper as we approach the final landing. “This is where it happened.”

The bell chamber opens before us, a circular room with massive open arches on all sides. The great bell hangs silent in the centre, its bronze surface shining with magic. Moonlight spills through the arches, creating pools of silvery light on the stone floor.

I drift to the eastern window, the place where I was pushed. “Here,” I say. “I was standing here, looking out at the academy grounds, when someone came up behind me.”

Isolde approaches cautiously, her eyes scanning the chamber. “Is anything jumping out at you as a reminder? A scent? Did they say anything? ”

“They whispered something,” I murmur, the memory flickering at the edges of my consciousness. “A phrase in an ancient language, and then—” I break off, the sensation of falling suddenly overwhelming. My spectral form flickers violently.

“William!” Isolde reaches for me instinctively, her hand passing through my destabilising form.

“I’m okay,” I manage, forcing myself to solidify. “The memory is stronger here than I expected.”

Isolde moves to the window, looking down at the dizzying drop to the courtyard below. “You mentioned a spike?”

“Yes. An iron spike infused with death magic.” I drift closer to her, fighting the vertigo that threatens to disperse my form again. “Someone placed it deliberately.”

“Premeditated,” she whispers. Her fingers trace the windowsill, and she suddenly freezes. “William, look at this.”

I follow her gaze to a small symbol carved into the stone, nearly invisible unless you’re looking for it. A circle bisected by a jagged line, with three dots arranged in a triangle above it.

“What does this mean?”

“I don’t know, but we can find out.”

“Restricted section?” she asks with a sigh.

I beam at her. “Of course.”

“Great,” she mutters. “Just fucking great. We got caught earlier, you know. Blackridge has probably reinforced the security.”

“I do love a challenge,” I murmur, feeling my old fire spark up. I might not be back completely, but I’ve escaped that fucking room and now… now it’s time for payback.