W HEN K IDAN RETURNED HOME, S USENYOS HAD SETTLED BEFORE the fireplace. He poured a few drops from his new blood flask into a glass of liquor and drank. Then he held up a card between two fingers.

“The 13th invited you?”

He watched, expression guarded, as she took off her coat and kicked off her heels. “Who was there?”

Kidan took her time putting away her scarf, walking across the polished floor, pouring herself a glass of water, and finally sitting next to him.

She ignored his raised brow and her body screaming at her to move.

There had only been one suspect as to who took June. Susenyos. But the 13th… Could they have some play here? Was Susenyos part of their group and pretending? She had to be careful. Play a very different role. Be nice. Being rough and callous had gotten her nowhere.

“Koril Qaros,” she said, carefully watching him over her glass.

His calculating gaze burned into her. “Did he offer you a life exchange?”

Kidan hesitated, considering what to share. “Not yet.”

“It definitely won’t be from his own house. He doesn’t share his dranaics.”

Interesting . “He said I shouldn’t trust you.”

Susenyos’s mouth twisted into a sardonic smile. “I’m not surprised.”

“I don’t trust you.”

Susenyos tilted his head to the ceiling, brown face catching light. “Let’s consider the facts. If you die, I inherit the house. If you become a dranaic, I still inherit the house. You have nothing to fear from me.”

That appeared to be true, but it would take far more to trust him.

“Furthermore, you’ll need my aid. The 13th only allow a select few to earn a life exchange.”

“Such a hero.”

His lip almost quirked. “In exchange, I want you to tell me everything they say about me in that secret group of theirs.”

She raised a brow, both surprised and not. “Why?”

“I want to know all my enemies. And I get quite nervous when they start inviting each other to tea.”

Kidan rolled her eyes. “Stop being paranoid. They’re not after you. They just don’t like you, and that’s very valid.”

Susenyos let out a low rumbling sound, surprising her. A… laugh that seemed genuine instead of cruel. How odd.

“Come, let’s get to work,” he said, walking toward the artifact room.

Curious, she followed him. The door handle was still broken, courtesy of her axe. Her breath fogged inside the metal shelving. Of the three shelves Kidan destroyed, one had been entirely restored. Her eyes widened at the sight, admiring how carefully Susenyos had pieced back together the many trinkets. But there were still boxes of shattered pieces by the working station in the back of the room.

Kidan’s attention rested on the massive portrait of the goddess. Her axe slice was still imprinted, not yet repaired.

“I guess I should apologize?” Kidan said when she saw him looking at it with longing.

“Yes, you should. You ruined something dear to me.”

“Who is she?”

He hesitated as if deciding whether he wanted to share this piece of himself. When he finally spoke, reverence crowded his words together. “I saw her when I was young, or at least I think I did. She saved me. I tried to capture her best I could. It’s one of the things that reminds me of joy, life.”

She never expected him to be the religious type, but the tone in his voice could only be reserved for worship. Kidan studied the woman’s dark skin, all aglow. The power in her arms. The silver weapons, red ring, and cracked wooden mask. An angel or a goddess, she couldn’t tell.

“What did she save you from?”

When he remained quiet, she gave him a sidelong glance. His eyes were dark and tumultuous as the ocean, endless as the beginning of time. He blinked, and whatever memory had possessed him vanished.

He turned his back to the portrait. “Over here.”

Kidan frowned and surveyed the slit eyes of the mask, and a pulse echoed in the walls of the room. For a moment, she could have sworn the goddess moved, shimmering like the surface of water. Kidan blinked, and the image settled. She joined Susenyos by the ruined remains of the artifacts. He retrieved two sets of white gloves.

“So why are we in here?” She rubbed her bare arms against the chill.

“This is how you’re going to convince the 13th to give you a life exchange.”

“With old artifacts?”

“With your history.”

They settled at the station where various tools and machines sat. An illuminated lamp and a magnifying glass were present.

“When they ask you why you want to live, you’ll say to continue House Adane’s legacy.”

He handed her the five broken pieces of a brass ring and held out the gloves.

“You’re not serious?”

“Entirely serious. You’ll speak about preserving African history, your love of reclaiming stolen artifacts that represent not only a country but its generations of natives all over the world. That it is the only thing in this world that’s immortal.”

Under the soft glow of the lamp, his skin melted into a richer shade of brown and his brows were drawn tight in concentration. With his loose, revealing shirt and the light casting a bronze filter over him, he could be an old photograph tucked in her grandmother’s hatbox or carried in her chest pocket, faded and worn, as she reminisced about her young lost love.

He was history itself.

Kidan did want to play with the artifacts. She missed working with her hands. The smell of old metal and sawdust from her elective class filled the space, making her muscles tense with excitement. Still, she hesitated.

Susenyos’s true age showed in his displeasure. “You still don’t trust me.”

“I just didn’t know you were… like this.”

He regarded her with an expression difficult to read. “What do you really know about me? Besides the assumptions and stories you’ve cast? You made me your nightmare the moment you heard my name. And nightmares aren’t allowed to have likes or dislikes. We’re only allowed to haunt.”

Kidan’s brows creased at the resigned tone of his words. But there was also a thread of something else, although she wasn’t sure what.

“And now?” She searched his eyes. “What’s different now?”

“You’re becoming one of us.” His voice nearly tugged upward. “A vampire doesn’t shy away from learning the truth.”

If he learned that she was lying about her poisoning, that she would remain human with a very good chance of taking this house from him, their fragile alliance would crumble.

She took the gloves slowly and slipped them on. He nodded, and they began her lessons. With each artifact they mended, Susenyos recited its origin and importance.

“Ethiopia, 1823. An empress wore it on her wedding day.”

His lips carried a ghost of a smile. Kidan’s favorite ones, though, were the artifacts stolen back from colonist countries with the help of Adane’s Department of Archaeology and History. The sense of justice that ran through her was unbelievably sweet. And she felt true guilt that she’d irreparably damaged most of these treasures. No matter how carefully they were put back together, they’d never be untouched as they had been.

Susenyos, of course, was a frustrating teacher. He’d say no before she even lifted a piece to glue it back on, hover like a shadow until her own vision was obscured, examine her work and find twenty faults with it, strip it down and ask her to do it again. Kidan wanted to tear out her hair, but she complied, absorbing his teachings.

“What about the crown I took that day?” she asked, carefully piecing together a broken chalice. “What’s the story there?”

“Do you have it?”

“No,” she said. Technically, it wasn’t a crown anymore.

“Then I guess you won’t know.”

He didn’t sound angry, only bemused. As if he knew she’d done something irreversible to it.

They talked about historical books too, including Traditional Myths of Abyssi . A book Slen wanted to help decipher Dranacti. It was here, hidden in the alcoves of the shelves, a thin book with red stripes. Susenyos held it out carefully when she asked to borrow it, eyes hesitant.

“I want it back after.”

There were many books here in Amharic, and she strained to read the blocky letters before giving up with a sigh. Her mouth tasted metallic. How could something she once knew be entirely gone? Her speech was limited to a few useless phrases. She touched her hand, the memory of the pinches making it tingle. Mama Anoet should have let them keep their language. It made Kidan feel at sea, forcing her to battle tides on a tiny raft when she was meant for the trees and shores. Left her with not enough ground to stretch herself.

“These are my favorites,” Susenyos said, pulling her from her thoughts. He held several books in his hand.

Kidan wanted to ask him about The Mad Lovers but hesitated. She didn’t want him to know she was reading it. At its heart, the book was a twisted affair between two broken souls gearing for tragedy. Something she never thought Susenyos would repeatedly return to. Kidan had become so engrossed in the story, she’d begun staying up reading till three a.m. every night.

After their conversation, Kidan retrieved classics, tragic poems, and devastating lines that brought to life her most intimate thoughts. Never had she found beauty in misery before. Yet in the hands of centuries-old writers, even murderers were woven a tale of forgiveness. In those stories, Kidan was… the hero. They gave her solace, and she quickly grew obsessed with finding writing that confessed evil as if purged by holy water.

On those cold nights when she couldn’t sleep, her window would come awake with light, and she’d recite passages of books speaking to her soul. The buzzing of every winged creature in her mind would then settle to hear the words, keeping warm by the lamp before the heat incinerated them to dust.

Fed on the language of greedy and monstrous men alike, she knew just what to take to Koril Qaros to gain his trust.