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K IDAN WATCHED HER VAMPIRE SLEEP. T HICK LASHES RESTED AGAINST a still face. She could only describe his deep brown skin as the clearness of water being poured.

He was so close to the gates of death, she was already imagining life without his existence. She’d find the artifact, wherever it was, and save her sister. All Kidan had to do was let him sleep, let his heart slow and beat out a final rhythm.

Yet she remained on the carpet, gun next to her, watching his weakened chest rise and fall. This felt different from the Woman in Blue or Ramyn’s scarf. Those pieces lured her in with the shock of a horrific unexpected act. This scene of his death was predicted, even prophesied. Perhaps more than her own. And it hurt just like her own would.

It wasn’t love. She didn’t expect to love him. This world wouldn’t survive their version of love. But there was a seed of something here, a mangled cord joining their black hearts, and Kidan couldn’t quite sever it.

She traced her kissed wrist, and made sure his chest rose and fell. Her eyes drifted to the pile of papers and the pen. He’d said he was writing her a… letter.

Kidan stood numbly and picked it up, reading the careful, cursive writing.

My dearest Kidan,

There are many grotesque evils in this world. Trust me, I have encountered them all. Yet the most frightening of all is the one of the mind. If you can't bear the sound of your own voice, the look of your eyes, the soul of your body, I ask you to do the most difficult thing of all–wait. Wait for the next day, hour, minute, and when it comes close, wait for another. Punish time the way it punished you by promising it your life and taking it back at the last second. After all, why should it win? You make it wait, and when you're busy exacting your revenge, the change will happen in the gentlest of ways. You will find yourself, and you will know you are enough, far transformed and more alive than possible.

Yours eternally,

Susenyos

She stared at the words, vision blurry, her emotions whirling into sadness, anger, and guilt. Her fingers scrunched the edges to tear it up, break whatever horrifying connection this letter extended between them, but she hesitated. She clamped her lips together, willing the tears to retreat. There was care and tenderness in these sentences, and whether it was the beauty of his writing, or because he truly meant them, she’d never owned such a thing. Someone wanting her to live this much.

Hating herself, she folded the paper into a square and put it into her back pocket.

Just then the front door burst free from its hinges, and she jumped. She had barely blinked before Taj had her by the neck, against the wall.

“Please tell me he’s not dead.” Taj’s chestnut eyes flashed, genuine fear tightening his features.

“He isn’t. Yet.”

He exhaled, loosening his grip. Iniko rushed to Susenyos’s side, pushed his head back, and studied his bullet wound.

Iniko retrieved the gun, unlocked a bullet, and brought it to her lips to lick. Immediately, she spat it out, swearing.

“What?” Taj asked.

“Impala horn.” Her voice was hard. “Burned to ash.”

Taj blinked, facing Kidan in awe. “Where did you get it?”

“I made it.”

Taj sucked in a breath. “God, I love women in the twenty-first century.”

“She shot him. I need to drain him. Now.” Iniko heaved Susenyos’s limp arm over one shoulder.

With terrifying strength, she dragged him toward the basement.

“Stay here,” Taj told Kidan. “I want every detail of your little chaos.”

“Let me go.”

He did, straightening her wrinkled top like a proud father, and leaned in to whisper.

“Once we sort this out, if you do want to choose me as your companion, I’m available. You are allowed to pick two.”

Kidan ignored that. “How did you know to come?”

Taj brought out the silver nail spat from Susenyos’s mouth. It glinted in the air with a mocking light.

“We call her Sofia. The fourth member of our group.”

Susenyos had never intended to aim for her. He wanted to send a message.

A blood-licked silver never misses its mark.

Kidan had been bested by a bloody nail. She wanted to riot.

“So, about the companionship?” Taj continued with a grin. “I’ll be free.”

“You lied to me too. You’re Nefrasi.”

Taj’s smile slipped, face crowded with shadows. “ Was Nefrasi. Let it go, Kidan. If your sister is with them, you won’t get her back. Not without losing your life.”

Her eyes dropped. His words echoed Susenyos’s.

A sudden sharp cramp to her gut made her double over. Taj righted her, alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

She gasped, eyes wide. “I… I don’t know—”

A second pain pierced her left ribs, like a bullet going through them. Taj settled her on the couch.

When Iniko called upstairs to him, he worked his jaw. “Rest. You must have injured yourself. I’ll be back.”

He disappeared into thin air. Kidan breathed through her insides, which were being twisted. Was this the house punishing her? It must be, because it wasn’t real, and the ache was easing with each second. But the house affected her mind… Did this mean it’d started to manipulate her body too?

She wiped her forehead and looked down at her phone, which was buzzing. There were multiple missed calls, messages about GK. Shit. She’d completely forgotten.

She called Slen back quickly.

“Where have you been?” Slen asked. “GK confessed to everything. He was the one who told my brother that I knew who killed Ramyn.”

Slen’s tone slid into a dangerous field.

Kidan shut her eyes. “I’m going to his room to search his things, see what else he has on us. Give him some water and wait for me.”

There was extended silence on the other end.

“Slen?” Kidan called out. “Give him some water and wait for me.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Kidan hurried to the men’s dormitory on campus. GK lived with a roommate who was also a Mot Zebeya disciple.

“Hey, GK forgot his books here. Can I just grab them?”

The disciple let her in and went to his corner. They both slept on the floor. No decorations on walls or picture frames on shelves. Kidan bent down and grabbed random books while scanning the single drawer. Making sure the roommate wasn’t looking, she nudged open the closet, but nothing stood out. On GK’s bed was the book he often carried. The first page held the insignia of the twin blades, shattered mask, and bloodied ring. Kidan traced them with curiosity. The Last Sage’s lost artifacts appeared everywhere now that she knew the truth. Kidan hid the book under her sweater and left.

She sat on a bench in the courtyard and opened the book. A rush of purple flower scent hit her nostrils at once. There were prayer mantras as well as instructions and rules for a Mot Zebeya in the front of the book. She flipped to the back and saw dated entries, almost like a journal. Hating herself for intruding on his privacy, she went to the date when they all met.

September 1st

They are loud and argue far too much. In the rare moments they don’t speak, they are restless in their studies. Their fingers dance as they read or to stretch their stiff bones, but none of them make so much noise as he. Yusef calls them pumpkin seeds, small, riotous, almond-shaped seeds he chews on often. There is no discipline to them, he doesn’t consume them at breakfast or lunch or dinner. If he did, I would avoid him at those times.

I can only find blissful quiet in the monastery grounds or here in my room. It’s a mistake to join this group, but the hand of death hovers over one of them.

I feel this pull to protect and save her. The finger chains have never reacted this strongly before, and it’s as if an ancient voice echoes through them, telling me to keep her safe. Even to lay my life down if necessary.

Kidan Adane must live, that voice says. She must.

Kidan’s chest swelled at the protective words. What did she do to deserve such kindness?

September 10th

I failed today. A life was taken before my very eyes. I saw a shadow of the man who killed Ramyn—a dark arm glinting with metal bands as he choked the poor girl. I can still feel her scream in the back of my throat. They’d warned us at Mot Zebeya Monastery that death would frighten us. It would suffocate our faith and bring us to our knees, yet we must guard against it. If I felt her loss this deeply, what of her family? I understand now why they raise us in solitude. It’s too unbearable to care for souls when they are so easy to extinguish. I must remember the Last Sage’s principles, practice my prayers, and remain unattached. A Mot Zebeya has no family and all family. The loss of one finger should cut as deeply as a hand.

September 12th

The professor is not a righteous man. He takes pleasure in dissecting horrible acts in the name of education. He listens to my recounting of the incident repeatedly without a flutter of emotion. He can sense my guilt, I think. Why else would he give me a personal assignment? I want to refuse, but I can’t. He instructs me to find the vampire who wears metal bands and study his movements. The professor believes I can move freely between the dranaic and acti courts without suspicion. A man of faith, he says, is respected by the holy and the foul.

November 1st

I’m no closer to finding the dranaic that killed Ramyn Ajtaf. Each moment I spend with the three, I worry for their safety. But time doesn’t feel alive in their presence. It is endless, their train of conversation, and easy to get lost in, to miss a joke, and send them into laughter with a simple question. It’s what I expect learning a new language would feel like. It’s nice to hear their joy, nicer perhaps than the quiet of this room.

Yusef appears at the crack of dawn and ushers me to the highest tower so he can draw me in first light. A personal project. I sit there, cool air fading with each drawn-out light. It’s not long before he tears the drawing in front of me, frustrated when his vision doesn’t capture reality. I’ve learned his habits for personal preservation and prepare for what’s to come. He follows a particularly bad creative day with a rebellious one. He asks to go into town later that evening. We take his car and I drive, always, because he is too handsome to do so.

November 4th

I found him. The dranaic that murdered Ramyn Ajtaf. The dranaics display all their silver weeks before Cossia Day. All weapons must be registered with the Mot Zebeya Courts. I didn’t recognize him at first, not as I was registering his jagged blades, but then three silver bands clattered on the desk. He always wore a trench coat, always covered his arms, until that moment.

Titus Levigne.

I followed him after my classes. He caught me at once, and I offered him a reading. He refused and warned me to stay away. But how could I? Then I noticed him meet with another girl. I’d recognize those gloved hands anywhere. Why would Slen Qaros speak with Titus? He wasn’t sired to her house. I worried for her safety and started to follow her.

November 15th

Slen arrived at the School of Art and disappeared into a corner door. It was nearly half an hour before she came out. And when she did, she was holding someone up by their shoulders. They looked injured or weak, and I nearly stepped forward to help when I recognized Yusef.

His eyes were soulless. It was such a striking image compared with who I knew him as that I stood petrified. What had happened? Had Titus hurt him? But that didn’t seem plausible. The two walked slowly into the elevator. I almost turned to follow them when the door opened again, and Titus appeared with a canvas bag slung over his shoulder. It didn’t carry a portrait. Whatever was in that bag was shapeless, large as an animal, and not moving.

Later, I found out it was Rufeal Makary, when news broke of his animal attack.

Kidan shut her eyes, pausing from GK’s words. He had caught them the night Yusef murdered Rufeal. How had Kidan not noticed? Was she so preoccupied with the others that she didn’t know another one of them was suffering? She didn’t want to read what he thought next but forced herself. She deserved to feel awful.

November 29th

They canceled our study plans. The three of them stayed in Kidan’s house. Hiding. I studied them for signs of distress, but Slen and Kidan were calm as the ocean. They were lying, and it sickened me how well they did it.

December 20th

A day before Cossia Day, the campus emptied, many going into town with their families. I waited until the dranaics took their usual feeding hours and crossed into Titus’s room. I found the metal bands and took them. They felt good in my hands, like I’ve taken a small revenge for Ramyn.

I didn’t mean to find the rest. Titus had pictures of Slen, multiple images of the two meeting in town. Evidence about framing her father for Ramyn’s death. Then there was a hammer, sealed in a bag with dried blood and fingerprints. A newspaper article about Kidan’s foster mother. It made no sense, these things. The mind would do almost anything not to corrupt something good, but they were corrupt. Here was proof.

I was wrong. Death doesn’t hover above Kidan. She is the hand of death herself. It wasn’t her end my bones predicted, but those of others.

Kidan’s eyes watered, and she wiped furiously to keep reading.

December 22nd

Titus is dead. It’s not unusual to hear of many dranaics dying during Cossia Days, but this one gave me the most pleasure. Death shouldn’t bring pleasure. What is becoming of me? I should tell the professor about what I found, but how are the others involved? What would become of their futures?

January 1st

I came here to guard against death, but the very people closest to me are harbingers of it. I try to make them see their wickedness in the hopes they will confess. I spoke to Slen’s brother. I left Rufeal’s portrait inside Yusef’s exhibition.

Yet still I crave their friendship. I still crave to save Kidan. It’s a contradiction that robs me of sleep. But each day I stay quiet, blood grows on my hands too. If I want them to be forgiven, maybe I should confess too. If they burn, I’m afraid I’ll burn along with them.

That was his last entry, logged last night. Kidan cradled her head in her hands. She was guilty of many things, but torturing GK with her wickedness was too much to bear. She’d thought him saved, yet he’d drowned alongside them. Kidan lifted her head and called Slen. She picked up on the fourth ring.

There was a prolonged silence on Slen’s end that made Kidan check the phone before bringing it close again.

“Slen? Hello?”

A heavy silence followed.

“Slen?” she repeated carefully. “What’s wrong?”

“GK is… dead.”

Kidan’s vision of the courtyard swirled, finger slackening on the phone.

“What… what did you say?”

This time Slen’s voice was unwavering. “We killed him.”