U XLAY’S INFIRMARY WAS EMPTY SAVE FOR THE THREE OF THEM. Y USEF lay in bed, his bandaged right hand close to his chest. The healthy bronze on his cheeks was still gone. Three of his finger bones had suffered permanent damage, and he couldn’t close his fist or hold a pencil. Kidan’s chest tightened whenever he winced in pain.

Professor Andreyas arrived at precisely five o’clock, waiting to hear the answer to their final assignment.

He addressed them with his hands in his long coat, four crisp cornrows braided down his scalp. “You three remain the last of this year’s cohort. If it wasn’t for the dean’s insistence that I allow you a chance, you would have all been dismissed.”

Kidan swallowed roughly. Everyone else had failed?

The professor peered out the pentagonal window where golden fire lit the torches of the Arat Towers. “So, what did Demasus ask in return? For this new world of peace and coexistence the Last Sage imagined but that appears to limit only dranaics—bound to some human families, weakened beyond belief, unable to sire without sacrificing themselves. Is there even a price the Last Sage could pay?”

They were all quiet, brows furrowed. They had spent hours here, trapped and launching idea after idea before settling on one. In the Dranacti text they’d translated, the Last Sage had given Demasus the price—a silver mirror to be passed down through each generation of the Eighty Acti Families. They’d figured out the metaphor for it, but still their answer appeared weak. Kidan had the horrible sense they had missed something. They couldn’t fail now. There was too much at stake. Samson was at the gates, waiting.

“My right hand.” Yusef stared at the ceiling with milky eyes.

“My father.” Slen pinned her flat gaze on the professor.

“My sister,” Kidan finished. “A personal price from each of us.”

Professor Andreyas continued to watch the campus grounds.

They waited. One heartbeat, then two, then a dozen among them.

He loosened a sigh. “Another disappointing year.”

“What?” Yusef trembled.

“Better luck next year.” Professor Andreyas walked to the door, leaving them frozen, caught between shock and fury.

Kidan jumped to her feet. “We gave everything to this course!”

Professor Andreyas stopped under the white lights. “Apparently not everything.”

Slen released a breath of exasperation and placed her head in her hands. She’d been utterly calm in the lair of the rogues but was on the verge of breaking down now.

The professor took another step.

“Wait!” Kidan shouted. The others whirled around to her.

Professor Andreyas turned slowly, his dark brows rising. “Careful.”

She bunched her fists, shaking. How had they gotten it wrong? The answer had to be in the gifted silver mirror. It had to symbolize that each acti that stood before it would pay Demasus a different price. But if that wasn’t the case… the only other option was that the mirror had faced Demasus. Was the price to be Demasus himself?

Her ears pulsed with the staggered rhythm of her words. “Demasus wanted us to know what uncontrollable desire is, to know what mind-bending thirst is, to know what a wretched existence is. Only when we did could we truly keep him company. He wanted everything we told you but… more. He wanted his price paid by each generation, so anyone who dares keep a dranaic company would first live and be punished as he was. The Last Sage asked Demasus to live as a human, with the Three Binds. Demasus asked for humans… to live as he did.”

Yusef and Slen drew in a collective breath.

Why had Samson’s vampires been able to feed on Slen suddenly? Her blood had been poison earlier in the year, so what changed? Most importantly, why had Susenyos been able to feed from Kidan all these months?

Kidan glanced at Slen, who had killed Ramyn. At Yusef, who had murdered his rival. At herself, who had burned her foster mother alive. She thought of June. None of the Nefrasi had fed on her. Not because they didn’t want to, but because they couldn’t.

Uxlay’s muted reaction to death. The cemeteries crowded with young student corpses. Year after year.

Slen and Yusef must have sensed her direction of thought because they shook their heads, locking her in with wide, petrified eyes.

But the cost of peace was this. They were all Demasus. They’d become him the moment they’d…

“Killed.”

Slen’s eyes bulged, and Yusef let out a sharp gasp.

Her heart raced as she met Professor Andreyas’s unblinking, ancient eyes. “Kill. That’s what Demasus asked of the Last Sage. Take a human life and know what it felt like.”

If Kidan was wrong, she’d just damned them all to hell.

The professor waited, making them doubt, sweat. “From the dead eyes you all share, I see there’s some truth to what you speak.”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, sir,” Yusef stammered in a hurry. “This is all purely theoretical.”

Professor Andreyas did something very odd then. His hard mouth arched into a smile. “Congratulations. You’ve all passed.”

“We have?” Slen blurted.

“You did miss one thing. Yes, Demasus asked for humans to kill, but not just that. Kill with free will. They must want to, they must act of their own volition; otherwise their blood wouldn’t be drinkable. They’d be unable to keep a dranaic company.”

Their eyes found one another in wonder, remembering their own murders.

Professor Andreyas’s shoulders shone with the sunset, an angel of death hovering before them. “I look forward to our class next year. I always favor Mastering a House Law to Dranacti. Much more exciting.”

Once he left, Yusef sagged back on his pillow. “Exciting? If next year’s exciting, just let me go live as Demasus, the demon himself.”

“So, they wanted us to kill. All this time,” Slen whispered, tracing the floor with her eyes. “The first lesson was to betray your human self, the second to relate to dranaics’ purgatory, and the last to… become them.”

They sat there with their discovery, speechless.

Yusef gave a staggered laugh, winced, and grabbed his injured arm. “They’re all sick. Is it too late to drop out?”

And in their frail state, ghosts of a smile touched their lips.

Susenyos had told Yusef about the 13th on purpose, goading him to kill. Made sure he graduated. Her lips stretched farther. Was there no end to his plotting?

“Uxlay might kill us for bringing rogues into this place,” Slen said, calculating gaze already present. “We have to play it very smart.”

“It’s quite simple, then, isn’t it?” Kidan said, finally clearheaded and brushing away some lint from Yusef’s clothes. “We’ll have to kill our rogue companions before then.”