Page 69

“Lukain,” I breathe in Kleora’s ear.

“Master!” she croaks, writhing in my chokehold.

She stops squirming when I press a little bit harder on the shackles, smoldering her skin more. She knows one flex of my arm will send the silver chain straight through her neck.

The man standing before me, known as Overseer Verant now, is much the same as when I last saw him. Still brutally handsome, still unnervingly in control.

He’s not completely the same, however. His hair is shorn on both sides, long at the top.

Burn marks show on the left side of his skull, where Skar’s silver blade must have struck him when they fought in the courtyard of Manor Marquin.

There’s also a burn slash along his neck, close to the spot where I’m currently pressing the silver shackles against his thrall’s throat.

“You’re alive,” I eke out.

Skartovius pulls his sword back, arms crossing.

More bootsteps are thumping on the stairs now— many more than just a pair of feet. This sounds like a fleet of them.

We don’t have long.

“You’ve found me,” Lukain says.

“I had to make sure with my own eyes.”

He nods, rubbing his chin, deep in thought. To his credit, and to Kleora’s misery, he doesn’t seem to pay her a single iota of attention. “I should have known you’d have a scheme to get out of this,” he mutters. “My question is . . . how did you know?”

A wicked smile peels my lips back in a snarl. “Good ol’ Antones gave me a note. You remember your second-in-command, don’t you?”

Lukain, Overseer Verant, rolls his eyes.

He doesn’t move to draw his weapon or save his protégé stiff in my arms, even when Kleora yells, “Please, master, strike her dead! Kill this craven witch! I wrote your saga—look!”

Her eyes dart around the room at the fluttering pages of my chronicle. Some are billowing out the window. Others are crisping in the air, curling as they fall like ashen rain from catching on Bregsitch’s fiery corpse.

“Doesn’t look like much of a chronicle to me, dear Kleora,” Lukain says with a sigh. His gaze flicks back to me, clearly eager to return to our talk.

“The letter I received from Antones told me you hadn’t died at Manor Marquin. The white-robes received your smoking corpse. You were gone the next day.”

He gives me a devilish smile of his own. “Perks of being a half-blood, I suppose. Silver doesn’t have quite the same dramatic effect on me as it does fullbloods.”

“The note said you’d been reborn as this overseer character. Verant. That you had risen in the ranks of Olhav like you always wanted . . . and currently ran the highest-tier jail in the Judgment Ward, Sutlis Spire.”

He frowns. “Whoever fed Ant information is quite well-informed.”

The throng of boots and shouting are blaring now. They must be on the fifth floor at least, constantly rising.

“Temptress,” Skar warns, eyes moving to the blown-open window.

Lukain straightens, realizing something. “You never intended to strike the Tanmount.”

“I intended to get caught,” I correct. My next words are for Kleora, a ghostly caress over her thin ear. “Did you not find it odd we decided to publicize my existence when we did? How could Mistress Mortis not learn of our daring scheme?”

“. . . And plan an ambush,” Kleora ekes out.

“You’ve learned much, little grimmer,” Lukain says.

“More than you know, you fucking bastard.”

His fair face tightens, darkness flashing through his eyes. As the boots keep falling, he turns, slams the door shut, and bends down to grab something from Bregsitch’s ashy corpse.

Skar and I flinch at his movement.

Lukain stands and locks the door with the key he’s found. “And the explosion I just heard nearby?”

“Turns out the Relic is right where we want it to be.”

Silence, fire, and howling wind.

The bastard, much to my chagrin, looks as handsome and daring as ever. He’s adorned in new clothes, a new cloak, and looks more regal now. His time as leader of the Grimsons did not reveal this version of Lukain Pierken.

“I came to hear the words from your own mouth,” I snarl, tightening my grip on Kleora. The scent of charring skin invades my nostrils.

Lukain spreads his arms wide. “You merely must ask them, little grimmer.”

“Did you betray me to Alacine Mortis?”

He says nothing for a moment, putting on that mask of indifference I could never penetrate, never see through . . . except the one night we spent in each other’s arms.

“Yes.”

My heart plunges.

I’d known the truth, deep inside, and yet nothing could prepare me to hear it spoken so solidly and plainly from his lips.

“It was the only way I could think to free my mind of the obsession I had for you,” he adds.

My nostrils flare, chin nodding down to the wheezing vampiress in my arms. “And so this bitch , this chronicler, was meant to be my replacement, Lukain? Your new obsession?”

“No one could ever replace you, Sephania.”

Kleora wails. “Master, no! You don’t mean it!”

“Hm.” I purse my lips, nodding.

Then I squeeze the chain deep into Kleora’s neck. It rips through her skin like butter—

And the chronicler’s head erupts like a flaming torch.

I skitter back as she burns, wheezing past melting flesh, her porcelain sheen finally ruined and popping and disintegrating for good.

The three of us watch as Madame Kleora runs in a circle, hands flapping while her head burns. She hits a wrong edge of the broken table, flips—

And I step out of the way to see her sail through the window, into the rising dawn, screaming all the way down to her doom.

Lukain’s jaw flexes but he makes no mention of his thrall’s demise.

“Sephania, it is time,” Skartovius urges, putting a hand to my elbow.

Fists pound on the door behind Lukain. “Overseer Verant, are you in there? We’re breaking the door open!”

“The locks are strong,” Lukain tells us. “The door is fortified. We have time.”

“We don’t,” Skar growls.

Lukain smiles at him. “Lord Skartovius Ashfen.” He tsks and turns his gaze to me. “You’ve gone and allied yourself with the killer of my father. My enemy.”

“You abandoned and betrayed me, Lukain. You left me no choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

Skar steps forward. “That’s my line. You sacrificed Sephania for your ambition, power, and status. I would sacrifice everything to see Sephania safe, content, and queen of this world. You and I are not the same, Lukain Mortis.”

I grit my teeth. My eyes become dewy from Skar’s words—the finality of this rescue. A farewell to my past life, with closure, and a welcoming of my new life.

“Goodbye, Lukain,” I murmur past a tight throat.

Lukain takes a step forward, showing the first sign of fear and regret in his eyes since he appeared as Overseer Verant in the doorway.

The door splinters from a harsh pounding behind it. A few more strikes and it’ll fall, with a vampire legion swarming us.

“Ready?” Skar whispers in my ear, grabbing tight to my arm. His rough touch is a caress to me.

I nod firmly, sniffling to keep tears back while my eyes remain on Lukain’s clenched face.

Skar and I turn to look out the window.

“Seph,” Lukain says.

My head whips up faster than I’d like to admit.

“Ask Skartovius where he got that silver sword.”

Skar growls, holds me, and steps into my shadow—

Bringing me falling backward with him into a world of darkness.