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I plummet through the blackness for what feels like eons, arms and legs akimbo, floundering, screaming into a void. I close my eyes at some point as wind whistles past me through a tunnel of darkness, awaiting the inevitable end.

When I open them, I’m in Skartovius’ arms, held in a bridal carry. Wherever we are is dark and foreboding, with a few torches alight on the walls. Skar brings me out of a shadow, his face suddenly illuminated.

It’s a giant, man-shaped shadow cast from the torches on the wall. Rough masonry and stone litters the floor, a wall blown apart behind us, allowing entry into this space.

“There’s my little temptress,” Skar says. He dips down to seal a molten kiss to my lips.

Tears trickle out of my eyes as he sets me down on wobbly legs. I notice how slack and pale his face is, and he stumbles when he takes a step forward.

Vallan Stellos is there to balance him with a sturdy hand on his shoulder, moving away from the torch and broken wall where he’d been standing.

Skar explains himself, putting his palm to his forehead. “Haven’t shadowwalked that far before. Using your shadow, Sephania, is the only reason I think I was able to.”

I gawk. “You mean you just catapulted us ten stories down . . . on hope and a prayer?”

“Vampires don’t pray.” He gives me a sickly smile. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Good thing the torch gave me a shadow for you to work with, eh, brother?” Vallan quips.

My eyes move from Skar to Vallan, my bearded, giant menace. I lunge at him with a tearful smile, wrapping my arms around his broad chest. He grunts as I fall into his bulky arms, head against his beard. “You fucking oak tree,” I mumble. “Nice work with the firebombing.”

He lifts my chin and kisses me, pulling back only after I’ve licked his tongue. “You fucking hellion. Three months we waited for that? I pray you got the answers you were seeking, silverblood.”

“I thought vampires don’t pray.”

He rolls his eyes. Over his shoulder, Garroway Kuffich groans and wanders over. He looks just as bad as Skar, just as pale. And Vallan, for his part, is covered in blood and gore. I hadn’t noticed at first.

“Truehearts fuck me, you all look worse than I do,” I say.

Garroway snorts and tackles me in a hug. We kiss, solidifying my connection with these three rotten bastards, and he wipes my trailing tear off my cheek. “Missed you, little honey badger.”

“The moth worked,” I murmur, not sure what else to say past the damned wedge in my throat.

“I was hoping you might notice that.” He shoots me one of his disarming smiles, though I can tell he’s minutes away from passing out from exhaustion.

Whatever these three have been through over the past months to find me . . . it’s a tale I want to hear.

“You told me to trust you, and I did,” Skar says. He’s starting to recover already, pale face gaining some color. He is a vampire, after all.

Garro says, “Yes, yes, we all trust each other. Now can we hurry up so we can get the fuck out of here?”

“Um. Where is here , exactly?” I scan the room, moving my eyes away from my three mates—my world—for the first time.

“Base level of Sutlis Spire,” Vallan says. “I cleared a path. Come on.”

We follow Vallan through the room and into another, which is strewn with bodies, many of them dismembered, all of them very, very dead. At least eight bloodsuckers in all.

“That would explain all the blood on you,” I say.

“Most of it’s not mine.”

I inhale sharply. “ Most ?!”

Weaving around and over the bodies, we come to another door. It opens into a familiar-looking room I’ve seen too much of in my life—

A jailhouse, with box-shaped cells lining the corridor on the left and right.

“You’re leading us to the Relic, right?” I ask suspiciously, biting my lip. “Please don’t tell me we went through all this due to bad intelligence. Keffa told us—”

“It’s here, silverblood. Come.”

Iron Sister Keffa never told me the Relic was located in the Tanmount, of course. That was a ruse for my story to Madame Kleora. According to her, it’s always been here, beneath the largest prison compound in the Judgment Ward.

I vaguely wonder if Lukain will try to pick up the scraps of the chronicle to read over, if he can find all the fluttering pages.

Many pages burned. Good. I don’t need my tale getting out to the masses. Too much of it was true.

Vallan stops us at a cell. There’s something in the shadows at the back, a large, round object.

Vall struggles with a set of keys in his pocket—surely picked from one of the bodies he eliminated—and finds the correct one. “Here we are,” he says, sweeping his hand out.

The door swings inward with a rasp.

“What . . . the fuck?” I mutter.

A plump, vaguely familiar woman in tattered clothes steps out of the shadows. She hugs herself, narrowing her eyes on me—and they are eyes I certainly recognize. I just can’t place my finger on where.

“Fuuuuck,” I moan, rolling my head back on my shoulders. My mates look at me with odd expressions.

The woman drawls, “Pleased to see you too, brat princess.”

I throw my arms out wide. “You’re supposed to be the Relic! An artifact. A priceless thing !”

“Well, some call me a relic. I think it’s a bit hurtful.” She huffs. “I’m not that old.”

Anger riles inside me, mixed with unending frustration. All we’ve been through . . . “The artifact we were supposed to find is supposed to be an object of great power. A scroll or tome or something that can give me answers. Not—”

“A woman from a painting?”

I blink. My mouth stays open. “Oh. Shit. That’s where I recognize you from.”

Garroway snaps his fingers and points at the woman. “You had far fewer clothes on in the painting.”

The woman frowns. “Astute observation, sir. I was younger and more explorative then.”

“You sure this is the correct cell?” I ask. I’m pissed Keffa has seemingly led us astray.

Vallan gives me a grim nod. “Should we leave her? We need to be getting out of here.”

I frown at the woman. Her eyebrows arch and she sighs, shaking her head. “You are not very good saviors, are you?”

“I’ll kill Keffa for this,” I curse.

“You’ll do no such thing, young lady!”

“What good will a human do to help me?!” I yell, tossing my arms fruitlessly again. “Who even are you, woman?”

“You can call me Jinneth. That’s my name, but—”

“Of course it is.” I slap my palm to my forehead.

She makes a circle with her hand in front of me, encompassing my body with a disapproving cringe. “More importantly to this little tantrum of yours and how I might help you . . .”

She pauses, clearing her throat and shifting her weight. Strangely, tears seem to shine in her eyes when she looks into my face again.

“Well?” I ask impatiently.

She smiles kindly, staring deep into my face with recognition wrinkling her features. She has a fair, comely face, I notice now that she’s closer. Worry lines or laugh lines sink into her smile.

Then she takes a step forward out of the cell—nearly of an equal height with me, which is rare for a woman—and startles me when she tenderly cups my cheek.

“More importantly, Sephania . . . I’m your mother.”

To Be Continued!