Chapter 13

The great poet and philosopher Levy claimed there was no greater gift than family, but unfortunately not everyone's natural family is worth treasuring. I insist there is no greater gift than the family one chooses for oneself.

-A Witch's Guide to the Arcane

Quiet

Gilbert fluttered on my shoulder, and his wings tickled my ear. I flipped the family book upside down and opened it. The corner of the last page peeled away from the back cover. I pulled at the fold gently, ripping the edges free of the adhesive, revealing a thick slip of parchment concealed inside.

My stomach twisted painfully. Penance's betrayal was heavy in my thoughts—and nearly impossible to believe. But other pieces began to fall into place. The children chosen were new to the home with little attachments and no family to speak of, not even distant relatives. Penance had volunteered for years there but had abruptly stopped after the disappearances. I had assumed incorrectly that she was suffering from caregiver fatigue and had taken the losses hard.

But no. She'd been responsible for them all along.

Throat tight, I unfolded the parchment along the flat of the desk. On both sides was a blueprint of the castle, covered in a thin vellum. In the margins, I recognized Penance's handwriting. She'd scribbled her plotting for an elaborate warding around a large bedroom in the east wing.

"Strange. I thought this was the master bedroom, next door here." I tapped on the square nearest our current position. The small nook we were crowded inside was marked on the floor plan by a circle that didn't match the ink used throughout the design. This mark had been added later.

"Alex used the room next door, but no, the main bed chamber designed as the master is elsewhere," Rorick explained.

"Wonder why he didn't stay in it?"

"Guilty conscience," he suggested. "He kept out of the east wing almost entirely. Live-in staff were housed there, and the east wing was haunted. I remember overhearing staff grumbling about them making a racket in the halls at night, weeping coming from the mirrors when they were trying to sleep. Burning sage kept things quiet for only so long before they were at it again."

"This map is just what we need," I said. "I'll study it, and maybe we can find the path Alex used to come and go from the city. The way shifters keep getting in here has me wondering if perhaps the castle hasn't sealed up every entrance . . . Look here. There were underground aqueducts near these parts."

My finger skimmed along the vellum, and the map moved under my hands, shifting and shivering. Gilbert took to the air.

"Oy?" I jumped back as the vellum grew and elongated until a lizard-like creature with parchment skin, covered in lined blueprint sat on the desk before me. Three eyes opened on its gecko-like head, and a long conical tail formed behind it.

"What the devil?" Rorick said.

A long barbed tongue flickered out from its mouth. Rorick grabbed for the creature. It leapt over his head, sticking to the wall with a sound like wet mud splattering. The creature left inky prints on the plaster.

"Don't lose it!" I shouted. "I need the map on its back!"

Rorick jumped after it with not nearly the speed he usually possessed, and that made me worry over his health again. He knocked into the wall when the creature pounced onto the desk. I reached for it, bumping into Rorick as he did the same, and we tangled. The creature, a lesser shifter I'd never seen before, flattened itself and wriggled out under my arms.

It slid to the floor, and I pinned it there beside the desk with my foot.

Rorick caught it up in his arms, and it dribbled ink all over his shirt. "Ack, it's pissed on me," he groaned.

Repressing a laugh, I removed my hat and held it up for him. "Drop our new friend in there. It'll be safe until we can figure out what to do about it."

Careful of the prehensile parchment tail winding up his arm, Rorick lowered the map lizard into the void. "Now what?"

I used my wand to suck the ink mess off his shirt and waistcoat, the same spell I used when I absorbed magic. Because it wasn't useful for enchantments, I expended the ink onto the carpet.

"If the room next door is where Alex felt secure, it's worth searching the space for evidence of his Last Breath," I said, trying to decide if I should challenge Rorick about his slower movements. Surely his thirst was the culprit.

I decided to leave it alone for now. My feelings on his refusal to drink from me were mixed. On the one hand, punishing himself proved he could grovel properly after all. On the other hand, I needed my partner strong and alert.

Rorick led the way with Gilbert circling overhead, shining blue light in his hair. The bedroom was surprisingly spartan. Thick ornate curtains flanked what once had been painted windows, bits of the multi-colored glass scattering the floor. The castle had covered over the windows with broken chunks of tin ceiling tile and thick, black, plated scales that reminded me of a giant reptile. Vermin and lesser shifters crawled and squirmed between the walls. The eerie sound set my teeth on edge.

I ambled over to a small desk. The top drawer was overflowing with correspondence, which was fortunate. No lesser shifters could squeeze inside it, then. I pulled the letters out one handful at a time, scanning bits and pieces of them as I stacked them neatly—half worried the letters would turn into another creature.

Each correspondence was addressed to His Grace Alexander Harker. The letters grew increasingly unfriendly. The farther down the drawer I went, the more the letters turned downright threatening, and the authors stopped signing their names. Thanks to the earlier letters, Rorick could complete a handwriting analysis and help me identify the anonymous authors.

I spotted the names of important members of the city council, politicians who frequented newspaper headlines. Lords and the wealthiest merchants. The most shocking was from the mayor of Purgatory himself, threatening to "expose the operation if promises remained unfulfilled."

As I arrived near the end of the stack, I found the most troubling correspondence of all.

The letters were scribbled in large red ink and written backward. "We know what you did," I read out loud to Rorick. At the bottom was a childlike drawing of the Castleway Circus. "This letter gave me goosebumps, but the others aren't much better. They start with threatening to ruin Alex, grow to mundane beatings, then climb to outright murder."

"Keep them all," Rorick said. "They're evidence."

I dropped them into my pockets. If I had access to my laboratory, I could attempt to extract fingerprints from the letters, then compare them to what I'd found on the poisoned wine bottle to see if any of our threatening authors had also been the poisoner. The lovely thing about fingerprint analysis being such an infant science was that so few understood it, and therefore no one thought to clean up after themselves. I'd need out of the castle first, of course.

Before opening the next drawer, I listened for tell-tale noises from a lesser shifter.

"Oh," I said, examining a drawer full of wax paper envelopes. I opened one and peeked inside to confirm my suspicion, observing a sheath made of animal gut. "Alex has what looks like dozens and dozens of contraceptive sheaths in here."

"Ah," Rorick said, straightening after checking under the fourposter bed.

"You don't sound surprised."

"I'm not sure why you are." His lips quirked. He climbed to his feet and threw aside the blankets, checking between the bedding.

"Well, he's an immortal, isn't he?" I insisted. "We can't catch the pox because we aren't susceptible to diseases, and immortals can't conceive. So who are these contraceptives for, if not him and Penance? What's he's trying to prevent other than illness or pregnancy?"

"They're for his guests." He moved to the end table next, jerking open the drawer. A small eel-like coffin-dweller hissed at him. He smashed it under his palm. The squelch of it made me wince. "Sorry," he said over his shoulder.

"I'd prefer not to murder things if it can be avoided," I said somberly, "but coffin-dwellers certainly make that challenging. They're awfully determined to eat as much of us as they can fit in their maws."

Death was the worst sort of waste. The passion to avoid it had driven me to become a witch in the first place.

"It was trying to gnaw my thumb off," he said solemnly.

"Fair enough. Tell me what you mean about Alex's guests," I reminded him, moving away from the desk to the armoire between us.

"Alex threw elaborate pleasure parties and most of his guests were wealthy geds. Blood tastes sweeter when it's freely given. It's common for vampires to share their bodies in exchange for a bite."

"Oh . . ." I blinked at a spot of peeling wallpaper just over his head, suddenly unable to meet his eyes. Of course, I'd heard such rumors about vampires. I just always assumed they were as inaccurate as the ones about my sisters and I being a coven of street workers. In some ways, we were a coven of ill repute, given how often we thwarted society—it just wasn't because we only offered the services of a brothel. We cared much more about education and preventing death than anything else.

I had nothing but respect for my sisters who practiced the sensual arcane arts. Their pursuit of knowledge was just as valid as my own, but when my coven bought the old firehouse and helped me furnish the lab there for our uses, the number of odd patrons who stumbled through my doors, searching for "company" rather than a solution from a witch scientist, began to wear on me.

Now that I knew the rumors about vampires were not entirely unfounded, I couldn't help but wonder how that impacted Rorick's diet. Curiosity burned through me. I tapped my foot, trying to decide if I should keep further inquiries to myself. I probably ought to. We had work to do. A crime to solve. A haunted castle to escape . . .

"When you say this practice is common," I mumbled, promptly ignoring my own advice, "do you mean, common for every vampire?"

He faced me, wiping shifter residue off his hand with a kerchief from his waistcoat. "Common for most."

Wanting to appear casual, I played with the brim of my hat. "Does most include you?"

"Why do you ask?" Lowering the kerchief, he smiled so broadly I could see his fangs.

I don't know why the sight of his teeth made my pulse jump, but it did.

"Forgive my curiosity," I said, wringing my fingers in my skirts. "It's just that the other day, you mentioned you'd never been in a romantic relationship, but such entanglements seem like an important part of the vampire diet, and I'm ever the scientist, you know."

He chuckled. "I thought you knew I paid for my blood just like you buy your food at market."

I straightened my hat, though it didn't need any straightening. "I recall you mentioning doing so occasionally. In a pinch."

"I keep a regular appointment with a courtesan." He tucked away his kerchief and crossed his arms, and I felt inspected. Like he was giving me the same scientific once-over that I was giving him. "A particular brothel services a lot of my kind around the city. Before you ask, because I can already tell you're going to, I don't bed her after."

At his words, the strange ill sensation churning in my stomach lessened. I couldn't quite place the feeling that had brought it on. Thankfully, it was gone again and there was no need to dwell.

"Hm." I thought over the information he'd offered, struggling to keep my ponderings fully systematic. "I wonder if your courtesan likes the change of having a client she doesn't have to spread her legs for," I said, thinking of a common complaint I'd heard from my sister witches who offered such services. They grew bored when their clients were uninventive.

"Oh no," he said, the corners of his violet eyes crinkling, "I make her spread her legs. After a fine meal of blood, there's only one thing deliciously rich enough to qualify as dessert: pleasure."

There it was again, stronger than before, that ill feeling. My stomach cramped.

Oh no. No, no, no.Was I jealous? Wasn't I too old and practical for petty envy? Shame on me.

"You see the same woman every time for your meals. Isn't that a lot like a romantic relationship?" He didn't seem bothered by my questions. Surely, he was used to me by now. I always had questions. One couldn't learn anything if they didn't ask, after all, and I had to do something about this damnable stomach cramp. More knowledge was my favorite answer to every problem.

He shook his head. "I'm particular about my diet, is all. My feelings aren't romantic."

"Which is why you don't bed her?" My entire body heated as the words left me. I was in for an aug now. Might as well go for broke. "If you've had no romantic partners and you don't bed the courtesan you pay for, then does that mean you've never bedded anyone at all in your long life?"

"I've never bedded anyone," he confirmed. "As I mentioned before, I choose to avoid attachments, but then I hesitate to refer to myself as a virgin, given how often and how deeply I've had my tongue inside a woman."

"Goddess," I breathed, unable to conceal the shock in my voice or the vibrant color rising in my cheeks. "I guess when you put it like that, I'd have to agree with you."

His grin went wolfish. I forgot what I was doing for a moment, hovering by the armoire, trying not to let the picture come to mind of his curling lips having their dessert. And along with that intrusive thought came a memory of the gentle way he'd kissed me before. For luck.

A silly misunderstanding—a misunderstanding that made muscles low in my stomach flutter. Completely by accident I'd kissed him back. Just a tiny little bit. I could almost imagine what it might be like to have those lips attentive somewhere else . . .

I fumbled with the latch on the armoire, jerking it open. It was good luck that there wasn't a lesser shifter hiding inside amongst the hanging garments because I'd forgotten to be on alert for one. A coffin-dweller could have bitten my nose right off.

Rorick zoomed to my side at a speed I wouldn't have been able to perceive even if I'd been staring directly at him. Suddenly he was just there, and I startled, bumping the side of my head against the decorative wood, nearly unseating my hat.

He leaned against the frame as though the action had exhausted him, one arm propped above his head. "Does this mean I'm allowed to ask you similar questions now?"

My cheeks burned. "You may ask me any question you'd like . . . about my diet."

He snorted. "You asked more than that. You questioned me about romantic partners and whether I'd bedded anyone."

"As it related to your diet. Besides, you already know I've been in bed with others. I was in bed with you just last night." Under the guise of searching the back of the furniture, I climbed inside the armoire, hiding myself from Rorick's prying eyes.

"Come on now," he prodded.

"To your implied question, I've never feasted on anyone," I said, hating how my voice pitched high. "Not as a main course or as dessert."

"You're not playing fair," he muttered.

Perhaps I was being a little unfair.

Concealed between the garments, I felt a bit braver. "All right. Yes, I've shared my body with others. I've had a handful of partners throughout the years. Admittedly, those relationships didn't last very long."

I stumbled out of the armoire, boots sinking into the carpet. The floor was soft under my feet. There was probably a very bad reason for that. I headed for the pitcher and basin next, making a mental note not to linger much longer in this particular room, not with the floor having so much give and the wall covered in thick scales.

Rorick followed at my heels. "Why didn't they last?"

No shifter sounds came out of the pitcher, but there was standing water inside it. To be careful, I emptied it onto the floor, splashing a bit on Rorick's boots. Coffin-dwellers loved damp places and required little oxygen. I gave it a good shake to make sure one hadn't flattened itself against the bottom for camouflage.

"They probably didn't last because I treated some of them a bit like they were an experiment," I admitted. "The others . . . I'm not sure why those didn't last, but as you're fond of pointing out, only beetles truly like me."

His laughter cut sharply. "It's not a failing on your part that you're unlikable. It's not as though it's something you can help."

Rorick was often thoughtless. I should have been accustomed to it by now, but after sharing a few warmer moments with him, his unkind words stung more deeply. I dropped the pitcher beside the basin and headed for the door, seeking distance from him and this room that was turning itself into a horror.

"Whoa there. Hold on." He caught my wrist and brought me to a halt like I were a misbehaving horse. His lavender eyes narrowed on me. "Normally when I say things like that, you fire a retort right back. What's this thing you're doing now? I don't recognize it."

"This is me wanting to get away from you," I said between my teeth. "That's not anything unusual. Now, let me go."

He didn't release me. "Try asking nicely. What does a good witch say?"

His tone was teasing, but I wasn't in the mood. "A good witch says, do as you're told, or I'll turn you into a cricket and step on you."

"You would never step on a cricket. You love crickets."

"I would step on you," I groused, twisting my arm, working to dislodge it from his fingers. His touch was fever-hot, which alarmed me, though I wasn't in the mood for sympathy just now either.

His eyes dragged over my face like he was trying to read invisible words written across my forehead. His brow knitted closer and closer together. "Did I hurt your feelings?"

"Of course you did, you ratbag! No one wants to be reminded of how unlikable they are to everyone else."

"Well, forgive me." His mouth gaped a moment, and his grip loosened, slipping down from my wrist to hold my hand apologetically. "I didn't know you had feelings."

"Well, I do," I snarled. "And you're making me want to get away from you even more right now."

"Listen here, Quiet. I had no idea you cared what other people thought about you. Why should you? Other people are idiots. I thought we agreed on that."

He surprised a chuckle out of me, but I quickly corrected my face. He wasn't getting out of hot water that easily. It wasn't as though this was the first time he'd pointed out how odious I was to others. He seemed to delight in it.

"I don't think it's a failing on your part that you're not everyone's preference," he insisted, shaking my hand in his to firm up his point. "You're so intelligent there's few people you can talk to without making them feel like absolute fools. Not everyone is equipped to handle all that ruthless competence in one person. And why should you have to accommodate their lesser minds? It doesn't bother me if you don't like smiling for no reason or you prefer to speak in a manner that's more efficient, with less flowery, feel-good nonsense. So what if you're bossy because you know better than everyone else? Yes, you're unlikable. But who cares? They can all fuck off."

I didn't realize it right away, but as he spoke, I'd drawn in closer. One micro-step after another, until we were nearly nose to nose. My eyes were on his lips, watching them form words that healed a wound in my heart.

He'd just turned things I'd never enjoyed about myself into a compliment. What a strange power he had. And it felt so very good.

"Keep talking," I told him.

He scratched at his hair in thought, and a dark curl fell across his brow in the debonair way I liked. "That wasn't enough?"

"Not quite," I insisted, now addicted to hearing this man say nice things about me.

He pumped my hand once with his. "I like you. I wouldn't keep you around if I didn't. Is that better yet?"

Gilbert landed in his hair just then, illuminating the strands in midnight blue. I wondered if my insides were glowing just as brightly. It felt like they were.

"Acceptable. Now, come." I pulled him along behind me, my footsteps lighter than before. "I want to have a look at the master bedroom in the east wing. The one Penance made special wards for. Based on how complicated they are, whatever's locked inside isn't going to be something I can handle on my own."