Chapter 23

Twenty-Three

I f Quinnevere thought the city danced with magic before, it was nothing compared to Castle Hill. To reach the massive palace at the city's center, surrounded by cliffs on three sides and an enormous incline on the other, she had to ride a sky gondola that moonlighted as a star. Made entirely from molten silver with gold accents, the carriages carved through the sky like diamonds cutting glass.

Quinn rode a gondola every day to and from University Square, but those carriages were nothing like the ones streaming up Castle Hill.

The only other way up the cliffs surrounding the fortress was a narrow, sharp, zig-zag road that had so many turns it made drivers vomit from motion sickness. Thirty-three turns in all. The crooked, deadly road. Almost no one chose to take that path these days. Not with flying coaches.

But even the beauty of the moment couldn't dissuade the panic pooling in her stomach. Quinn fiddled with the fabric of her skirt as she rode alone up the midnight cliffs, the anxiety springing up her throat. Her hands were clammy, and her entire body constricted.

Every sound of the gears made her jump and squirm. All she wanted to do was enjoy the magic and scenery, but the closer she got to the top, the more unsettled she became.

And she was alone.

Alone .

Giselle was late . . . again. She was always late, but this time it mattered. Because now Quinn had to figure out how to do everything.

The plan was to meet Giselle at the gondolas at the stroke of eight. Which would give them plenty of time to make the meeting by nine—its official start time.

When Giselle wasn't there after thirty minutes of waiting, Quinn had no other choice but to face her biggest fears— alone . So, she gave the operator the password and got into a flying carriage.

As the doors opened, she stepped out onto a glittering path leading to the palace. If she'd thought the gondola and road were impressive, it was nothing compared to the palace itself. A massive external rotunda acted as the entrance, with its domed ceiling carved from jade. Pergolas lined with colonnades snaked around the rotunda like a labyrinth of wonder. Lacing the palace on one side was a serene lagoon, and on the other was a garden of disorienting hedge mazes.

Quinn's heart pounded like exploding fireworks as she jumped behind a bush, trying to avoid the presumed council members on their way to the meeting.

Oh, shattered mirrors, this was bad.

She waited too long to take the gondola, and now carriage after carriage arrived, making it impossible for her to sneak anywhere.

It felt like hours passed as Quinn waited. Finally, after watching seven empty carriages arrive, she felt safe enough to try and enter again.

"There you are."

Quinn's heart jolted, and fear spiked through her body, bone by bone, sinew by sinew, and vein by vein. She was caught, and it felt like death—like her body would completely give out on her. Quinn hated getting in trouble with every fiber of her being. Her throat tightened, and she couldn't breathe.

It was too much. She gasped for air but didn't feel any flowing into her lungs.

Panic consumed her.

Small hands clutched her face. "You're okay. I am here. We're in this together." Giselle's gentle voice soothed the fear tangled in Quinn's limbs. "I'm sorry I was late."

When the panic attack settled, Giselle stepped back, also panting, and clutching her side. Quinn hadn't noticed the exhaustion in Giselle's voice before. But she was a mess, her clothing ripped and disheveled. Branches and leaves poked out of her hair, and mud laced her boots. She looked like she'd run through the Nature District to rescue her friend from a dark monster.

"Did you run up the crooked street?" Quinn asked.

"Yes. You never told me the password." Giselle's face hardened, and storm clouds gathered in her eyes. "Quinnevere Igretta Ashelle, you disappeared and rode the gondola alone."

Quinn swallowed, her neck growing tight with shame. "I'm sorry. You were late—"

"I am so proud of you!" Giselle bounded forward and laced her arms around Quinn's core, engulfing her in a massive hug.

Quinn bristled, and her body ached. No one ever embraced her like this. She didn't know what to do. Of course, she'd been touched, lifted, and even intimately embraced while dancing with her pas de deux partner. But that wasn't real life. That was an act—dancing.

This was different.

After a long moment, she allowed her muscles to relax, and she gave into the hug, even returning it.

"So, what do we do now?" Quinn whispered into Giselle's hair. "I have no idea how to sneak into a palace."

Giselle released her arms and pulled away, the smile on her face indecently villainous. "We're going to walk in like we own the place."

"You have to be kidding." Quinn's mouth almost dropped in her shock, but she managed to pinch it shut and withhold any further amazement.

"You have the council tattoo," Giselle said. "I was watching, and that is the entry fee."

"And what about you?"

"I am rather good with a pen." Giselle flashed her wrist, showing a crooked and sloppy version of the marking. It looked like she had clumsily drawn it on herself, which, of course, was exactly what occurred. "It's fine. Trust me, if you act like you own the world, then people will think that you do. It is the only decent lesson my mother ever taught me."

At Quinn's protest, five minutes later, they were flashing their tattoos at the man guarding the front doors, and to her utter surprise, the man simply muttered his approval and let them inside.

Quinn stepped through the towering double arched doors, which led to a grand staircase and ballroom. Her Mary-Jane heels clicked against the marble as they glided through the palace. Room after room of gilded walls glazed with paintings, colonnades, chandeliers set with diamonds, and statues made of stardust.

They followed voices until they reached a domed room. Standing at the edge of one of the entrances, the girls peered inside.

Chairs and desks were set in a semicircle around the room, and at the front, towered three opulent thrones. The walls were lined with gilded carvings fit for a king, and the room vibrated with grandiosity and the smell of rosemary, mystery, and aristocracy—like the walls were dripping with power and influence. Some of the people in attendance were nobles, while others were industry moguls, but the most fascinating groups in attendance were the gang leaders and Queens of the Night—like Kordiela. The ones who ruled the underbelly of the city with an iron fist—all mixing with the rich elite.

It was jarring.

From the side of the room, three figures entered, decked in finery. They swept in like ice skaters across the floor and gracefully sat on the thrones. Regal and royal, the queen and princess observed the room while Emrys sat with his legs draped over the side of his throne, a bored look painting his face. The crown on his head tilted so far off that it was surprising it even managed to stay atop his head.

"There is a balcony," Giselle said in a voice lower than a whisper and pointed to the top left of the room. Before Quinn could respond, Giselle swooped from her eavesdropping position and pulled her friend with her up a velvet staircase.

Within a matter of moments, they found the balcony that moonlighted as a spy nest. The queen gently clapped her hands, sending the guards into action. The announcer pounded his staff on the floor three times, silencing the room.

The groups sat down at their respective desks, allowing the girls to see many of their faces for the first time.

All of the air evaporated from Quinn's body when she spotted a familiar figure.

Directly below the balcony, Uncle Matias sat among seven empty chairs. His group was late . . . or missing.

Her uncle was at the council meeting, which meant he knew about vampires and her parents' connection to the mirrors. And he'd kept it from her.

Her legs trembled. She was so unsteady that it felt like her bones had liquefied. She backed up into the wall and slid down it into a sitting position as she held her knees. She tried to take a deep breath and calm herself.

He lied to her.

He betrayed her.

Someone cleared their throat and said, "As with every meeting so no one forgets, let's get started with a reading of the accords." From the cadence and majesty in their voice, Quinn imagined it must have been the queen.

As her temples pounded with each beat of her racing heart, a new person spoke. "As signed into law on the Fifteenth Day of Spring in the Fiftieth Year AV . . ."

The timing didn't make sense. The Blood Rebellion was year zero. Why would it take fifty years to enact the laws, and why did New Swansea's history say that vampires were completely exterminated during the war if they'd survived?

"The Vampire Accords Agreement reads," the man continued.

Law 1. Vampires cannot kill a human without forfeiting their own life, unless the human killed was an execution sectioned by the council.

Law 2. Vampires cannot create new vampires or mark a human.

Law 3. Vampires cannot disclose any information about the Blood Council, Blood Mirrors, or the existence of vampires to anyone who does not already know the secrets.

Law 4. Vampires can only feed to maintain their existence.

Law 5. A vampire can compel a human but only to protect the secret or for the purposes of feeding."

Halfway through the reading of the laws, Quinn slid on her knees across the floor to peek through the railing. A member sat to the right of the room, was holding up a scroll and reading from it.

Law 6. Vampires are forbidden to compel anyone to tamper with the Blood Mirrors, destroy them, or threaten them in any way .

Law 7. Vampires cannot compel a human to release their painting from a Blood Mirror.

Law 8. Only human council members can enter the mirrors and unbind a vampire. The cost of unbinding vampires will be a soul.

Law 9. Council members must keep the vampire secret or face imprisonment or execution.

Law 10. The council will choose its next leader, who will act as New Swansea's queen. Every 25 years, a new human will be chosen from among the council members as the princess who will eventually become the queen.

Law 11. If the public finds out about the existence of vampires, all vampires will be executed by the Blood Mirrors.

"This concludes the reading of the Vampire Accords." The announcer's words echoed through Quinn's mind, and her fingers bit into the cold metal railing. She felt the blood rushing from her head, dripping like crimson tears, leaving her face ashen and haunted.

Vampires were truly alive. She'd heard it before. She knew it, but it didn't feel real until this moment.

The monsters that haunted her dreams were real.

The only comfort was that they were bound by the laws and apparently unable to kill.

Did that mean a vampire was not behind Jane's murder?

The queen rose from her throne slowly, like a snake examining its prey. She was radiant. Age barely took any of her unnatural beauty. Although wrinkles settled beneath her eyes and her pale skin didn't hold its youthful tightness, she still managed to catch and keep every subject's attention. Her beauty wasn't in looks that faded, but in the power she emanated.

She strolled to the center of the room and faced a young man with brunette locks and square-rimmed glasses. Giselle stiffened and stifled a gasp. "We offer our condolences to Francois of Les Fant?mes' gang for the tragic loss of your second, Jane." The queen's voice pulsated with a soft dominance and majesty.

Second? How had Jane become the second most powerful Fant?mes in the city? That was a long way to rise.

Francois bowed to the queen. "Thank you, your majesty." The people surrounding Francois also bowed or curtsied.

A tangle of emotions churned in Quinn's stomach as she stared down at the gang members. Lies, so many lies. From the gang, from Emrys, from her uncle. Was everyone in her life lying to her?

Giselle tapped Quinn on the shoulder, tearing her out of her thoughts. "I am going to try and get a better view," Giselle whispered.

"A better view of what?" There was nothing else to see except maybe the papers on the table, and the girls were too far up to be able to make out any of the lettering. Not that Quinn ever could.

Giselle waved a dismissive hand. "Everything."

"Remember, our plan is to collect as many fingerprints as possible."

"Yes, I will be doing that too," Giselle said as she jumped onto the railing and began climbing a pillar to the rafters. Within seconds, she'd disappeared.

"It is a tragic day indeed to lose yet another council member," the queen said from below. "Medical Examiner Thyssen, please give us an update on Jane's murder."

Uncle Matias approached the center of the room with ease. There was always a sway and rhythm to the way he moved, the way he spoke. Soft but commanding and utterly terrifying with his subtly.

He cleared his throat and launched into a report. He compiled the same evidence that Quinn had with similar results. Jane had lacerations across the throat and puncture wounds. The only new information Uncle Matias provided was the alibis of the seven vampires who were unbound when the first Blood Mirror was destroyed. Most of the names on the list were unfamiliar, but Countess Teagan Atwater's name struck with the force of a falling cable car.

Teagan Atwater. The girl who made Quinn's life a living hell was a vampire . A vampire unbound by the Vampire Accords. Vampire who could kill.

However, according to Uncle Matias's report, the seven were monitored and forced into routine check-ins with a parole officer daily.

Uncle Matias ended with, "As of now, we have no viable suspects or motive for the murder."

Emrys snorted, his legs still dangling off the chair like he had no cares in the world. "The motive is clearly the Blood Mirrors."

Matias Thyssen returned to his seat as a middle-aged lady with a countenance of daggers stood and walked to the center of the floor. She was all sharp edges.

She made a sound of pure disgust before saying, "No human or vampire will ever find the last two mirrors. They are hidden from our memories and far out of our reach, cloaked by mirror protections. Not even our pretty prince can find them, and we all know you've tried for nineteen years."

Nineteen years. Quinn stiffened.

Emrys slightly raised his head, showing a modicum of interest. He yawned before saying, "I've only searched for them as a means to find the person who murdered my friends and stole my family's paintings."

"And how has that gone?" the angular woman asked, her tone an insult.

"As you have clearly pointed out, I don't possess the talent for hunting." Emrys stroked a leisurely finger down his lapel as if the lady's words meant nothing. "Regardless of my skills, it doesn't change the fact that someone far more talented than I am is hunting down those mirrors and killing anyone who gets in their way."

"They must not be that talented," the lady said. "It's been nineteen years, and no one's found the other two mirrors. You need to let this obsession go. The mirrors are protected."

"Those protections won't last forever." Emrys's words were a haunted, hollow warning.

"By then, the killer will be dead." The angular woman stood taller, making her display of dominance known. Quinn wasn't sure if this woman was human, Mirror-Blessed, or immortal, but she certainly was an even bigger narcissist than the prince.

"And if they're not? What then?" Emrys rose a brow. "I have lived many lives, Lady Annabelle Ravenscroft, long enough to know that one does not need to be a vampire to live forever."

Lived many lives . . . One doesn't need to be a vampire to live forever. Quinn gulped. Emrys was immortal, but was he Mirror-Blessed or a vampire?

Quinn blinked and clutched her head, suddenly feeling an ache accompanied by her lost memories from the library. They came back!

The royal family's curse. But . . . maybe it wasn't a curse. Maybe the prince was trying to show her all the different lives he's lived. Because . . . because he was a vampire.

Emrys adjusted his crown as if reminding the lady it was still there. "We all remember Gideon."

"I remember you plunging a dagger through his heart," Lady Annabelle said.

"Yes, and ending his reign of terror, but if I hadn't, he would still be eternally young like a vampire."

Francois cleared his throat and stood up. "Lady Ravenscroft, are you suggesting that we allow this murderer to kill us off one by one?" Francois's expression was wildfire. "Seven council members are dead, and one reporter."

"Someone is after those mirrors," Hadleigh, Francois's new second, said, her voice slightly unsteady. "And they killed Jane because of it. We cannot let this go."

Jane was killed because of the mirrors, and the gang knew. This would have been important to know about earlier .

"We have no new evidence or suspects. What are we to do?" Lady Annabelle asked. "We must stay the course. The mirrors are protected, and that is what matters."

"Except Jane found the second mirror," Emrys said as chatter broke out through the hall. "She told me the night she died but refused to tell me where. If we let this go and do nothing, we're doomed because while we might've forgotten about them, the murderer certainly hasn't."

That was the conversation Quinn overheard. Things were finally starting to make sense.

"Someone wants to steal our paintings, destroy the mirrors, and, in essence, destroy the accords," an unknown young man said.

"Maybe the accords should be destroyed." Every set of eyes turned in unison to Countess Teagan Atwater as she held her head high and shoulders back.

In a blink, she was at the center of the room. Quinn gasped but tried to stifle it with her hands because no one else was remotely shocked by the woman's vampiric speed.

"Perhaps the laws are too strict. Death to all vampires if the public learns our secret? Come on, even you have to admit that is going too far." Countess Atwater said the last bit directly to Emrys.

"The laws keep vampires from our worst impulses like human laws restrict their worst impulses," the unknown young man said, also disappearing and reappearing in the center.

"The difference being that if a human gets drunk and mouthy and tells their secrets to the world, they don't get themselves and their entire kind executed for it," Teagan said. "Not to mention, it's not just the vampires who can't tell a soul. Every single person in this room must remain silent. If any of you were vindictive enough, you could print the secret in the papers, and within seconds of the truth escaping, we would all be dead."

"Don't give them any ideas," the unknown man muttered.

"We are bound by the accords too. If one of us let slip the secret, it would be our heads, too," a woman from the center of the room, presumably a human, said.

The argument went on for what felt like hours with no resolution. Vampires stood for and against the laws, but not a single person had any clue to any major suspects for the serial murders.

But Quinn's suspect list was growing. It now included:

Francois and Hadleigh, the unknown young man, Countess Teagan Atwater, and Lady Annabelle Ravenscroft.

All of them seemed to have some motive for either destroying the accords or framing vampires.

Eventually, the conversation turned to other topics.

"Lady DeWinter, how does your operation fair?" the queen asked, clutching the arm of her throne.

DeWinter. There was only one person Quinn knew who went by the name DeWinter.

Constance .

A cloaked figure ambled to the center and slowly removed her hood, allowing her midnight locks to spill down her shoulders and her mahogany eyes to sparkle in the sconce light. "As always, the Viridian's true business thrives as well as its ostentatious one."

Constance's voice echoed through the chambers of Quinn's heart, slicing tiny lacerations with each wave of sound. If she weren't already on her knees, Quinn would have crumbled to the ground. The force of this betrayal was visceral and disorienting.

Constance. One of her closest friends had lied to her and kept one of the most important secrets imaginable. She was a council member, and this whole time, she'd known about the tattoos and the connections to the murders. She'd known everything and withheld it.

"Good, and all of your shipments are running smoothly?" the queen asked.

"In the last four hundred years that I've run the Viridian, have we ever let this council down?" Kordelia, the owner of the Viridian, prowled to the center, her voice liquid fire.

"No. "

"Then that is your answer." Kordelia scowled before clutching Constance's arm and leaving the center.

The meeting continued as Quinn's mind stormed, betrayal and confusion dancing a pas de deux.

Eventually, the meeting adjourned, and the council members trickled out of the room, except Uncle Matias, who remained glaring at Emrys, who still lounged on his throne.

When everyone was nearly gone, Uncle Matias rounded on the prince—slow and stalking like a bird of prey. "That stunt you pulled today in my lab will never happen again."

"I was having a bit of fun." Emrys smiled like a tiger.

"You and your fun. That's all you ever think about."

Emrys raised a brow, which clearly indicated that it was not all he had thought about.

"Stay away from my niece." Uncle Matias's anger, as usual, was dull and guttural—even more painful for its lack of sharpness.

"She is a council member, and now that Jane is dead, Quinn is the last of her line, and she deserves to know everything."

Uncle Matias raised one terrifying brow and said in a voice filled with danger, "She deserves to know only what I want her to know."

"Yes, you have made that clear many, many times." The words swished off Emrys's tongue in a leisurely, bored manner as he picked a piece of lint from his vest.

"Stay away from my niece," Uncle Matias said again, this time marking his every word with poison. "I do not want you anywhere near her."

"Yes, Your Majesty," Emrys said mockingly, giving an over-the-top bow. As he returned to his full height, his eyes flicked up to meet Quinn's, and she ducked once more behind the railing.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Dirty, broken fucking mirrors. The last thing she needed was Emrys catching her eavesdropping, even if he had invited her.