Isabella’s hand flew to the pommel.
Seraphina did not flinch. She sat in her chair, composed and still, regarding Isabella with the mild interest of a woman watching a dinner guest reach for the wrong fork.
“She’s two years old,” Isabella said.
“These things take time.” Seraphina’s patience had the quality of geology. “Not everything is about Aeloria, my dear. Sometimes we need weapons, like your father. Sometimes we need other tools entirely. If none of you prove suitable, there is always the next generation.”
At the periphery of the room, the court had not moved. Isabella noted that. They had been dancing only minutes before, fluid and wordless and beautiful. Those movements could just as easily belong to competent fighters.
“She’s cursed by Aeloria,” Isabella said, each word placed with precision.
“An interesting variable.” Seraphina’s smile widened. “We shall see where it leads.”
Lambert stood. “Lady de Vaillant, surely you cannot mean—”
“My dear boy.” Seraphina’s voice carried the patience of someone explaining water to fish. “In this family, we are all both. Laboratory specimens and tools. It is simply a matter of which tool serves best.”
The smiles around the room had not faltered, but they stood out now against the shadows of the walls. Teeth bared. Isabella counted them. Six on the left. Four on the right. Augustine by the door.
“You act as though this is new.” Seraphina settled back in her chair, untroubled by their horror. “Your conceptions, your births — none of it was left to chance. Each pairing was chosen for what it would produce.” She gestured, languid as smoke. “Lambert’s mother carried one lineage. Laila’s fey qualities brought another. The combinations were deliberate.”
“But Maximilian and I have the same parents.” Wylan said it in spite of himself, the alchemist reaching for the methodology. “What was the variable?”
“When Maximilian showed promise at birth, we allowed the experiment to iterate.” Seraphina regarded Wylan with something that was not quite sympathy. “I will admit, we thought something had gone amiss when you turned out to be...” She searched for the word and found it distasteful. “Normal. But you broke through eventually.”
Lambert’s pocketbook was still open in his hands. He had stopped writing several revelations ago.
Isabella saw the room for what it was. The three of them standing in the centre, bathed in moonlight pouring through the opening in the ceiling, the court arranged around the edges, watching. They had been standing in a kill box all evening, and she hadn’t seen it until now.
“So all of us,” Wylan said. His voice had gone flat. “Iterations. Experiments. And if we don’t work out, you move on to the next generation.”
“Now you understand,” Seraphina said.
You are in the den. You are surrounded. And you brought your brothers.
“You’re talking about a toddler,” Wylan said. “Like she’s an object, or... breeding stock.”
“I’m talking about potential.” Seraphina’s tone had not changed. That was the worst part. “And in this family, potential is never wasted.”
She took her hand off the sword. It was one of the hardest things she had ever done. Not because the anger had passed. Because she had counted the room and the room had won.
Her brothers caught the signal. Wylan remained tense, but he stepped back. Lambert’s composure reassembled itself with a speed that was, frankly, unholy.
Nobody spoke. Seraphina waited. The outcome had never been in question.
Lambert broke the silence. “You are of course talking about our niece, who is very dear to us, madame.”
Isabella wanted to walk out, but Lambert wasn’t finished. The storm building outside wasn’t helping.
Lambert took a sip of wine. For a moment, Isabella thought he was gathering himself. Then she recognised the gesture for what it was: a reset.
“The wine really is very good,” he said. “Perhaps we might offer a toast on this occasion.”
It sounded like a non-sequitur. Isabella watched the room cool by a fraction, the attendants’ attention sharpening almost imperceptibly. He’s pivoting. Deliberately.
Seraphina tilted her head. “And what do you propose we toast? Family reunions?”
“Why, to R?zvan, of course.”
The room shifted. The audience had noticed the understudy going off script. Even Seraphina had not expected that. Her composure held, but something behind her eyes moved.
“You would toast Lord ?epe??”
“Would you prefer I toast Valère?”
Seraphina’s laugh was short and sharp, the first unguarded sound she had made all evening. “That charlatan? Very well. A toast to the return of R?zvan.”
They raised their glasses. Isabella drank, and the wine offered her no pleasure. Wylan raised his goblet, but Isabella caught it: his lips touched the rim and did not part. He set the glass down without drinking.
Good lad.
“Does that mean you have decided to join us?” Seraphina asked, setting down her glass. “To help restore him?”
Isabella caught Lambert’s hand moving behind his cassock. A sign, quick and precise. Play along.
She pulled Wylan in close, her grip on his arm leaving no room for improvisation. He was vibrating with the effort of not speaking, one hand twitching toward the coat pocket where his notebook lived.
“Perhaps,” Lambert said. “I presume you need our help to recover him from a Dungeon.”
Same trick as before. Forcing an answer with a statement.
Seraphina’s expression reset. “I never said he was in a Dungeon.”
Has she caught on?
“You said he was trapped and contained.”
“You assumed the rest.”
Lambert paused. “Then where?”
“Those are my reasons and my secrets.” Seraphina’s voice carried no apology. “And I do not share them lightly, especially with children.”
Wylan straightened to his full height beside her, which wasn’t much, and his hand closed around the stem of his goblet hard enough that Isabella worried about the glass. “First of all—”
“Put a few more decades behind you,” Seraphina said, “and perhaps then you will no longer be a child.”
“Well,” Wylan muttered, mostly to himself, “longevity does seem to run in the family.”
? Vampires measured age the way astronomers measured distance: in units that made everyone else feel inadequate.
Isabella could see the R?zvan line closing. Seraphina had given them nothing, and done so with the generosity of a woman pouring from an empty bottle. But Lambert wasn’t finished.
“You mentioned Aeloria,” he continued, as though the rebuff had not happened. “And Valère. Her dragonborn.”
“What of him?”
“You spoke of him as though he were still alive.”
“Valère is a dragonborn.” Seraphina stated it like the weather. “He is immortal.”
“Then stop dancing around the issue,” Wylan said, “and tell us who he is. You seem to know him rather better than the Church.”
“You sound like you know him,” Isabella said quietly.
Seraphina turned to her with a pointed look. “I would not say I know him personally, but I knew who he was.” For a moment the contempt was unmasked. “You have already found the first piece of evidence. Prospère. Not merely a surname. It was once his mononym.”
Lambert was very still. “Prospero?”
“The one and the same. Valère was just an affectation he adopted after Aeloria took him under her wing.”
Isabella didn’t know the name, not the way Lambert did. But she knew her brother’s face, and the recognition sank through it like a stone through water.
“The Prospero,” Lambert said. “Mage and scholar who served Glorianna of Albion.”
“A conjurer. A magician. Brilliant, ambitious, and entirely mortal.” Seraphina’s smile had gone thin and cold. “Aeloria was always jealous of her majesty, and Prospero was the only possession of Glorianna’s she ever managed to acquire.”
She let that settle, then leaned forward. “You must understand something about Aeloria. She does not collect things. She collects people. People of power, of potential. That is the basis of her cult, and the source of every loyalty she fosters. Her hoard is not gold. It is influence.”
Lambert was quiet for a moment, doing arithmetic he didn’t enjoy.
“I am not going to pretend we see eye to eye,” he said. “But Aeloria’s network is entrenched in the city’s power structures, and you appear to be the only force explicitly outside her influence.” He paused, choosing his words. “Perhaps not a true alliance. But a sharing of intelligence. I believe our interests align more often than not.”
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“Lambert,” Wylan said, low and urgent. “You can’t seriously be proposing—”
“What are your terms?” Seraphina said.
Lambert did not look at Wylan. “I will not treat you as monsters, nor will I expose you to the Church, regardless of my duty as an inquisitor. In return, I will provide you the help you need to restore R?zvan.”
Wylan’s hand closed on Isabella’s arm and stayed there. “You’re offering to help free the vampire lord we’ve been told is contained for a reason?”
“And how does the rest of your family feel about that?” Seraphina asked.
“I cannot speak for my family on this matter,” Lambert said. “But I will speak with them.”
“I suppose that will have to do.” Seraphina inclined her head. “Very well.”
“Two last things.” Lambert’s voice hardened, and Isabella recognised the register. This was the inquisitor, not the grandson. “You will answer my next two questions. An alliance, however fragile, is built on trust. You already have the Sang-greal. We have restored you. Now it is our turn for something solid.”
Seraphina regarded him for a long moment. Then she smiled, and it was almost warm. “Very well. In light of our new friendship, my child.”
“Tell me about Alexios. Not the public story. What was his faith, truly?”
The warmth left Seraphina’s smile. What replaced it had centuries behind it.
“Your father was a Paladin,” Seraphina said. “You know what that means. A Paladin is nothing without conviction. For decades, Alexios carried his conviction like a banner. He fought the dragon cult in the name of Invictus, and he believed, truly believed, that he served a just cause.”
She paused, and her gaze dropped from theirs. “And then he came to understand that the Church of Invictus was itself a fabrication of Aeloria’s. That the faith he had served and the enemy he had fought were branches of the same tree.”
He didn’t lose his faith. The faith lost him.
“The turn to Death was not, in my estimation, a genuine conversion,” Seraphina continued. “I have lived long enough to recognise devotion, and Alexios did not have it. Not for Death. His reverence was surface, ritual without root. A man with no conviction filling the space with whatever was to hand.”
She looked at Lambert. “You are different. I can see it in you. Whatever you believe, you believe it with your whole self. Your father never managed that, not after the truth came apart.”
Lambert said nothing. Seraphina had just handed him a gift and a bill in the same envelope.
“I believe,” Seraphina said carefully, “that it was Alexios who placed me in the de Vaillant Dungeon. I cannot be certain given the method. But given where I ended up,” she spread her hands, “I have to form my own conclusions.”
Father imprisoned his own mother. Isabella looked at Lambert, at Wylan, and saw the same thought moving behind their eyes.
Lambert was quiet for a moment. “You said his turn to Death was hollow. Ritual without root. But given the bloodline, given what you’ve told us about Lampetia’s strain — did it matter? Did the worship of Death have any real effect on a man who was already half something else?”
Seraphina tilted her head. “An interesting question. I honestly do not know.”
“And the depressing part of that is,” Wylan said slowly, “what if he was only half a vampire? Is he even still dead?”
Seraphina’s gaze sharpened. “We could exhume him. I do not know if he could be resurrected at this point. Would you like to see your father again, even as a vampire?”
Lambert’s wine glass hit the table harder than intended. “No. Let him rest. Please.”
Seraphina’s gaze moved to Wylan. “And you, Wylan? Would you give something to see your father again?”
“And my second question,” Lambert said. His voice had gone very quiet. “Lampetia. Who is she, and what is the significance of her being my mother?”
“Your mother,” Seraphina said, “was Lampetia. Keeper of the Sepulchre.”
Isabella knew that name, not well, not the way Lambert’s seminary education would have taught it, but the word Sepulchre carried weight even in Ranger lore. A Dungeon that appeared in cautionary tales told to trainees who thought they were ready for the deep places.
Lambert did not react. Not visibly. He picked up his wine glass, examined the colour against the candlelight, and set it down again.
“And Lampetia?” he said. “You said she was an ancient strain. What does that mean for me?”
“An iteration,” Seraphina continued, clinical as a diagnosis. “Your blood carries Lampetia’s ancient strain. You are, in some respects, the most successful of the experiments.” She looked him over. “You carry more of her in you than you realise. “The pallor. The bearing. You could pass for one of us without much effort.”
“I have been told I look the part,” Lambert said dryly. “At least I seem to have avoided the weakness to sunlight, though perhaps none of her advantages.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, I am hardly Undying.”
Seraphina leaned forward, and for the first time her interest was undisguised. “How about an experiment? We could find out.”
“No.” Lambert’s response was immediate and absolute. “Thank you.”
“And you?” Isabella said. “How did you become a vampire? When?”
Seraphina’s smirk returned. “Would you like to know?”
“I’m curious.”
“That is a secret I will share when you become one of us.”
“I’m a siren,” Isabella said flatly. “That’s impossible.”
Seraphina clapped her hands once. “Callion.”
A figure stepped from the shadows at the edge of the room. The webbing between his fingers was faint but visible, his features sharp and predatory. Unmistakably siren. Unmistakably vampiric. Isabella found her gaze lingering a moment longer than it should have. She looked away.
Seraphina flicked her fingers and Callion retreated to take his place alongside Augustine.
“So, your great work is to produce some kind of perfected vampire,” Wylan said slowly, the pieces falling into place behind his eyes, “which is apparently a work in progress, to which we are experimental subjects. And at some point, you intend to turn us.”
“Perhaps,” Seraphina said. “If you prove valuable enough.”
“And then what? Expand on your plan for an eternal night? Cut Aeloria off from Agony?”
“More or less.” Seraphina’s eyes gleamed. “Aeloria might be a dragon, but she draws far too much power from Agony. Taking her down a notch seems only fair.”
“But if you bring about eternal night,” Wylan said, “you’re going to need things to feed on. And those things will need sustenance to survive.”
Seraphina waved a hand. “Yes, I suppose we could temper our ambition somewhat. Eternal night here, day elsewhere. Why not?”
Lambert and Isabella exchanged glances. This was casual apocalypse planning that probably deserved more consideration than why not, but Seraphina had already moved on.
“Fair enough,” Wylan said. His expression had darkened. “But even then, you’ll need feeding stock. People won’t just volunteer.”
Seraphina’s tone grew sharper, a faint trace of annoyance slipping through her polished demeanour. “Yes, it is a dilemma. Hopefully we can find some kind of compromise through perfecting our undying state. In which case we would no longer need eternal night, and everyone can be happy.”
“Right up until you bite them,” Wylan said.
Augustine crossed the room and bent to whisper something in Seraphina’s ear. She listened, then rose from her chair with fluid grace.
“I fear our conversation comes to a close. The night is young, but we are not.” She smoothed her gown. “Augustine, please see our guests out.”
Augustine inclined his head and gestured toward the door. Isabella fell into step beside her brothers. The court watched them leave. Every smile was still in place. At the threshold, Seraphina’s voice carried from behind them, unhurried and precise.
“Oh, and Lambert? I expect you will get to meet Lampetia, given this course of action.”
The carriage door closed, and the rain started almost immediately, light at first, polite, testing its welcome.
They rode in silence for a long time. The rain found its confidence and stopped being polite. Wylan stared out of the window. Lambert sat with his hands folded in his lap; the composure was still on, and Isabella suspected it would need to be surgically removed. She counted the streets and waited for someone to go first.
“You just offered to help free R?zvan,” Wylan said.
“Yes.”
“A vampire lord. Contained for a reason.”
“Contained by whom? For whose reasons?” Lambert’s voice was steady. “Seraphina won’t say. But Father imprisoned Seraphina in our own Dungeon, and we freed her. The precedent is already set.”
The carriage rattled over the bridge.
“You think R?zvan is the same situation,” Isabella said.
“I think Seraphina needs our help. She wouldn’t have given us this much otherwise. The Prospère name, the truth about Father, the alliance. She accepted too quickly. She was always going to accept. The evening was the audition, not the negotiation.”
“Audition for what?”
“To see if we’d dance with them. To see if we’d drink with them. To see if we’d walk out after Aurora. Take your pick.”
Wylan made a noise that couldn’t decide if it was a laugh.
“I didn’t drink, for the record.”
“I know,” Isabella said. “I saw.”
The carriage hit a rut. Nobody commented.
“We were standing in a kill box all evening,” Isabella said.
Lambert turned to her. “What?”
“The three of us in the centre, lit by moonlight. The court around the edges. If anything had gone wrong, we’d have been surrounded before we reached the door.”
“I did not see that.”
“You weren’t meant to.”
“I don’t think we were in genuine danger,” Lambert said, “unless we provoked it. She wants us alive.”
“So all of this was a set up?” Wylan said.
“I think so. She can’t free R?zvan alone. She corrected me on the Dungeon but didn’t deny the containment. He’s trapped, and she needs people she can trust to help recover him.”
“I think she needs some Heroes,” Isabella said.
“I think you’re right. Perhaps there is something we can do that her court cannot.”
Lightning turned the city into an etching for a moment, spires and rooftops white and sharp, then gone.
“And Prospero?” Wylan said.
“That was deliberate. She’s arming us. The Church stripped Valère’s surname because it connects him to Glorianna’s court, not to Invictus. He was Aeloria’s acquisition, not a prophet. That’s a history someone went to a great deal of trouble to erase.”
“Assuming the Church doesn’t already know and doesn’t care.”
Lambert didn’t answer that. The carriage turned onto the hill road toward the estate.
“And the chalice,” Lambert said, almost to himself. “I called it the Sang-greal. She didn’t correct me.”
“Oh, you’re right, it is,” Isabella said.
“So it is. And we handed it over.”
“And Father?” Wylan said, quieter now.
“Now that remains intriguing.” Lambert’s voice had dropped. “I could not tell if she was angry about the imprisonment or not, and that alarms me. She’s still keeping some cards close to her chest.”
“She kept most of the deck close to her chest,” Isabella said.
“Yes. But she showed us enough to know the game is worth playing.”
The carriage slowed. Through the rain-streaked window, the de Vaillant estate was lit up. Every window. At this hour, that was wrong.
The driver pulled up to the portico. They stepped out into the rain, which had settled into the steady, committed downpour of weather that had made arrangements and cancelled its other plans. The front door was ajar, light spilling across the wet flagstones. A servant hovered in the entrance, saw them, and disappeared back inside with visible relief.
The entrance hall told the story before anyone spoke. The phlogiston chandelier was still at full array, a chair had been pulled away from the wall where someone had sat and stood abruptly, and the statues looked like they wished they hadn’t heard any of it.
Laila met them at the foot of the stairs. She was dressed, which meant she hadn’t slept. Her expression was controlled, but the control was recent, applied over something rougher, and Isabella caught the edges of it before Laila smoothed them away.
“Where have you been?”
“We went to see Seraphina,” Lambert said. “You did give us the address, after all.”
Laila’s expression shifted to calculation. “That was tonight? It doesn’t matter. We have a more immediate problem.”
“Where’s Maximilian?” The house was lit up, the servants agitated, and Laila had chosen to intercept them personally. That alone prompted a number of questions.
“In the study. He and I have been discussing the situation. He’s...” Laila chose her word carefully. “Processing.”
“The situation,” Lambert repeated.
Laila looked at the three of them, rain-damp and still wearing the careful expressions of people who had spent an evening being diplomatic in a room full of vampires and were not yet ready to stop being diplomatic. Then she straightened.
“The matter with Alexisoix and the Countess d’Aubigne. It has escalated.”
Wylan let out a breath. “Please tell me he hasn’t done something else.”
“This isn’t about what Alexisoix did. It’s about what happened after.” Laila’s voice was even, measured, and Isabella noticed she was answering around the question rather than through it. “The rumours in the salons. They didn’t stay in the salons. They spread, and they have been traced back to this household.”
“Traced back how?” Lambert said.
Laila didn’t answer that. “The countess has responded.”
“Well, why do we care?” Wylan said. He was unwinding his scarf, still agitated from the carriage. “That’s a Beaumont matter. Let Aunt Saffron and Guillaume sort it out. Alexisoix is their son.”
“The countess does not see it that way.”
“What Wylan means,” Isabella said, “is that the scandal attached to Alexisoix, not to us. Whatever the salons are saying, the de Vaillant name isn’t—”
“House d’Aubigne has declared a formal vendetta.” Laila said it flat, the way one delivers news that has already been argued about and cannot be argued about further. “Against House de Vaillant. Not House Beaumont. Filed with the Church this evening. Sealed and witnessed.”
? The formal vendetta had been introduced to civilise the practice of inter-house feuding. It had succeeded only in adding filing fees.
The rain filled the silence.
“On what grounds?” Lambert said.
“Noble grievance. The countess claims the slander originated from this household, and under the terms of hospitality extended at our Frostember gathering, that makes it a matter between houses.” Laila folded her hands. “Maximilian has been dealing with the implications for the past two hours.”