▪︎ Chapter 117 ▪︎ “Don’t worry. I won’t interrupt this time.”

Lavinia shifted in her seat and lowered the cup to the table.

The thick red liquid inside sloshed against the sides.

Blood.

Its sweetness filled her nose before the cup had even settled, rich and inviting in a way no human drink had ever been. 

She stared at the dark red surface for a moment, and her thoughts simply stopped.

The only reason she didn't immediately begin freaking out was everything else she could smell.

Vampires.

They were everywhere.

Their scents mingled so thoroughly that the air itself seemed saturated with them, dozens of distinct fragrances crossing and overlapping until the enormous room smelled less like somewhere vampires happened to be gathered and more like somewhere vampires had occupied for years. 

Familiar scents stood out immediately—tangerine and honey, roses and caramel, cocoa and cherries, lavender and chai, vanilla and chocolate, lilac and rain—but there were others threaded between them.

So many others.

A familiar weight suddenly settled against her back.

Lavinia didn't tense.

Her body recognized Valerie before her thoughts caught up, and a moment later orange hair spilled over her shoulder as Valerie leaned across her from behind. 

Valerie wore a playful smile, her solid red eyes close enough that Lavinia could see her own reflection faintly within them.

Valerie leaned closer and lightly pressed her lips against the side of Lavinia's neck.

The gesture felt so familiar that Lavinia almost forgot anything was wrong.

Almost.

Valerie pulled back just enough to speak. "Are you bored?"

Before Lavinia could answer, Gwendolyn let out a spoiled whine from farther down the enormous dining table.

"Lavinia's probably thinking about how annoying the Elves are."

Lavinia's eyes snapped toward her.

Gwendolyn was sprawled comfortably in the embrace of another vampire.

White hair.

Pale skin.

Solid red eyes.

The unfamiliar vampire had both arms around Gwendolyn's waist, apparently perfectly content to hold her there while Gwendolyn lounged against her chest as though this were an arrangement they'd repeated a thousand times.

"Everyone knows the Elves are annoying," Rosaline said from across the table.

She raised her cup, drank, then ran her tongue across the remaining blood on her lips. 

Her red hair spilled loosely over one shoulder. "I'd rather deal with the Dryads. Or even the—"

Rosaline stopped.

Her expression changed.

"Anyway! Lovely night."

Evangeline narrowed her eyes. "Coward."

"I have survival instincts."

"Since when?"

Rosaline smiled into her cup.

Lavinia stared between them.

Elves.

Dryads.

What?

Celestine apparently found none of this remarkable. She had Evelyn sitting comfortably on her lap, both arms wrapped around the blonde vampire's waist, her chin resting on Evelyn's shoulder.

"Do our human villages need more food?" Celestine asked.

Violetta was half sprawled over the table several seats away, looking profoundly unlike the composed Brigadier General Lavinia remembered from—

From when?

Violetta lazily dragged one finger through a small smear of blood beside her cup and brought it to her mouth.

"The humans can deal with that themselves."

Adelaide laughed. "And what are we going to do if all our humans starve?"

"Find more humans," Adeliza suggested.

Lavinia's attention snapped toward her.

Black twin tails framed Adeliza's face. She sat near Sybil as though she'd always belonged there, her empty red eyes fixed on Adelaide.

"Catching them isn't difficult," Adeliza continued with a shrug. "Getting them back without half of them trying something stupid is more annoying."

Isolde giggled softly. "Calista, Indira, and Zephyrine somehow managed to slip into the human city to the east last week. They brought several back."

"Somehow?" Evangeline asked.

Isolde's smile widened. "Calista refused to tell me."

"That means it was embarrassing."

"Almost certainly."

Lavinia said nothing.

Her eyes moved from one vampire to another.

Adeliza.

Sybil.

Isolde.

She knew them.

Didn't she?

The feeling was there.

Not memory.

Nothing surfaced when she searched for a conversation with Isolde, or an argument with Sybil, or any occasion where she'd sat across a table from Adeliza. 

Yet looking at them didn't produce the sensation of seeing strangers.

Her instincts accepted them.

Her mind did not.

Gwendolyn suddenly squirmed.

"Mom."

The white-haired vampire holding her merely tightened her arms.

"Mom!"

"Yes?"

"You're being clingy."

The other vampire smiled and gently brushed several strands of Gwendolyn's white hair away from her face.

Lavinia froze.

Mom?

Gwendolyn's mother was Eleanor.

Eleanor was human.

She had seen Eleanor.

That woman was not Eleanor.

She looked nothing like Eleanor.

Yet Gwendolyn twisted around and stared accusingly at the vampire behind her with exactly the expression someone might give an overly affectionate mother.

"You're crushing me."

"You can't be crushed."

"That's not the point."

The vampire laughed softly before finally releasing her.

Gwendolyn immediately straightened her dress with exaggerated dignity.

Evangeline giggled. "Mama's girl."

"I am not."

"You absolutely are," Ophelia said.

Gwendolyn pointed at her. "Traitor."

Ophelia's lips curved into a smile.

Diana, sitting beside her, reached over with a napkin and gently wiped a tiny streak of blood from the corner of Ophelia's mouth. 

Ophelia gave her a mildly offended look but didn't stop her. Diana inspected her work, apparently satisfied, then placed the napkin back beside the plate.

Lavinia blinked.

Once.

Twice.

She looked down at herself.

Dark skin.

Black gothic dress.

Golden hair spilling around her shoulders.

Her hands looked exactly the same.

The room didn't.

The table was immense, built for far more people than were currently sitting around it. 

Tall arched windows showed darkness outside, while candles and oil lamps cast warm pools of light across stone walls. 

There were no electric lights.

No switches that she could immediately see.

No television.

No hum of climate control.

The aesthetic was unmistakable.

A manor.

No.

Something larger.

A castle in the Diverged Lands.

She'd seen enough of those structures to recognize the architecture.

But when had she gotten here?

The last thing—

The last thing she remembered was—

A hotel.

Getting dressed.

Everyone talking too much.

Diana blushing because half the room had stared at her.

Violetta trying to get eleven vampires organized for a ceremony.

The ceremony.

Yes.

They had been going to a ceremony.

Hadn't they?

Lavinia looked back toward Gwendolyn's mother.

Human.

She was supposed to be human.

Gwendolyn's mother couldn't be—

"Mom," Gwendolyn said again, although this time with considerably less irritation.

The vampire smiled.

Sophia.

The name appeared from nowhere.

Not Eleanor.

Sophia.

Lavinia didn't remember learning it.

She didn't even know how she knew that was the woman's name.

Her attention drifted outward.

She breathed in deliberately.

One scent.

Two.

Five.

Ten.

Twenty.

Thirty.

She stopped trying to count them collectively and instead separated them.

Forty.

Approximately forty distinct vampire scent trails were fresh enough to suggest their owners were currently somewhere inside the castle. 

But beneath those were dozens more—fainter scents layered into corridors, furniture, stone, fabric and the very air. 

Vampires who had been here recently. Vampires who lived here. Vampires who came and went often enough that their presence had become part of the building.

There were far more vampires here than the little group she remembered.

Valerie moved around her chair.

Lavinia realized she'd been staring.

Valerie leaned down until their faces were nearly level. Her solid red eyes moved slowly over Lavinia's expression.

"Did a Witch put a curse on you?"

Lavinia stared at her.

A Witch.

Valerie had said that as casually as she might once have asked whether Lavinia had hit her head.

"No."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

Valerie squinted suspiciously.

Lavinia forced herself to relax. "I'm fine. Just a little tired."

Sybil laughed from farther down the table. Her pink ponytail shifted behind her as she leaned forward. "Vampires don't get tired."

"I get tired," Gwendolyn declared.

Sybil looked toward her.

Gwendolyn crossed her arms. "I don't care if it's impossible. I definitely get tired."

"That's called boredom," Rosaline said.

"No, it's tired."

"You're biologically incapable of physical fatigue."

"Emotionally, spiritually, and mentally tired, then."

"From what?"

"All of you."

Sophia laughed and pulled Gwendolyn back against her.

"Mom!"

Lavinia almost laughed too.

That frightened her more than anything else had.

Because this felt normal.

It shouldn't.

Violetta stretched both arms above her head before settling back into her chair. "If dealing with the Elves is out of the question, our realistic options are the Fae or the Witches."

Cordelia tilted her head. Her blue hair fell across one pointed ear. "Can't we simply deal with the problem ourselves?"

"What problem?" Lavinia nearly asked.

She stopped herself.

Evangeline puffed out her chest. "If you want to watch the humans twenty-four hours a day, you're welcome to do it."

Cordelia frowned.

"I'd rather have a ward," Evangeline continued. "Or some restriction that prevents them from running in the first place. Then the Thralls don't have to spend half their time figuring out who disappeared."

Human villages.

Running.

Thralls.

Lavinia remained very still.

"We could make a few more Thralls," Isolde said. "They can manage everything during the day. And if anyone is caught trying to flee, threaten their family."

She paused thoughtfully.

"Or kill someone close to them. That usually makes the point."

Lavinia looked sharply toward Isolde.

Nobody else did.

Evelyn shifted on Celestine's lap.

"No."

Her voice was firmer than Lavinia remembered.

Not loud.

Just certain.

Everyone looked toward her.

Evelyn continued, "We shouldn't kill them unless there's a reason we can't avoid it. Humans are difficult enough to catch as it is. Killing one just to frighten another wastes one."

Celestine nodded against her shoulder. "That's true."

Lavinia stared.

There was something profoundly wrong about hearing Evelyn object and then realizing why she had objected.

Not because killing someone to frighten their family was monstrous.

Because it wasted a human.

Adeliza laughed. "Then raid another human town. The eastern city has terrible protection in the slums. We could take twenty in a night if we wanted."

Rosaline waved dismissively. "And have half the city irritated with us?"

"They're humans."

"Weak doesn't mean incapable of being annoying," Rosaline replied. "They use traps. They hide things. They poison things. They collapse buildings. They set fires. I'd rather not spend my night digging through rubble because some human decided dying underneath a building was preferable to coming with me."

"They're dramatic."

"So are we."

"Speak for yourself."

Rosaline slowly looked around the table.

Everyone stared back.

"Exactly."

Laughter followed.

Lavinia didn't join it.

She looked around again.

Valerie.

Gwendolyn.

Rosaline.

Adelaide.

Celestine.

Cordelia.

Evelyn.

Evangeline.

Violetta.

Ophelia.

Diana.

Those were familiar.

Isolde was familiar too, although Lavinia couldn't remember why she should be.

Adeliza.

Sybil.

Sophia.

Others farther down the table whose faces she didn't recognize at all.

Yet every time her eyes settled upon one of them, something inside her insisted she knew them.

Not their names.

Not memories.

Feelings.

Safe.

Friend.

Annoying.

Funny.

Warm.

One dark-skinned vampire with long burgundy hair glanced toward Lavinia and smiled.

Lavinia smiled back automatically.

Why?

She had no idea who that was.

Sybil leaned forward, pink hair rustling softly against her dress. "You're awfully quiet. Planning something?"

"No."

"That's exactly what someone planning something would say."

Sophia rested one hand on Gwendolyn's shoulder. "I'd rather not spend tonight fighting."

Gwendolyn immediately perked up. "It could be fun."

"No."

"Mom."

"You were complaining about being tired thirty seconds ago."

"That was emotional tiredness."

"Apparently cured?"

"Violence is therapeutic."

Sophia stared at her.

Gwendolyn smiled innocently.

Violetta tapped one fingernail against the table.

"Our territory isn't being invaded, so fighting is off the table for now."

Gwendolyn slumped.

"However," Violetta added casually, "there have been signs of human presence around the outskirts. If anyone desperately needs to blow off steam, you can go hunt them."

Lavinia looked at her.

Violetta.

The same Violetta who had spent so much effort worrying about public perception.

The same woman who had respected Colonel Bennett's command because she hadn't wanted her being a vampire to become another point of criticism.

She had just suggested hunting humans as though she were recommending an evening walk.

Celestine considered it before shaking her head. "I don't feel like looking for humans."

Rosaline groaned. "Neither do I. I'd rather fight a Siren than spend the entire night searching through the forest for humans."

"A Siren?" Adelaide asked.

"I said what I said."

"You'd regret it."

"Probably."

Lavinia's fingers tightened around the edge of the table.

Witches.

Dryads.

Elves.

Fae.

Sirens.

Human villages.

A castle full of vampires.

No electricity.

Her mother is a vampire.

No.

Gwendolyn's mother.

Lavinia closed her eyes for half a second.

This wasn't her world.

Except it was.

That was the problem.

Nothing around her felt like a dream. Her senses were too sharp for that. She could smell the blood in every cup. 

Hear fabric shift when someone moved. Hear Diana's living heartbeat among the otherwise silent vampire bodies. 

Feel Valerie's fingers idly playing with a strand of her golden hair.

Everything was real.

And everyone felt familiar.

The world had failed somehow.

Not ended.

Failed.

And she had simply appeared after the failure.

"Lavinia."

Something caught her hand.

Her eyes opened.

Gwendolyn had leaned halfway across the table to grab her.

"Want to go to the villages?"

She shook Lavinia's hand enthusiastically.

Valerie immediately frowned. "Why?"

Gwendolyn looked offended. "Because I want to."

"That's not a reason."

"It's a perfect reason."

"If the Thralls can handle the humans, there's no point going there," Valerie said. "Us showing up will just make them nervous."

"That's not necessarily bad," Violetta said.

Lavinia looked toward her again.

Violetta casually turned her cup between her fingers.

"Keeping them slightly uncomfortable around us helps with obedience. They shouldn't become so accustomed to the arrangement that they forget who controls the territory."

Gwendolyn smiled triumphantly at Valerie.

"See?"

"That doesn't mean I want to go."

"You weren't invited."

"I go where Lavinia goes."

Lavinia stared at her.

Valerie smiled.

For one brief instant, that smile was enough to make everything else disappear.

That was Valerie.

Her Valerie.

Except even that thought felt strange because something in Lavinia told her those five missing years had made the possessive sentiment more true than she could possibly understand.

She pushed her chair backward.

The legs scraped across stone.

"I'll go."

Gwendolyn immediately released her hand. "Yes!"

"I'm coming," Valerie said.

"So am I," Evangeline added.

Rosaline's lips curled into a wicked smirk. "We'll probably find the four of you scissoring in the forest before you ever reach the village."

A knife flashed across the table.

Lavinia's eyes tracked it automatically.

Rosaline's hand snapped upward.

She caught the knife by its handle without spilling her drink.

Evangeline glared at her.

Rosaline twirled the blade between her fingers. "Don't worry. I won't interrupt this time."

"This time?" Lavinia repeated before she could stop herself.

Rosaline's smile widened.

Valerie laughed.

Gwendolyn suddenly found the ceiling fascinating.

Evangeline pointed at Rosaline. "Give me my knife."

"You threw it at me. Legally, that makes it mine."

"That's not how ownership works."

"It is in vampire territory."

"Give it back."

"No."

Evangeline rose.

Rosaline rose too, laughing as she darted around the opposite side of the table.

Lavinia watched them for a second.

Apparently some things survived the end of the world.

She turned toward the enormous doors.

Valerie fell into step beside her almost immediately, Gwendolyn hurrying after them while Evangeline abandoned her pursuit of Rosaline long enough to follow.

Lavinia stepped through the doorway.

The corridor beyond made her slow.

Stone stretched in both directions beneath towering vaulted ceilings. 

Heavy tapestries hung between narrow windows, their imagery unfamiliar. 

Candles and oil lamps illuminated only portions of the hall, leaving long sections in comfortable darkness.

Doors lined the walls.

Staircases climbed upward and descended elsewhere.

Somewhere several floors above, vampires were laughing.

Another pair spoke quietly beyond a closed door.

Farther away, someone was running through a corridor at a speed no human could have followed.

Scents layered over everything.

Forty vampires currently here.

Dozens more who had been.

Maybe more than that.

Lavinia looked toward one corridor and knew, somehow, that she shouldn't take it.

She looked toward another.

That way.

Her feet started moving before she decided why.

Valerie followed without question.

Gwendolyn and Evangeline did the same.

Lavinia swallowed.

She didn't know this place.

She had never seen this place.

Yet when they reached an intersection, she turned left without hesitation.

A staircase appeared exactly where some part of her expected it to be.

Lavinia stared at it.

"What?" Gwendolyn asked.

"Nothing."

She continued downward.

The scents grew stronger near another crossing. Three unfamiliar vampires passed them, each greeting Lavinia casually.

Lavinia returned the greetings automatically.

She couldn't remember a single one of their names.

But she liked two of them.

Apparently.

The third irritated her.

Apparently.

She had no idea why.

By the time they reached another immense hallway, Lavinia no longer had any doubt.

This wasn't a manor.

It was a castle.

A huge one.

And judging by the overlapping scents embedded into practically every surface, vampires hadn't merely occupied it recently.

They lived here.

They had lived here for a long time.

Lavinia continued walking with Valerie beside her, Gwendolyn and Evangeline chatting behind them as though nothing whatsoever were wrong.

For them, perhaps nothing was.

Lavinia glanced toward Valerie.

Five minutes ago—or what felt like five minutes ago—they had been at a ceremony in Oakridge.

Now Gwendolyn's mother was a vampire named Sophia.

Witches existed.

Sirens existed.

Elves and Dryads and Fae existed.

Humans were being kept in villages they weren't allowed to leave.

And Lavinia apparently lived in a castle containing more vampires than she'd ever seen gathered in one place.

The strangest part wasn't that everyone else behaved as though this were normal.

It was the quiet, impossible feeling buried somewhere inside her that told her they were right.

This was normal.

This was home.

She simply couldn't remember any of it.