Envious Of Fire (Kissing With Teeth #2)

33. The Talent of Blood 1025.

—?—

Kaleb is lost to the music.

Cradling his violin.

The song drifts in the air, carrying the nuance he puts into each and every note.

It used to be more of an accident, when he played down in the cells and his music grew so beautiful, almost on its own.

He has lately discovered an intentionality.

Using his music like a tool.

Wielding the melody like a weapon.

Kaleb drives the song with purpose, like an instrument that doesn’t inspire mere music, but bends hearts toward him.

These are the thoughts that push the doubt away. Doubt in that last look in Lord Markadian’s eyes before he left his room. In the warnings Raya shared about the cruelty of siblings.

Whatever ill feelings that might have lived in Markadian’s heart, Kaleb will eliminate them with the music.

He believes this to his very core.

Until: “KALEB!”

The shout pierces the music like a needle.

Then comes something else. Like a slow and steady drum. Thumping beneath Kaleb’s feet, as if the stage itself discovered a heartbeat.

Kaleb opens his eyes.

The room is so dimly lit, he sees no one, only hears them. Gasps and whispers, scattering through the dark. Someone lets out a wail. Another whimpers. Kaleb can make no sense of it as he clings to his melody, striving to win back the attention of the audience. Everything depends on this. Markadian’s happiness in him. His own ability. His safety here.

Then comes a rippling, rattling growl from behind.

Kaleb turns.

The face of a lion, wreathed in a wild, hairy mane, big eyes pouring intensely into Kaleb like black lava, enormous mouth spreading a sea of needle-sharp whiskers.

A lion’s face is nothing in a photograph.

In the flesh, it is positively overwhelming in size.

The music cuts off. Kaleb staggers back to the noise of the audience gasping, nearly falls over, rights himself quickly, then finds his back pressed to the bars that enclose the stage.

He thought the stage was a semicircle wrapped in bars with a red velvet backdrop, but instead has turned out to be a complete circle, the other half enclosing a beast Kaleb could not have hoped to predict was there the whole time.

And now the barrier separating them is open.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have thought of it as a stage at all.

It’s an arena.

“W-Wait,” says Kaleb, trying feebly to communicate to the animal. “S-S-Stop. Easy. Easy.”

He slides along the bars, trying to create as much distance between himself and the beast as he can—without looking like he’s running from it. Isn’t that how things turn deadly in the wild? The moment one runs? Turning an innocent dance into a chase with grim consequences? Deadly animals love to chase. Maybe the same can be said of humans.

Or blood-drinking gods.

The lion watches Kaleb with unsettling indifference, makes a brief snarling sound, then slowly pads forward.

Kaleb continues to move around the perimeter of the cage, slowly, smoothly. “Easy, easy …” he repeats over and over, his voice as calm as he can manage despite the way it trembles.

The lion stops, yet his eyes remain on Kaleb.

The lion licks his lips.

Is that to indicate hunger? Salivating? Or is it something lions just do?

Why would Markadian orchestrate such a spectacle? Is this because Kaleb has done something wrong? Is this what Raya was warning him about? Are Markadian and his sister a sadistic pair of siblings who would lure an innocent musician like him into a deadly trap for their own amusement?

Could gods really be so cruel?

Kaleb finds himself struck suddenly by the calmness of the animal. What if he has this all wrong? Maybe the lion isn’t here to harm him. This could just be a surprise of Markadian’s to rouse the crowd, to make the violin performance more entertaining. Gods have strange appetites. They’re easily bored. Maybe this is just a part of the show, meant to impress Markadian’s friends. Kaleb wasn’t told so that he’d be genuinely surprised when the lion emerged. That must surely be the more sensible reason.

Even the audience seems to be waiting for something to happen. Maybe they are too afraid to shout anymore, worried they might spook the lion.

Is it blood or music they crave more?

Kaleb has stopped moving. He is facing the audience now, at the other end of the cage, with the lion’s shadow falling over his feet.

The shadow, of all things, makes Kaleb think of a spider.

A very large shadow of a seemingly large threat.

And he thinks of Markadian’s power.

Is this lion even real?

Kaleb makes a radical and entirely counterintuitive decision to, with glacial speed, move toward the lion. When the lion’s tail twitches, Kaleb stops. Calm again, he risks another step.

Even the audience seems to hold their breath.

Are they thinking it, too? Are they seeing through the ruse?

Kaleb slowly lifts the bow of his violin. Excruciatingly slow. No part of him is completely certain of anything. He reaches the violin bow toward the lion like an extension of his own arm, patiently, carefully, dipping a toe into the water of his own little hypothesis, a dangerous but necessary experiment.

Confidence swells inside Kaleb’s chest as he faces the beast. He can’t believe his eyes. “You’re not real,” he says, breaking a smile, in total disbelief.

In a flash, the lion lifts his huge paw and swats at the bow with ferocious strength, claws cutting through air. It snaps out of Kaleb’s fingers like a splinter, flung aside, stunning him.

The lion’s next strike is directly across Kaleb’s face.

???

To the sound of Markadian’s ringing laughter, Kyle shouts as he barges between the tables, shoving anyone out of the way in pursuit of his brother.

Between fine dresses and suit jackets standing in the way, watching the scene with bloodlust in their hungry eyes, Kyle catches the horror onstage in nightmarish flashes.

The lion roaring, circling the cage, snapping its jaws.

Kaleb staggering backward blindly, hollering out in pain, blood pouring down his face from the attack.

Kyle reaches the stage at long last, grabs hold of the bars. “Kaleb!!” he yells, but is drowned out by the audience, shouting both in joy and in terror. Some of them cheer the violinist on, spitting words of encouragement, though it isn’t clear whether they’re mocking him. Others cheer for the lion, desperate for action, seeing it as part of the show, one of Markadian’s vulgar performances, not realizing a real life hangs in the balance—or perhaps knowing fully and relishing in it.

Kyle grabs something off the nearest table, a blunt candle, and pitches it between the bars at the lion. “Hey!” he shouts, grabs something else, throws it too. “Over here, fucking lion!” He snatches a chair and starts beating it madly against the bars, again and again. “Here! To me! Hey!”

The lion turns his huge head, tail flicking irritably.

“Go!” cries out Kyle to his brother as he keeps his eyes on the lion, banging the cage with the chair over and over. “Up on the bars, if you can! Climb! Get off the ground, fast!” He starts thrusting the chair at the bars, the legs poking through. “Over here, you big fucking cat, over here!!”

Kyle feels his brother’s confusion and panic, blinded by the blood on his face, no idea how deeply the lion’s claws gouged, perhaps stunned he’s still alive. And it is with blind trust that he seizes the chance despite being entirely unaware of who it is that’s helping him, rushing to the farthest side of the stage to climb up the bars. Kyle’s heart pounds as his brother’s hands and feet slip over and over on his pursuit for higher ground.

It is truly Kaleb on that stage. His brother. His real, living, younger brother. Even his clumsiness is familiar, the same as it was when they were teens. The awkward way he grips the bars, in ways that Kyle would have once criticized and coached him through back in the day. How Kaleb is for whatever reason still clutching the neck of the violin with his free hand as if he still needs it, as if saving the instrument is just as important as his own life. His feet, the way they slip and slide down the bars as he climbs them, using every available part of his arms to gain purchase with little to no athleticism, zero grace, trying to hook one of them around the bars on his way up to the top where the bars start to curve. The cage looks over twenty feet tall. It is an unsettling height to hang from with nothing below to protect one’s fall except the jaws of a lion, yet there Kaleb bravely goes, climbing and climbing with all his might.

Kyle’s fascination is shattered by claws lunging out between the bars, causing him to fall back with the chair.

The lion roars at Kyle, pawing at the bars, claws drawn as he snaps his jaws with fury.

But too quickly, the lion loses interest in Kyle, turning back to Kaleb. Only now, Kaleb has climbed high enough to be just out of reach, arms and legs wrapped around a pair of bars as he fights to get even higher, clinging for dear life. The lion is soon under him, circling, licking his wide, magnificent mouth.

Kyle throws the chair aside, rises from the floor to survey the cage with panicked eyes. There doesn’t appear to be a door of any kind. No opening in the bars. No trapdoor.

How did Kaleb or the lion get in?

How can either get out?

The exit must be masked by illusion. Markadian, holding the key to the cage in the form of a trick of the eye.

“Easy, easy!” calls Kaleb down at the lion, shaking, scared. The lion has risen onto his hind legs to swipe at the dangling morsel that is Kaleb. After a few attempts, he sits back to watch, perhaps deciding to wait it out.

And considering how much Kaleb is struggling, there isn’t much of a wait left.

Kyle steps back, shoves through the crowd that’s formed, brings himself face-to-face with Markadian. “Get my brother out of there!” cries Kyle. “Now!”

“Why should I?” asks Markadian with frustrating sweetness as he observes Kyle, delighted. “He is the entertainment. All of my valued guests need entertainment.”

“I’m not asking you again!”

“Or else what? You’ll … hurt me?” Markadian frowns and clicks his tongue. “Hmm, did you not just make a deal with me? Should you hurt me, you and your friends are fair game.”

“Get him out of there!”

“I’d consume you in front of my guests, just like this lion is about to consume your brother. Suck you dry, at last learn what you taste like. Is your word so flimsy , Kyle Amos? Your honor?”

“There’s no fucking honor in that ,” barks Kyle, pointing at the stage. “That is what a coward would do, feeding a human to an animal, an innocent human …”

“You know better than I that not one of us is innocent.”

“ He is!” Kyle grabs Markadian’s jacket, shoves him against a table. People step back, gawking. “Get him out of that cage!”

Markadian all the while maintains an amused smirk. “And how do you propose I do that? There is no door.”

Kyle glances at the stage. The lion is back to standing on his hind legs and swiping his mighty paws as blood drips down from Kaleb’s face—an unintended invitation. It isn’t just the lion that the bloody display entices. Every single person in the room is on edge, creeping closer to the stage, eyes glued to Kaleb unblinkingly.

Except Ashara, who watches Kyle with intrigue.

“By the way, I have learned a few facts about the lion,” says Markadian in Kyle’s face. “Shall I share?”

“Fuck you.”

“While not always a nocturnal predator, the lion takes most advantage of the dark to stalk their prey,” says Markadian. “You know, like our kind does. Also—and this part is rather relevant in this present moment—the lion can easily consume up to 40 kilograms of meat in one sitting. Isn’t that impressive?”

“Shut up,” hisses Kyle.

“Lions have one of the strongest bites among big felines,” he goes on, “around 650 PSI, from what I read, easily capable of ripping through hides and crushing bones. And the roar of a lion? So mighty! It can be heard from 8 kilometers away, which I find far more impressive than, say, your brother’s screams, which barely reach the hall …”

Ashara continues to stare at Kyle from nearby, her eyes full of curiosity, as if studying him like a research specimen, every reaction, every word. She says nothing herself, a silent spectator to the scene unfolding.

“I can understand why you love lions so much,” Markadian drones on. “They are such simple animals. Strong, deadly, yet simple. Fodder for bored, simple artists with no inspiration.”

In the cage, Kaleb’s leg slips, he yelps in a panic, swings it around the bar again just in time to avoid another swipe from the lion below, still blinking through the blood in his eyes.

“Does it feel strange to call him your little brother?” asks Markadian. “After all, you are nearly half his age in appearance, even if he retains a bit of … sweet na?veté in his eyes.”

Ashara continues to stare, eyes narrowing.

“I’ll fucking kill you,” Kyle hisses through his teeth.

“Honestly,” Markadian goes on, “I’m more astonished you don’t seem to know these fascinating facts about lions yourself. I was given the impression they are the animal you most love.”

Kyle shakes all over, teeth clenched hard enough to break.

“Though … you don’t seem to have a great track record for knowing much about the ones you allege to love,” he goes on. “Take Tristan for example, who saved your brother’s life, then hid him from you all of these years … Did you know Tristan at all? This person you threw your mortal life away for?”

“S-S-Stop.” Kyle is steadily losing sanity. Tears are flowing and out of control. How much longer can Kaleb hold on? How much longer until he falls to his death? “P-P-Please,” he begs, barely perceptible. “My b-brother …”

“It was a good deal you struck,” insists Markadian. “You’re now guaranteed safety. Tristan, too, the former love of your life you know nothing about. Elias Asad Trujillo. Your irrelevant friends in Nowhere. Wasn’t it exhausting? To worry about so many people? Now all you’ve got to worry about is yourself.”

Ashara’s lips purse tightly, still studying Kyle, eyes never leaving his face.

“Did I mention I’ve tasted him, too?”

Kyle’s sobs choke away. He turns his eyes onto Markadian.

“Every night since I discovered him,” he goes on, relishing Kyle’s reaction. “I have savored his delicious blood. He offered it. Willingly. He is so … generous. An innocent heart. I tasted it … literally sucked all of his innocence out of him. It was a delicacy unmatched by any other. The look in his eyes as he played his violin naked for me … while I tasted him as I pleased.” Markadian moans, reliving it. “In more ways than one.”

“Y-You—f-fucking—” Kyle can’t speak.

The lion roars, leaps into the air off its hind legs. Claws catch the back of Kaleb’s tuxedo jacket, tearing it open as it rips through. Kaleb screams out. Is it in fear? Or did the claws cut into his back? He can barely see.

Kyle shoves his way back to the stage, leaving Markadian. “Kaleb!” he cries out. “Don’t let go! Hang on! I’m gonna get you out of there!”

Kaleb blinks through the blood on his face, squinting with his one good eye, the other shut and sliced through. His heart is in his throat. He is full of confusion and fear.

The sight of Kaleb in so much pain and terror is breaking Kyle’s heart. “It’s me! Your big brother! I’m here!”

Kaleb doesn’t even seem capable of seeing Kyle, squinting in his general direction, disoriented, his muscles shaking. He is growing weaker. It’s exhausting, clinging to those bars. He says nothing at all back, perhaps questioning what he heard.

“Now wait a dang sec,” comes another voice—Cindy, from a few tables behind Kyle. “That’s your brother in there? Your real life brother? The violin guy?”

“Oh, that’s so sweet!” cries out someone else nearby who Kyle doesn’t know. “A dramatic plot twist!” “Is this another trial?” someone else asks in the crowd. “Punishments get more creative by the year,” yet another states, sounding astonished.

Kyle hurries around the stage, grabbing each of the bars, inspecting them, looking for the illusion. “Stay strong!” he yells out to his brother, who keeps straining to see him, squinting with one eye through a veil of blood, tracking the voice. “Keep holding on!” No matter which bars he shakes, nothing appears unusual to him, nothing feels like a hidden hinge or lock, the whole cage uniform. Where’s the door? “Don’t let go!”

Kaleb continues to squint, continues to say nothing, lips parted, blood dripping, face twisted with exhaustion and pain.

Stay strong .

Kyle stops, for a moment completely thrown by the voice.

By Tristan’s voice.

This is not the ideal way I wished for you to learn about him …

“You … have the nerve …” Kyle spins around, eyes cast into the crowd, “to speak a single word to me right now …?”

I don’t deserve your trust, not now, not ever again, I know …

“Get out of my fucking head.”

But I beg you to trust me one last time … just now, just in this moment, trust that I have a plan … a plan for us all …

“Every plan you made has failed. Since the day you turned me into what I am. The day you ripped me from my family.”

You do not deserve the pain you are feeling …

“I’d be happy to see you in that cage instead of him,” hisses Kyle, still spinning around, unfamiliar faces in every direction, “you and Markadian both for all I care, all of you, just fucking breathe your last, just die.”

And I’m afraid things are about to become much worse …

Kyle ignores Tristan, turns back to the cage, shouts: “Hold on, Kaleb! Just for a little—” His voice cracks. His teeth clatter. He fights back sobs. How is he possibly going to get him out? “Just a little while longer, bro!”

Stay strong …

“I’m gonna get you out of there!”

And have faith in me one last time, my love .

The next instant, all sound drains from the banquet hall as every mouth closes in unison.

Including Kyle’s.

Then everyone drops into a nearby chair.

Including Kyle.

He can’t explain what comes over him. His arms are not his own. Neither are his legs. The abrupt stillness combined with his racing heart creates an unsettling landscape within his body, skin itching with anxiety he cannot soothe, tears that now sit in his eyes, unable to fall. The only noise is the lion’s snarling and heavy footsteps thumping across the stage as he circles beneath Kaleb—and the sound of Kaleb’s labored, panicked breaths as he continues to cling to the bars, the two of them, human and lion, apparently the only ones in the room who seem capable of movement or sound anymore.

Kyle can’t even lift a finger. Can’t turn his head. Not even his eyes. Rendered completely motionless and numb.

What in the hell is happening?

Across the room, a single golf clap echoes, slow and steady, drawing closer. From the dark edges of the banquet hall, a lone figure saunters lazily into view. Trench coat. Cowboy hat.

Mance.

“Well, well, well, ain’t this a fancy fuckin’ party?” he states over his slow clapping—then stops. “What? Why ain’t anyone talkin’? Cat got your tongues? Heh, see what I did there? Cat? Big-ass lion on the stage? Shit, should’ve been a comedian.”

No one moves. The once-lively banquet has become as still as a morgue, stationary bodies seated perfectly upright in chairs across the room, the silence pierced only by the occasional restlessness of the lion, the slippery noises of Kaleb hugging the roof of the cage, his jagged breaths.

Mance shrugs off his trench coat, revealing himself in a three-piece suit and tie. “Can someone direct me to the coat check? No? You’ll do,” he decides, flinging his trench coat over a random guest’s head, turning them into his coatrack. “Sorry if it’s a bit rank. That’s my lucky jacket you’ve got on your face, haven’t washed it since 1999.” He saunters onward through the tables. “By the way …” He stops and casts his eyes to the stage. “Can anyone tell me what in the actual fuck kind of show I just walked in on? Are you assholes so lazy, you hired a goddamned lion to kill your victim for you?”

It’s then that the scrambling of feet is heard, like a spooked deer taking flight, hooves scraping over a floor.

“Oh, did I miss one?” ponders Mance out loud.

The feet come to an abrupt stop—someone on the edge of Kyle’s line of sight. The power locking their bodies into place is so strong, he can’t even turn his eyes in the slightest.

The person who tried to escape suddenly begins to move toward Mance, but not by any normal means. It’s someone who appears to be a young teenager, short, thin, a boyish and defiant face, and it’s clear that by the same power that holds everyone prisoner to their chairs, this boy is made to walk stiffly through the room, then stands in place in front of Mance, feet planted apart, arms at his side.

Kyle is surprised to recognize him from the trial, a director of one of the domains, though a name escapes him, only that he was coldhearted for someone who looks prepubescent, and he seemed to be in a constant tiff with Tsuki, another director of a nearby domain, trading threats with her even during the trial. Not to mention he was particularly itching to have Kyle dealt with swiftly—and not mercifully. Even in this moment, the boy, who has likely been a boy for a very long time, reflects nothing but indignation toward Mance.

“Fuck me, you guys sure make ‘em young.” Mance glances around him. “Seriously? How old is this twat? Twelve? Y’all are a bunch of sicker sons a’ bitches than I thought. Hey, why were you runnin’ off just now?” he asks the boy, turning back to him. “Were you scared of the big bad wolf? Here, I’ll let go of your mouth so you can talk.”

The second the boy’s mouth is freed, he spits at Mance’s face, then starts to say: “Fool, I am Director Peter, and I am old enough to be your great grandfather, you arrogant piece of—”

At once the boy’s mouth shuts again, silenced. “Alright, got the gist,” decides Mance, nonchalantly wiping his face with the sleeve of his shirt. “You’re throwing a toddler tantrum because you don’t wanna be at this lame-o party. Mommy and Daddy dragged you here because they wanted lobster bisque and wine, and all you wanna do is go home and play with your Star Wars Legos, huh?” Mance turns, eyes the others near him. “Anyone else I missed? Don’t I got hold of all of you fuckers?”

Kyle’s body can’t budge, but his Reach needs no movement to operate, as it picks up fear and confusion from everyone around him. But there is one person within his view whose emotion is sharper and more defined than the others—a person stricken with dread, recognition, and deeply-buried remorse.

It isn’t so much the emotion itself that surprises Kyle, but rather who it comes from.

Markadian.

And it’s then that Mance finally appears to discover him. A mischievous grin spreads his face apart. “Ah, the head of the snake, poppin’ up right on cue.” Still several tables away, he continues grinning like a cat over the eerie sight of the silent, motionless heads. “Hello there, fuck face. Miss me? Hey, it’s rude to stay seated when a grown-up’s talkin’ to you.”

The next instant, Markadian is forced out of his chair by the same mysterious power no one sees, like a marionette doll lifted upon its strings by experienced hands. For a brief flash, Markadian’s eyes turn glassy with terror when he stands, then darken with anger as he fixes his stare upon Mance, apparently being allowed to control his face.

Mance slowly circles through the chairs and tables toward Markadian, taking his sweet time. “Bet you thought you’d never see my handsome mug again, huh? Blast from the undead past, huh? You can put on that brave front with all these ass-kissers and fool ‘em, but I can see you shittin’ your pants from here.”

Markadian buries his ice-cold fear, even inside, covering it with a mask of indifference. Underneath the indifference is a loathsome humiliation, too, being degraded so easily in front of all his peers and colleagues.

Mance stops. “What is it, buddy? Too afraid to ask me how the wife and kids are doin’? Oh, shit, right, forgot. They’re dead.” He tilts his head, narrows his eyes. “You let them die … then sentenced me to die along with ‘em.”

“Sentenced you to live,” says Markadian.

“Behold, he speaks …!” exclaims Mance with overdramatic flair, then shrugs. “Sentenced to live … sentenced to die. Same thing when all your loved ones are dead n’ gone and you got nothin’ left to live or die for.”

“And despite my mercy,” Markadian goes on, “you set my court on fire with your twisted fucking demonic flames, ending two immortal lives.”

Mance smirks. “Can you really still call them ‘immortal’ if they died so easily?”

“Your fire is not normal fire.”

“Are we flirtin’ with each other, or are you sayin’ all this for the benefit of your clueless guests?” Mance takes a few steps closer, stops next to the chair where Ashara is seated, eyes still on Markadian. “Do any of them know what really happened? Do any of them even know who the fuck I am?”

“One of the immortals you took to their final death was a dear friend of Lord Xiang of the east region,” Markadian goes on, lifting his chin. “You are a wanted man from one corner of this country to the other.”

“Who the fuck’s Lord Xiang?”

For a brief moment, Markadian’s face reveals every effort he makes in trying to budge any part of his body, but nothing gives at all, like his arms and legs are bound in every possible direction by invisible rope, as tight as a second skin. “Enough with the theatrics. Tell me what it is you want.”

Mance’s grin returns. He says nothing.

That’s when the shadows around the edges of the banquet hall begin to move. Taking shape. Tall shapes. Heads. Capes. Swishing robes. Long hair and arms.

Vampires.

Some hop upon the tables. Others stand among the chairs.

Vampires and more vampires, filling the room.

Did they follow Mance here? Is Lazarus among them, if he even survived being shot by a silver bullet? Salazo? La-La and the other nightmares from the Devil’s Mouth?

Kyle has never experienced panic on a level like this.

Completely helpless. Unable to even turn his head.

“What do I want?” asks Mance without even a glance at the new arrivals to the party. He spreads his arms. “Same as every last fuckin’ person in this room, I guess.”

Then he rushes right up to Lord Markadian. Face-to-face. Still grinning. Eyes so dark with rage, they nearly burn.

He speaks the word through his teeth: “Blood.”

Markadian can no longer play brave.

Can no longer uphold his persistent expression of apathy.

There is true fear in his heart. And it reads all over his face now, all over his eyes. Even his lips start to quiver.

“By the way,” says Mance, squints, “I just decided I really did not enjoy being spat on.”

Then he lifts a hand.

Snaps his fingers.

The next instant, the boy named Peter brings his own hand to his own neck, squeezes. He sputters, tries to suck in air, fails, clenches his eyes shut in anguish. Nine agonizing seconds later, blood bursts from his ears. Then from his nose. Finally, a drop runs down his cheek from his left eye. He continues gagging, makes a sad whimper, tries to cry out. Fingers squeeze tighter.

Bones crack, something snaps like celery.

The boy’s eyes open, grow blank. He lets go, drops to the ground. Markadian stares down at Peter’s lifeless body, aghast, his eyes shiny with renewed terror.

Mance sighs, as if bored. “Immortal, you said? What a lie. Biggest fuckin’ lie. You’re just as killable. Even these full-blood ones that tagged along with me, they can be killed, too. Might be harder to kill ‘em, but just as possible. A hundred and one ways to kill y’all dead—the final kind a’ dead, the dead no one comes back from.” He brings a hand to Markadian’s cheek, gives it a condescending pat. “But seein’ as you only got sixty-nine of you here for this shindig, looks like I’ll only be able to show you sixty-nine a’ those ways, give or take. Did you invite that exact number on purpose? Heh, dirty scoundrel …”

“We used to be like brothers.”

Mance stares down Markadian. “What’s this? Your gallows speech? Final words? Should I pull out a sheet of fancy fuckin’ parchment paper and write ‘em down with a feather pen?”

“The reason you’re here for my blood is because you think I let a Feral come after you,” Markadian goes on. “You think I ignored your pleas. That I did nothing. You blame me for that Feral finally taking the lives of your wife and daughters.”

Mance keeps patting Markadian’s cheek. “You sure love to hear yourself talk, don’t you, buddy?”

“But that Feral wasn’t there for them. He wasn’t even there for blood.”

“You’re actin’ like you knew the Feral.”

“I did.”

Mance grows deathly still, staring at Markadian, waiting.

Kyle senses a strong prickle of satisfaction working its way into Markadian’s heart when he says: “He was hired …”

Mance lowers his hand.

Markadian finishes: “… by your wife.”

“What the fuck’s this?” mumbles Mance, low and gravelly.

“I’m sorry, but your wife is not who you thought she was.” His voice gains power. “She was a witch hunter, Mance … She hired the Feral to kill you.”

“What the fuck are you doin’?”

“I had made efforts to sway the Feral without you knowing. You were too infatuated with your wife, too under her spell … maybe a literal spell. Isn’t beneath a witch hunter to use magic to trap witches, a necessary evil. She had you around her finger, Mance … I’d never be able to convince you of what she was.”

“This is bullshit. I knew my wife. She was no fuckin’—”

“But the Feral lost patience trying to catch you, decided to take the lives of your wife and daughters instead.”

Mance remains in his face. “Shut your mouth.”

“All those years, you were deceived. All those years, I tried to warn you, hint it at you, in so many ways, and you never—”

“I said …” A table bursts into flames—bright red tongues thrashing into existence with no seeming cause. Mance doesn’t even flinch. “… shut your fuckin’ mouth.”

A thread of desperation weaves its way into Markadian’s words. “Think back on your life with her. Surely the signs were there. Secrets she kept. People she met with in private. I heard some of it through the Feral. Weren’t there signs? I even tried to tell you without telling you. But you’re so thick , Mance, even back then. After you did what you did, trying to resurrect your family, turning on your own kind, killing two immortals … everything flew out of my hands. Control over what happened to you. Over what laws you were breaking. Laws that had zero tolerance, no loopholes, no way to sweep it under the rug …”

Another table ignites like a torch, closer. “ I’m warnin’ you .”

“If I can’t uphold the laws with any semblance of integrity, society as we know it falls apart. That includes the humans. Think their government isn’t aware of us? Of course they are. I have the Secretary of Homeland Security on speed dial. And all the burden is put on us, the Lords and the directors—including Peter, whom you just needlessly murdered—to maintain peace between all our kinds. Vampire. Witch. Were. Demon.”

Yet another table erupts. “ Stop ,” hisses Mance.

“Want to spend a day in my shoes? You’d shit yourself raw. All you had to do was fucking listen to me, Mance, trust your best friend, and none of this would have happened.”

Mance grabs hold of Markadian’s shirt, curling the material in his greyish, deathly fingers. “It is your ass who’ll burn at the fuckin’ stake. Not my ass. Yours .”

Suddenly, the room glows blue.

White-blue, the color blooming like a winter sunrise.

Snow starts to fall.

Tiny flecks of ice gather upon Mance’s hand, his arm, his face. Mance’s grip on Markadian’s shirt softens as he peers all around him, taking in the sight.

“Let us discuss things how we used to,” says Markadian, his voice calm. “My cottage in the north. The pine trees, layered in glittering snow. The fireplace, lit by natural means. Not a soul or worry in sight, except for the elk and the occasional moment the grey clouds spread to show the sun.”

The fury slowly drains from Mance’s eyes as he watches the snowfall. The edges of the room even look like pine trees in the shadows, glowing blue with winter’s kiss.

“Put out your fires,” says Markadian, “and let’s both of us go somewhere decent to discuss this. No blood involved. None of my council. Only us. We can—”

“I remember that winter.” Mance is still taking in the sight, the snow falling everywhere, onto the tables, catching in the fancy hairdos of the guests around them. The flames from the tables have calmed as well, turning duller.

Markadian studies Mance’s reaction closely. “I do, too.”

“It was the last winter I spent with my wife … and beautiful girls … alive …” Mance closes his eyes. “The last winter …”

“Come on, old friend. Let us end this.”

Mance appears to relish in the memory, savoring it. He lets out a sigh that almost sounds happy.

Then, just as gently, he says, “My dear, thirsty vampires of the Devil’s Mouth, I cordially invite y’all to the buffet of Lord Markadian’s closest friends. Each of you may take one of his guests, whichever you wish to drain entirely of their blood.”

“Mance,” snaps Markadian.

At once, three more tables burst into flames. Mance’s eyes are still closed, as if still lingering in the dream. “Unlike your useless power of illusion,” he carries on just as calmly, “the fire in this room is very real, and … very … hungry .”

Kyle watches as the vampires close in from the edges of the room, now scattering throughout the tables, each taking their time choosing the perfect guest. One brushes past Kyle. He can’t even flinch, still frozen in place.

“You’re such a yapper,” says Mance. “Always been obsessed with your own voice.” He releases his grip on Markadian’s shirt and steps back, chuckling. “I wonder how many others in this crowded room will be relieved when you burn before their eyes. They won’t even miss you. Sure as fuck not your speeches.”

A vampire comes to a stop in front of Kyle.

Skintight dark raspberry catsuit, stained with blood in places. Long sword at his side, curved blade, shiny.

The vampire bends over, brings his face in front of Kyle’s.

La-La.

Kyle’s heart turns to ice.

“No, no, this is much too quiet,” Mance decides. Then he hops onto a table, kicks away the centerpiece, spreads his arms. “I’ll give all your guests another gift: the freedom to scream.”

At once, everyone’s heads are released, and the effect is instant. Shouts of outrage. Shrieking. A man reciting prayers in another language, out of breath. Tables around them burn like braziers, flames raging and growing. Someone’s cries of distress indicate they may be sitting too close to one of the tables.

Kyle addresses La-La at once. “I have no ill will with you. I’m friends with Drake. You know I mean your family no harm. This Mance guy, he’s just using you. And once he’s done with whatever this is, he’ll be just as happy to watch you guys burn, too. Don’t attack me. Attack Mance. Free yourself from him.”

La-La isn’t smiling. He just stares deeply into Kyle’s eyes, as if looking for an answer, working out a puzzle, his raspberry eyes teetering on the fridges of sanity.

It’s not a reassuring sight.

Kyle glances back at the stage. His brother is still clinging to the bars, but he hangs much lower. Kyle can sense his heavy despair, his exhaustion. A terrible and unsettling calm has taken hold of his brother’s heart. What is that calm? Is he giving up? Is he making his peace before letting go?

“P-Please,” begs Kyle, turning back to La-La with growing desperation. “Attack Mance. He’s not your friend.”

La-La squints, the first sign of a response to Kyle’s pleas.

“He’s going to kill you, too,” Kyle goes on, encouraged. “He just described how easy it’d be to end you … to end all of you, your whole family.”

“Family,” says La-La in his startlingly deep voice, remains perfectly still for exactly five seconds, finishes, “I once held a living heart in my hand like a goblet, drank sweet blood from it as it kept beating, a heart I pried out of my dear sister’s chest when she was ten years old.”

Kyle’s stomach sinks.

La-La grins, showing teeth.

Then, from somewhere else entirely, another voice: That was ever so generous of you, Mance, to allow us our screams .