“He really was an ass.” She sighed. “Even before. He would have died eventually, anyway. You practically gutted him.”

“Must’ve been quite a fight,” Raihn added, “judging by the state of both of you.”

I chanced a couple of steps closer to Mische, examining the head. Even for vampires, the pale gray tinge to his skin was unusual, as was the vibrant red that rimmed his sightless eyes. A spiderweb of black-crimson veins crawled up his throat. They were visible on his neck, his jaw, at the corners of his mouth and eyes. And even in death, they seemed to… pulse.

“What?” Raihn said. “You’ve never seen a Bloodborn curse up close before?”

I disliked that he found it so easy to read my face.

“It was bloodlust,” I said.

“It was a hell of a lot more than that.”

He sounded strangely serious. Perhaps even grim. When I tore my eyes away from the head to look at him, the smirk had faded from his lips.

Then he noticed my stare, and just like that, it returned.

“His days were numbered either way. A mercy. This was the least painful way he could’ve gone. Anyway.” The smirk became a crooked grin. “I’m glad you came to your senses. Mische, you want to get rid of that thing now?”

Mische nodded and tucked the head under her arm as she headed for one of the doors in the back of the room. “I’ll be right back. Then I’ll give you a tour, Oraya.”

Raihn and Mische really did manage to find a prime location. The apartment was huge, featuring a study, a kitchen, an office, four bedrooms (each with their own adjoining washrooms), and, of course, that grand sitting room—all of which were luxuriously ornate, even compared to the Nightborn castle. All citizens of the inner city were accustomed to seeing the Moon Palace stand watch over Sivrinaj in blessed monument to Nyaxia, but it was only now that I actually stopped to think about how it had gotten there or why. Had people lived here once? If so, why was it abandoned in favor of the Nightborn castle? This place was almost as big and every bit as grand.

Mische showed me to my room—“We gave you the one with the most windows!” she announced, “for, you know, obvious reasons!”—and left me to my own devices to clean up and get some rest. My bedchamber, like all the rooms in this place, was beautifully ornate in an ancient, outdated sort of way—even if, strangely, there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere.

The curtains were a heavy, deep blue velvet, with silver braided pulls. I hauled them open with considerable effort. The window revealed a near-perfect mirror of the view from my room in the Nightborn castle. In the distance, its silhouette was reduced to a series of vicious peaks and moon-silver domes. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen it from so far away. Buildings that were small in the distance from my bedroom window were now so close I could see every imperfection… of which there were many. Yes, the architecture was grand, but gold paint flaked and carvings crumbled. Stress fractures crawled like ivy over stone walls and cracks severed stained-glass windows. All marks of decay that were invisible from my room in Vincent’s castle.

I had always assumed that the ugliness of Sivrinaj was confined to the human districts. It had never occurred to me that perhaps the inner city was rotting in its own way, too.

My eyes settled on a little flash of blocky darkness against the horizon. From my room at Vincent’s palace, I saw the dunes in the distance, graceful and silent. But from this one, that far-off view was instead of the human slums, partially hidden beyond the silhouetted grandiosity of the Nightborn castle.

I didn’t know why the sight of those two things, so stark in contrast, made me so uncomfortable.

I pulled the curtains closed again.

“You got this from the feast hall?”

“Uh-huh!”

Mische threw a cherry in her mouth and chewed, clearly savoring it, before swallowing—pit and all. She and Raihn picked at food, but mostly drank two large goblets of blood. The plate of food Mische presented me was far more than I could ever eat, artfully arranged by color—berries and meats and cheeses, piled high.

I eyed them both as they sipped their blood. Mische had clearly wanted me to sit across the table from her, but I moved to the end of the table instead. It just felt more comfortable to put some distance between us. Give myself time to react if either of them made a move.

I lifted my chin to their glasses. “What kind is that?”

Raihn took a sip and smacked his lips. “Deer. I think.”

I couldn’t tell if I was relieved or not that it wasn’t human. I didn’t like to think about where it might be coming from, but at least if the others were getting it from the decanters, they wouldn’t be quite as tempted to get it from me. There was, after all, nothing quite like human blood for them.

It wasn’t the only kind that sufficed. Deer, horse, cow, or pig’s blood was the most common. Chicken or crow blood was the cheapest, though it was nutritionally poor and apparently tasted horrible. In Vincent’s court, horse blood was often cured and flavored into delicacies. But even the finest of substitutions didn’t compare to human blood. The upper class had it often, harvested or consumed straight from blood vendors like Ilana had been.

“There wasn’t any left,” I said. “When I went down there earlier.”

“We know,” Raihn replied.

We were silent for a long, awkward moment, all very aware of what that could mean. At least for now, contestants could leave the Moon Palace in search of more. But I had a feeling that the leash would tighten, sooner or later.

“We have plenty for us, though!” Mische said brightly, breaking the tension and holding up a very full decanter, sloshing the red, thick liquid within. “Took as much of it as we could carry before the others got to it.”

“And food, too,” Raihn added. “For you.”

I could be grateful for that, at least, on both counts. Though their kindness made me uncomfortable.

One of the candles in the candelabra at the center of the table remained unlit. Mische frowned at it, then snapped her fingers. A little fragment of flame sparked at her fingertip, which she used to light the candle with a satisfied smile.

I watched in fascination. It was just as surprising here, up close, as it had been to see in the ring. My curiosity won out. “That isn’t Nyaxia’s magic.”

“Nope. Atroxus.”

Just like I’d thought. And yet the confirmation didn’t make it any less unbelievable. While each of the thirteen gods could be called on for various forms of magic, none of the twelve deities of the White Pantheon allowed their powers to be drawn upon by vampires. Vampires, after all, were Nyaxia’s children, and the White Pantheon despised Nyaxia.

Mische read my face.

“It is perfectly possible for a vampire to wield magic from beyond Nyaxia’s domain,” she said, in a tone that implied she’d given this explanation many times before. “It just takes the right talents, that’s all.”

She seemed proud of herself. But I didn’t miss the disapproval on Raihn’s face as he sipped his blood at this exact moment—as if to stop himself from saying something he’d regret.

“What about you?” she asked. “Do you wield magic?”

I hesitated before answering. Maybe I didn’t want them to know that I did, even if my magic was basically worthless anyway. An advantage was an advantage. But I was silent for a moment too long. Mische grinned and leaned closer. “You do! I can feel it. It’s shy though, huh?”

Shy. That was rich. I considered calling it that next time Vincent made a disparaging comment about the weakness of my magic. Don’t judge it. It’s just shy!

He’d love that.