“This one.” The bookseller returned, placing a book on the counter with an air of satisfaction. “Very popular with the young women around here. A handsome vampire knight and a…”

He trailed off, seeming to realize his mishap, but I laughed. My laughter was a low, grating rasp, but the old man’s look of dismay faded.

“At least she will have a handsome vampire in her fiction,” I mused, and stacked the book on top of the journal. “I would like these.”

He brought out one of the metal pens of Nord design, which was smoother than quills or the glass fountain pens of Serissan import, and a refill of ink. When he’d asked if he was to wrap them, I elected only to have the book wrapped. As soon as the journal was in Cirrien’s hands, I hoped she would begin filling it with words.

As I strolled back through Thornvale’s streets, I felt lighter. The anger had flowed out of me with the laughter, with the notion that soon Cirrien would not be upset with her silence.

I would have to apologize for my outburst of temper.

This was not her fault; even if she had been raised to expect this for the last decade, I knew my appearance would come as a shock to her.

There were only four fiends in Veladar, and none of us had spent much time in the cities. Ancestors only knew what stories had traveled to Argent; had I been more or less hideous than she’d expected?

As I walked past a tavern, I glanced inside, long enough to see the white robes and leather armor of a Silent Brother. He motioned to the barkeep with one hand, his eyes fixed on the bar as he drank.

Wyn still waited outside Cirrien’s door when I returned to the inn. The bloodwitch had found a chair, and she sat reading a book, her spectacles riding low on her nose.

She looked up at me with sharp gray eyes. “The girl has been crying.”

“I know.” Some of the weight returned, settling on me all at once like a mountain slumping over my shoulder.

“Give it time, Bane. Don’t frighten her. To be fair, she is much better than I was expecting. She ate the entire meal she was given. I have high hopes, and none of them involve poppy.”

“Did you think I frightened her on purpose?” The growl slipped into my tone, and I unlocked the door, sidling into the room.

Cirrien had sprawled out on the bed, still in her wedding gown, and was sleeping quietly. The skin around her eyes was puffy and red, sore-looking. I would have to ask Wyn for a salve to soothe it.

Her red hair framed her head like a scarlet halo. My fingers itched.

Moving slowly, careful not to make a single sound, I leaned down. Brushed my fingertips over the gleaming spill, as soft as I’d imagined. Softer.

Cirrien shifted, releasing a nearly-inaudible sigh. I drew away, ears twitching, and set the gifts on the desk before creeping out.

Wyn said nothing as I locked the door once more. I handed her the key, and stepped back out into the night.

The Brother was still sitting at the tavern bar. I took the seat next to him, and spilled a bag of gold in front of his beer. “I wish for you to teach me the signs of the priest’s tongue.”

The monk, vowed to silence, raised his brows, then picked up a gold coin and bit it. He cut one hand in a smooth motion, punctuated with a quick wriggle of the fingers—a question I understood from the supply lines and black markets in the encampments during the war. How much do you want to know?

“Everything,” I answered.

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Chapter 5 Cirri

Iopened sore, gritty eyes in an unfamiliar bed, the weight of the previous day falling on me like a sack of boulders as I blinked at the room.

Yesterday I had woken up as a maid in the Silver Cathedral. Today, I was a wife and the Lady of the Rift.

But the room, the dress, the soft bed… everything around me disproved the notion as a bad dream.

There was no sign of my husband. No sign that he had ever come back—not that I had expected him to. What could he possibly want with me? The journey to fetch me from Argent alone was more of a burden than a mute servant warranted.

He must have been terribly disappointed to discover the poisoned gift hidden in the Eldest Sister’s selection. The growl in his voice as he’d left… I hadn’t been able to stop myself from shrinking away from it.

I rubbed my eyes, already dreading opening the door, and made myself strip the linens from the bed and remake it with the fresh ones in the wardrobe to put off the inevitable.

Only when that was done, and I’d run out of things to tidy, had I seen the things on the desk.

My heart jumped into my throat at the sight of the journal. Paper… and not the rough, pulpy handmade paper used for common writing. This was bond paper, satin-smooth under my fingertips.

And hundreds of pages’ worth. My hand shook as I opened the cover, touching with careful fingers as though my skin alone might smudge the pristine pages with dirt.

I closed it reverently and found a metal pen, already filled for use. A spare well of ink. And finally, a package wrapped in plain dark paper.

That one made me hesitate, but I finally opened it and found one of the popular romance novels that had been spreading like wildfire through Argent over the summer.

It was about a vampire—beautiful as the setting sun, deadly as the blade of a knife—carrying off a human peasant girl. Kora, one of the longtime maids of the Silver Cathedral, had pooled a secret fund with the other servant women to afford a single copy to be passed among them.

All of us united had kept it hidden from the Eldest Sister’s eyes, under pain of never being allowed to join a secret book fund again if it was found in our possession.

What little I’d managed to read of it, after bribing Kora with hard candy to get my turn early, had involved a lot of heaving bosoms and throbbing appendages nearly from the first page.

I’d only been on chapter three. Kora had probably already retrieved the book from under the loose baseboards in the maid’s quarters, knowing now that I would never be returning for it.

Just looking at the cover made my face heat up. I was no stranger to sex, but none of what I’d experienced had been remotely like the things described in those passages.

I considered if Bane was trying to send me a message with this particular book. That he knew I was a scullery maid—hardly more than a peasant myself?

Not that it would matter. The deed was done, and the vampires had not specified in the Blood Accords that the bride must be highborn.

So if not that, then perhaps… I swallowed hard, dropping the book like a hot coal.

Perhaps he was stating that he, like the handsome vampire, was a sexual being. That whatever the knight did in the book… he would want to do the same.

To me.

I pressed my hands to my cheeks, trying to tamp down the heat of my blush. It was one thing to imagine a vampire with glass-chiseled cheekbones and the physique of a Serissan god.

That was understandable. The popularity of the novel itself proved it.

It was another thing entirely to imagine Bane—the craggy contours of his face, the long, pointed ears, not to mention the rack of flesh-shredding teeth—arched over me in a bed.

Not with the breadth of his muscled body, hands large enough to crush skulls planted on either side of my head…

The blush was not fading. If anything, it grew worse, my skin always willing to show every flush of emotion.

How was it possible that I’d be blushing over that mental image? He was a fiend. The fangs alone sent chills down my spine. Every cell in my body recoiled at the thought of stepping into his embrace.