“That’s a sad way to live.” He didn’t coat the words in a saccharine way another might have.

“It was a safe way.” I took another bite of the pie, the granules of sugar melting on my tongue. Delicious. “Why was Demos upset earlier?”

My bid to change the subject wasn’t subtle, nor appreciated by the pained expression on Raphael’s face.

“He had… concerns.” Raphael said the last word slowly, like he was trying very hard to make something complicated fit in a tidy little box.

I told myself I was disappointed in the vague answer only because I was curious, not because I was upset Raphael didn’t confide in me. It didn’t affect me; I’d be gone soon anyway.

“Ask me something else,” he said, a peace offering.

“Tell me something,” I countered. “Something… something someone wouldn’t guess about you.”

He grinned. “I find I’m curious to know what you would guess about me, but I’ll play.” A pause, and his expression grew a shade more serious. “I never wanted to be king.”

“No?” I asked, surprised. I remembered how staunchly he’d told me he was glad he’d been turned into a vampire. I’d assumed Raphael wanted power. I would never want to turn, but the desire for strength? Recognition? That could be as seductive as safety.

He shook his head, leaning back on the couch. “In many ways, it feels like a choice forced upon me.”

I shifted slightly so I was facing him more, tucking my feet under my legs. “How did you become king?” Could vampires inherit? They couldn’t have children… organically. My stomach twisted at the thought of Raphael being one of those babes turned.

Raphael arched a brow. “The same way anyone gets anything in a world of monsters. By force. It was the only option that let me have what I wanted. But I own all my actions—every single bloody one.”

I considered that. I’d felt trapped at Greymere, with only one path way forward. But I’d done something bloody in my own right to escape.

“I was the strongest, and I was the most ruthless,” Raphael continued. “The years when I came to power… I didn’t waste time on politicking. There are those who excel at it, and they have a place. But me? It was a brutal, brutal thing.”

“What do you excel at, then?” My voice was soft.

He held my gaze. “Truthfully? Surviving. At any cost.”

He was a survivor. Like me. It was hard to imagine us having anything in common, but when he said those words, I heard the savage truth. I recognized it like I recognized my fingertips.

We were closer now. In that moment, I didn’t want to survive—I just wanted. My heart fluttered, the mental shields I’d worked on only half in place. There was no way Raphael missed that, and yet he was still so close.

But I’m leaving.

And I wouldn’t survive Raphael.

“Will you tell me what it’s like beyond Damerel?” I whispered.

If Raphael was surprised by my sudden conversation change, he didn’t betray it. He pulled away and returned moments later with a giant scroll. He pulled the low table closer to the couch and laid the map open for us.

I blinked. I hadn’t actually seen a map since childhood, and even that had only been due to the tutors my mother had insisted on.

The map itself was a work of art, but my eyes skipped over the ornamentation and tried to refit this map into my worldview. I didn’t remember Eurobis being so large. I planted my finger on a mountain range in the middle. “Is this really Damerel?” The letters were curved in an ornate script. No map from the Witch Kingdom would have named the vampire capital.

He bent closer, shoulder to shoulder with me, even though he could see just fine with his vampire vision.

“Though I rule the so-called Vampire Kingdom of the West, we’re more of a barrier between the two halves of the continent.”

“So what’s over there?” I moved my hand to the middle-left of the map.

“Other magical creatures capable of reasoning inhabit the rest of the continent. You’ll find kobolds and ogres, but there are other beings of power who have claimed territory.” Raphael moved his fingers to the back of my hand. I jolted at the contact but let him adjust my fingers to the north corner. “The shape-changers live here.” He moved my hand down to a peninsula so narrow it could have been an island. “The Winged Ones are here. There are more magical mortals, like your witches, only they don’t use magic in the same ways.” He withdrew his fingers and gestured to the rest of the map. “The fae have several strongholds, constantly changing alliances. You would encounter them…” He trailed off uncharacteristically.

I’d encounter them when I left. “Do you think I could manage there? I’m just a void.”

“I think you could thrive,” he rasped. “It’s not the Witch Kingdom, where you have magic or you’re mud. There are many ways to live there.”

I pursed my lips. I hadn’t ever thought of it as unfair. It was just how things were. Besides, witches shared their magic with the rest of us through cards. That we paid for.

I turned away from the thought. “Have you spent much time in the rest of Eurobis?” He certainly knew about it.

“I cannot. The southern and northern kingdoms have closer ties. We trade through them, most often.”

Trade. The Witch Kingdom was locked between those kingdoms; we had no one to trade with. Sometimes it disconcerted me how much more to the world there was now that I was ostensibly in the world of monsters.

And soon I’d get to see an entire new realm.

By myself.

“Would you… visit me, once I’m settled?” The thought, silly as it was, slipped through before I could catch it on my tongue. The late hour made it too easy to say these ridiculous things.

He drew closer, his cedar scent licking at my senses, our knees touching. “Samara, there is nowhere in this world I would not go if you wished me to.”

He couldn’t lie. I stilled, my body frozen while my heart raced faster and faster.

“Too much truth?” His tone was teasing, yet his eyes were still serious.

Yes. It wouldn’t be a simple thing, wanting Raphael like this. It would destroy me. There was no denying it. Not after this night.

But it would turn me into what they thought, another human for the king to use. I had to translate the book and leave—

“Samara?”

I shook my head. “I can’t do this.”

He didn’t play coy and ask what I meant. “I’ll always respect your wishes.”

The sentence held a hundred possibilities I was saying no to.

The man who called himself king of monsters would always respect my wishes.

“I have to go,” I murmured, untucking my legs and pulling away. To avoid leaving on a bleak note, I summoned vexation I no longer felt and arched a brow at the vampire king. “I’m sure I’ll be able to find my way back to my rooms from here.”

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Chapter Thirty-Nine

One of my books was missing. I frowned. I had been rotating through the books since the librarian apparently made a stink about them being gone for too long, but the one missing wasn’t just any book, but the one I’d tucked my notes inside of. Had I returned the wrong book by mistake?

Amalthea was called away on court business. Normally, she accompanied me when I refreshed my stock of books. I debated waiting for her, but I was so close to getting this latest passage fully translated.

It had been coming more quickly, even though I was splitting my time between practicing my mental shields with Raphael, physical training with Demos, and translating. Progress had been the slowest on sparring, but Raphael appeared almost frustrated by how quickly I’d developed my mental shields.

Translating… I was close. There were a few gaps I could infer, but there was one term in the opening I couldn’t grasp. Though I could translate other pages, the opening pages of a grimoire served as critical context for the mythical tome. I’d seen something similar to at least one of the mysterious glyphs in the missing book, I was certain.