Adelaide muttered in a foreign tongue as she took up her knife and began to carve markings in the corpse’s flesh. She bowed her head with the bone hilt pressed against her forehead, beseeching Terrigana’s name three times. The earth shook in a violent heave, and I cried out in alarm as darkness reached out from the grave. Dozens of spectral hands outlined in shadow and soil reached up from the black pit.
“She gives her blessing!” Adelaide cried out. “She accepts the soul of Ilyana Krudelbach!” When she turned her face up at me, it took every ounce of my self-control not to recoil. Magic illuminated the witch’s skull, glowing ivory through the thin coat of her skin. “Keep a bone that once belonged to her against your skin, and you will have her identity. But what bone do you want, half-breed child?”
Her grin was all teeth, impossibly wide in the set of her jaw. I looked into the empty black holes where Adelaide’s sparkling green eyes hid. I’d looked death in its sockets since I was a child. I’d felt the brush of the reaper’s cold hand on my shoulder before. This trick would not scare me.
“I will wear her fangs,” I answered.
Adelaide gestured with the bone knife. Ilyana’s fangs detached from her skull, perfect needle points with roots still stained by her blood. They floated, carried by the hands of an invisible artisan that spun the fangs until one sharp triangle nestled under the other. A spark of magic fused the teeth together, forming a rectangle with the roots pointing outward.
The witch reached into the ground and came away with a woven strap of braided grass. She stood and attached it to the roots of Ilyana’s fangs to form the kind of bracelet that wouldn’t look amiss on her wrist. As soon as she took a few steps away from the corpse, the spectral hands swarmed from the grave. They lifted the body almost delicately and lowered it into the waiting earth.
“Your disguise,” Adelaide said, offering the bracelet to me. I slipped it on, and goosebumps rolled over my skin as its magic changed me. My body shifted into another form. For a split second, it was agony over every nerve of my body, but that sensation was gone so swiftly I told myself I was imagining it.
I was taller, slimmer. Full-length fangs brushed mybottom lip as my mouth opened in a gasp. I closed my lips over my sharpened teeth. An uneasy feeling curled in my belly from having such a prominent vampiric feature in my mouth, even temporarily.
The ground closed up, sealing the body in its grave. At the same time, the raccoon creature twitched and rose to its back paws with an unsteady totter. It looked down at its little hand-like paws, then craned its one glowing red eye up at me, the other still dim. Its jaws, permanently set in a gaping grin, parted in a soundless scream of rage.
“That’s right, bloodsucker,” I said to it in Ilyana’s aristocratic voice. “I’m you.”
Chapter 5
Sidney
The carriage wheels beat a steady rhythm against the cobblestones as we rolled toward the Krudelbach mansion. I worked my fingers beneath my borrowed bodice, mapping hiding places for my weapons.
Dressed in intricately beaded burgundy silk, I felt less like a hunter and more like prey. The beautiful fabric, designed for appearance and not for combat, draped over my daggers, making any quick, silent retrieval impossible.
A gnawing unease settled in my gut. I was used to a swift draw, to the reassuring weight of steel ready in my hand. Every instinct screamed at me to alter the fabric, to ensure a clear path to my blades, but I couldn't risk drawing attention to the change in the attire. The vulnerability seeped into me, a chill more profound than any draft.
Hidden under my sleeve, the fang bracelet pulsed on my wrist, its bone-white surface as warm as living flesh. Magic coursed through my veins, foreign and nauseating.
“Focus and observe. Analyze and adapt.” Dr. Hillman’s old advice settled my nerves, as it always did. Scientificmethods could be applied to most scenarios. I just had to gather some information and adapt to my new disguise.
The scent of leather and horse sweat drifted through the carriage windows. I located the brass speaking-tube mounted beside the window and lifted it to my lips. “What’s your name?” I asked the coachman.
“Eoseph, miss.” His voice crackled through the device, distant and tinny.
“Tell me about the Krudelbachs.” I kept Ilyana’s aristocratic inflection steady.
“What would you like to know, miss?” The metallic distortion couldn’t hide the wariness creeping into his tone.
“Everything.” I let impatience sharpen my response, the kind Ilyana would use with servants. “Their habits, their relationships, their standing in court.”
“Well…” The speaking-tube amplified his nervous throat-clearing into a harsh rasp. “Her…uh…your family has always been loyal to Queen Nemea, though some say Lord Krudelbach grew distant from his daughters after the war with the House of Whispers rekindled. Meals once shared have become solitary affairs in his study, and the lively debates he'd once encouraged at dinner are replaced by strained silences or his complete absence. Your sister, Tahlia, manages most of the household affairs now.”
I kept him talking and sharing details about Ilyana’s daily routines, her preferences, and the handmaidens she favored. His information might just save my life if someone tested my knowledge. Each fact added another thread to the illusion I needed to wear like a second skin.
“People think the trials are a death sentence dressed in ceremony. Begging your pardon, miss, but Ilyana was a vampire who didn’t have a chance. And you’re notone of them. It’s not too late for me to steer this carriage somewhere safer.”
Neither am I one of you. “Many people think many things,” I replied coolly, then said nothing else for the rest of the ride.
The Krudelbach estate rose against the dawn sky like a bruise. Dark stone caught moonlight with an oily sheen, and tall, blackened windows stared down at us.
The topiary lining the drive stood in perfect formation, each sculpted shape unnervingly still, as if waiting to attack. Moonlit gardens shimmered on either side, their petals glowing faintly.
I had surveyed this place while studying Ilyana’s habits, memorizing the rhythm of its guards and the silence between patrols. Yet walking its paths now, cloaked in her likeness, nothing stirred recognition. The architecture remained unchanged, but the air carried a sharper chill. The estate itself seemed to sense the lie beneath the illusion and listened for a misstep.
Delicate lilac fragrance slipped into the carriage as we approached the main entrance. My skin prickled with awareness, every hunter’s instinct screaming alert.
