“Sidney…” His voice rang with a familiar warning, sharp and unmistakable in its intent. “We need to discuss your targets.”
I stiffened, in no mood to repeat this argument. Again. “What about them?”
“The temple’s mission is to dismantle the House of the Sanguine’s authority structure. Remove key leaders, destroy their infrastructure, and create enough chaos that they can’t maintain their stranglehold on Pythia and the rest of Gormont.” He set down his medical supplies and fixed me with the stern look that preceded his lectures. “Your list takes time away from what needs to be done.”
I thought of Razira. She’d been the first person to teach me how to fight back. She’dshown me that I didn’t have to cower in the shadows like my mother had. Through her, I found Aetherius’s light.
She was gone now. Another victim of the coven’s cruelty.
The faint scars on my arms told the story of those years, not just from my recent experiments, but from the bloodletting they’d forced on me as a child. Servant’s marks, they’d called them. Permanent reminders of my “place.”
Instead, I forged them into proof of my worth. I’d wield the queen’s legacy as the weapon that would raze everything she’d built.
“My list serves the same purpose.” Ultimately, every vampire in that House would die. All that mattered was the order I went in, but that was where we truly differed.
“Your list is revenge, Sidney. There’s a difference between justice and vengeance.”
I stood abruptly, ignoring the pull of fresh bandages. “They took Zane. They turned him into one of them and made him scream for days while his humanity burned away. You want me to be strategic about that?”
“I want you to be smart about it.” His tone remained calm and patient. “Emotion clouds judgment. Dr. Hillman taught you that.”
I curled my fingers against my stomach, trying to soothe the anxious churn building behind my ribs. Dr. Hillman could preach detachment because she’d never had to know about the person she loved begging for a death that wouldn’t come.
Carlyle remained silent for a moment, studying my face in the gaslight. Finally, he sighed. “The temple will support your infiltration mission. But Sidney…promise me you won’t lose yourself in there. The vampires have a way of corrupting everything they touch.”
He lifted his gaze to the transparent glass face of a clock fixed high upon the wall. The emblem of Aetherius sat just underneath the surface; behind it, an intricate dance of interlocking gears and cogwheels marching with the passage of time. I had installed it as a declaration of my devotion. The gears shifted with a soft, rhythmic clicking, a reminder that faith evolves and never stands still.
“I survived it before,” I insisted.
“The temple didn’t choose you for this task because of your hunger for vengeance,” Carlyle said quietly. “Your pain gives weight to our purpose.”
I pulled a crumpled piece of parchment from my robe’s pocket. The ink was smudged in places, but the names stayed clear. I picked up a nearby quill and dipped it in the inkwell, crossing out the first name.
KILL LIST
•Queen Nemea
•Lord Elliot
•Lady Lorelei
•Steve
•Bruvor
I smoothed the paper against the lab bench. “The temple’s wisdom and my wrath—perhaps that will be the combination that finally puts an end to this coven. Name the rest of the vampires I need to kill.” I added the temple’s political targets to my personal vendetta as he listed them. Important bloodsuckers, some names I recognized as Sanguine council members or the leaders of influential Born families. “Consider the lists combined.”
He shook his head. “And what about Zane?”
The name struck like a physical blow. My hand moved to my throat, fingertips finding the pulse that jumped there. The rage I had held at bay in Nemea’s garden threatened to boil over. “He’s not on the list,” I said, my voice dangerously quiet. “I have a different plan for him. This serum…maybe I can reverse what she did to him.”
“Sidney—”
“Don’t,” I snapped. Something raw twisted in my chest. Grief, maybe. Or hope. I couldn't tell the difference anymore. “Don’t tell me it’s impossible. Dr. Hillman taught me that ‘impossible’ is just a problem you haven’t found the right variables for yet.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Carlyle raised his hands in a placating gesture. “I was going to say the timing is perfect. With Nemea dead, Eona’s tradition dictates that the Trials of Succession must begin. The other houses will stand down and observe. It’s our best chance to get you inside.”
This was it. The core of our plan. “I need a target. A contestant I can replace.”
