Some knowledge is fatal, he said.
He wasn't wrong. He just didn't mention that he was already carrying it.
Chapter 10
"Sage is sick."
That's all the note says. Three words, slipped under my dormitory door sometime before dawn, written in handwriting I don't recognize. No signature. No explanation. No indication of what kind of sick or where she is or who left the note. Just three words on a folded square of cream paper with the Vampire House seal pressed into the bottom corner in silver wax.
I'm already moving before I finish reading it.
The Vampire House is on the west side of the academy, past the main courtyard and through the covered arcade that smells like old stone and something darker underneath, something that has soaked into the walls over decades and doesn't fully leave. I've been here twice. Once during the housing assignment chaos, and once when Caspian cornered me in the corridor outside the east wing and said something I pretended not to find interesting. Both times I left quickly. This time I don't have that option.
The door to the main parlor is unlocked.
That's my first warning. The Vampire House doesn't leave its doors unlocked. Everything about this place is controlledaccess, curated atmosphere, the kind of architectural arrogance that communicates exactly who belongs here and who is being tolerated. An unlocked door means someone wanted me to walk in without having to knock and announce myself.
I push it open anyway.
The parlor is dim, lit by a row of low candelabras along the far wall, and it takes my eyes a moment to adjust. When they do, I see Seraphina Vale first. She's reclining on one of the dark velvet settees with her head tipped back and her hair loose around her shoulders, and Caspian Thorne is beside her, his head bent to the curve of her neck. Not biting. Already having bitten. His mouth is pressed against her skin with a slow, unhurried attention that makes the whole scene look private in a way I've clearly interrupted.
I stop walking.
Seraphina's eyes are closed, her lips parted, one hand resting loosely against the cushion as if she's forgotten it was ever tense. Whatever expression she has on is not one I've seen on her before, and I make a point of not cataloguing it further.
Caspian lifts his head.
His green eyes find me immediately, like he already knew exactly where I was standing. There's blood on his lower lip, a thin dark line, and he doesn't wipe it away. He watches me with the same cataloguing patience he used in the library, and says nothing.
"Where is Sage?" I ask.
Seraphina's eyes open. She sees me and something rearranges in her face, the drowsy quality dropping away, replaced by something sharper. She sits up slowly, pressing two fingers to the marks on her neck with the practiced ease of someone who has done this before and likes being watched doing it.
"She's in the east room," Seraphina says. "Second door on the right. If she's still breathing." She smiles at me. "I may have miscalculated the dose slightly."
I'm through the parlor before she finishes the sentence.
The east room is small and cold, lit by a single lamp on the table by the door, and Sage is on the low couch against the far wall with Malik crouched beside her, his hands pressed flat to her forearms, shadow magic running in thin dark lines beneath her skin. He doesn't look up when I come in. His jaw is set and his eyes are fixed on his work and his entire posture is the posture of someone who will not be interrupted.
"How bad?" I ask.
"Nightshade compound," Malik says. "Laced with something I don't recognize. It's slowing her system down. Not stopping it. She's conscious enough to know where she is." His voice stays level. "She's been asking for you."
Sage's eyes open when I cross to her. They're glassy, her pupils uneven, but she finds my face and holds it.
"Hey," she says. Her voice comes out scraped thin.
"Hey yourself." I kneel beside Malik and take her hand. Her fingers are cold. "I got the note."
"Seraphina." Sage's mouth tightens. "She put it in my tea. I didn't even taste it."
"I know."
"Tell me you're going to do something about her."
"I'm going to do something about her." I squeeze her hand once. "But first I need to fix this."
I don't have what I need. I know that already. My belt pouch has ghostcap and tiger's mane and three healing compounds I've assembled through trial and error over the past months, and none of them counter a nightshade compound with an unknown additive. I know what Sage needs. I know what can neutralize a poison moving this slowly through a system that's already beenweakened by the compound's second layer, whatever Seraphina laced it with. I know it, and I don't have it, and the one person in this building who does is currently in the parlor with blood on his mouth.
