The same paranormal, still alive, powered by stolen life forces? “How old are you?” Sebastian said hoarsely.
“One hundred and ninety-three, this year.” Blanshard’s lip curled. “I really am an earl, you know, the only one in my line to ever have magic. You can’t imagine the rush, the power that comes when a young noble discovers they can absorb another’s life. I knew I could live forever. And when I killed my father, to take the title, the villagers were so afraid—the Devil’s Lord, they called me. Has there ever been another man so exceptional in every way?”
“You take from the less powerful to feed yourself,” Sebastian said tightly. “There’s nothing noble about that.”
Blanshard’s eyes narrowed. “You’re certainly Casilda’s heir. She was beautiful, you know. I was going to marry her, a well-placed alliance within Spain. The access I would have had to your family’s knowledge and relics—but then Casilda discovered what my magic was.” His jaw tightened. “She refused to go through with the marriage. She clung to your family’s proclaimed role as vanguards of those without magic, put it ahead of her duty, and was banished.”
Sebastian shook his head. “She would not have been disowned for following the family code of honor.”
“They didn’t believe her,” Blanshard said smugly. “Like the Cassandra of myth, telling truths that were ignored. Whatever the rumors call me, the Vampire, the Devil’s Lord—no one wants to accept I’m real.”
Sebastian set his jaw. “She still stopped you.”
“Shebetrayedme,” said Blanshard. “Broke your family’s guardianship to steal the brooch relic while I was feasting on the village peasants that were about to be mine. Then she came for me. She tried to kill me, and when that failed, she bound my magic with hers, left me ruined and unable to consume any more auras.”
“Then how are you alive?” Sebastian demanded.
“Because every life force I’ve consumed has become part of me, has lengthened my own life, and even Casilda couldn’t change or undo that.” Blanshard leaned in. “But the lives I consumed were notinfinite. They were starting to run out, and I was going to die like a peasant if I couldn’t take more. I’ve been forced to watch your family for generations, waiting for one of you to be born with the magic I needed to undo Casilda’s chains.”
He looked down his nose at Sebastian. “When Mr. Mercier told me about you, I knew we needed to meet. You thought you were safe, but you couldn’t hide from me in a building that I watched your great-great-uncle enchant. You would have been able to destroy any magic I used, but chloroform knocks you out, same as any man. You were just as easy a mark as your brother was this summer. I recognized him as a de Leon straight away, but it wasn’t his magic I needed. It was yours.”
Sebastian tugged uselessly at his cuffs. “What are you talking about?”
“Magic always comes back around, doesn’t it? Powers eventually repeat themselves? It’s taken generations, but one of you de Leonsfinallyinherited your aunt Casilda’s magic.”
Sebastian’s eyes widened.
“You didn’t know you shared her magic?” Blanshard snorted. “Your family thinks it knows everything, but I’ve known about all of you for longer than any current de Leon has been alive.”
Blanshard opened his jacket, enough to reveal the gold-and-pearl brooch pinned to his waistcoat. “Casilda thought abandoning the brooch under the ocean would keep its power in check. After all, if no one possesses it, it can’t be stolen, and if it can’t be stolen, its magic can’t be used. I’m sure she thought your family would have time to get it back, if it was ever found, but no one counted on Baron Zeppler unlocking the brooch by committing murder during its theft. And you didn’t count on me.”
The unease deepened into dread, settling into Sebastian’s stomach.
“This brooch should have unlocked Casilda’s binding on me.” Blanshard’s eyes flashed with anger. “But she was a tenacious bitch, and so is her magic. I can feel it, still in me. I can finally drain a single aura again, I can give that life force to another paranormal, but a relic should give me the power to drain this entire fair at once. I should be able to make an army of my own paranormals, their aura-enhanced magic stronger, loyal like Mercier, or useful, like your brother. But I’m hobbled yet, because the last of Casilda’s chains refuse to break.”
Blanshard touched one of the pearls on the brooch. “But I’m tenacious too. I’ve searched for an answer for decades, collected artifacts, watched your family. Then I stole the brooch myself, and I’ve tried consuming the auras of the mundane who got close to magic. I thought perhaps having the touch of magic in their auras could break my bindings. And when that fool, Lord Fine, told me he’d been in contact with you, I thought he’d haveyourmagic in him still.”
Sebastian yanked at his cuffs, useless, always useless. “Leave him alone.”
“I hardly need him anymore when I have the actual magic itself.” Blanshard touched the brooch again. “This relic makes magic work on other paranormals, doesn’t it? It once made Baron Zeppler’s telepathy work on me. I’ve been thinking—I can drain auras. What if this brooch now lets me drain magic too?”
Sebastian went still.
“You understand,” Blanshard said approvingly. “You inherited Casilda’s magic. So when I drain your magic—your life force—I think it’s finally going to break the last of her chains.”
Blanshard abruptly shoved Sebastian over, and put a hand on his chest, over his heart.
“No—” Sebastian started to say. But then the words became a choked-off scream as fire flooded his body, as if Blanshard had stabbed a dagger into his heart and begun to rip muscle straight from bone.
Blanshard slapped his other hand over Sebastian’s mouth and nose. “Quiet. I need to concentrate, and no one can hear you anyway.”
Sebastian’s body arched with pain. Blanshard’s magic felt like poison, stripping his cells, burning blood and leaving a wasteland behind.
“Normally I’d have Mercier torture you first,” Blanshard said conversationally, like he wasn’t draining Sebastian’s life out of him. “It improves the flavor, so to speak. But I’m too eager for my freedom. Because without your dear auntie’s chains, I’ll be able to drain many auras at once. I’ll be able to feed enough that I live forever.”
He dug in his hand, his nails points of fresh pain against Sebastian’s skin. “So we’re going to make this quick.”
Wesley had to dodge again as yet another couple came into his personal space. “Ugh, why are there so manypeople.”
