“And me?”I ask.
Akasha answers this time.“Your blood reacted to the wards because you have old magic somewhere in your ancestry.We don’t know what kind yet.But it’s dormant.It doesn’t make you less human.”
I laugh softly, and everyone looks at me.
“Sorry,” I say.“It’s just very on brand for my life that after being used as a blood bag, I find out my blood is also inconveniently mystical.”
Ari snorts, then covers her mouth, then starts laughing.Akasha follows.
Cruz leans on the bar and points at me.“That was dark.”
“I am told I’m coping.”
“You’re doing great.”He looks strangely proud.
“I’m one weird comment away from throwing a mug.”He slides the mugs farther from me.
Knox looks at me.Not smiling, but close.The almost-smile pulls something warm through my chest.
Aldron closes the ledger.“Lucius is dead.”
The room stills, and even Ari stops laughing.
Aldron looks at no one when he says it.“There will be rumors.Old vampires dislike facts when fear is more entertaining.Let them talk.His body burned beneath The Marrow House with every spell he built there.”
No one speaks for a moment, and I think I should feel something dramatic.Relief, maybe?Triumph?Closure?Instead, all I feel is fucking tired.
Lucius is dead, but I still remember his hand on my throat.The rooms are gone, but the nightmares may still come.The people are free, but freedom has its issues too.It asks you what you will do with yourself after survival, and that might be the hardest question of all.
Knox’s thumb brushes over my knuckles.Not asking and not pushing.Just reminding me he is still there if I need him.
Aldron’s gaze moves to me.“The surviving captives are safe.They’ll be offered shelter, healing, and transport if they choose to leave the city.Sera has asked to remain with the Obsidian Coven for now.”
“The fox girl?”I ask.
“With Ari,” Malichai says, sounding resigned.
Ari lifts her chin.“Temporarily.”Malichai says nothing, and Ari glares at him.“Don’t look husbandy at me.”
“I am not looking husbandy at you,” he sighs.
“You absolutely are.”
Cruz whispers loudly, “He is.”
For a second, the bar feels normal.Not undamaged, not innocent, but normal.The kind of normal built by people who know where the bodies are buried and still make jokes because silence is worse.
Aldron places one hand on the ledger.“The Sable Vein is finished in Brooklyn.”
Something inside me exhales, not all the way, but enough.
“And Crimson Door?”I ask.
“Gone,” Krishka says.“Every ward, every seal, every doorway.Burned, broken, or buried.”
My fingers touch my throat, and Knox’s gaze follows the movement.Through the bond, I feel the spike of his pain, then his effort to soften it before it reaches me.
I turn to him.“You don’t have to hide that from me.”
