She beams.“Everyone does before coffee.”
Aldron’s upstairs office is all dark wood, velvet chairs, shelves of liquor old enough to have opinions, and windows that look out over Brooklyn like the city belongs to him.Maybe parts of it do.
Aldron stands behind his desk when we enter.He is dressed immaculately, as always, in a black shirt, black trousers, and silver cufflinks.His dark hair is tied back.His pale face gives away nothing, but the room feels colder around him.
On his desk sits a glass dish.Inside it is black wax stamped with a symbol.
A circle.
A slash.
Three drops beneath.
My body forgets how to be mine, and the room tilts.
For half a second, I am not in Aldron’s office.I am on marble.My wrists ache.Someone laughs behind red velvet.Black wax melts beneath a flame, dripping onto folded paper while a woman’s voice says, “This one will fetch more if she lives.”
My lungs lock, and all sound disappears.A hand reaches for my elbow, and I jerk back so fast I nearly slam into the bookshelf.Knox stands a foot away, both hands lifted, palms out.Not touching me.
“I’m sorry,” he says.His voice is low.Rough.Careful in a way that makes my chest hurt.He tried to steady me.That’s all.
My knife is in my hand, but I don’t remember drawing it.Everyone in the room has gone still.Not afraid but waiting.That might be worse.
Heat crawls up my neck.Shame follows, cruel and fast.“I’m fine.”
Ari steps in front of me.“No one here believes that word anymore.”
I hate her a little for the gentleness in her voice.I hate myself more for needing it.I lower the knife, and my hand shakes, but I make it stop through pure spite.
Aldron doesn’t move from behind his desk.“Would you like the seal covered?”
The question surprises me.Notshould I cover it.Would you like?A choice.Small, but mine.
I stare at the wax until the edges blur.“No,” I say.“I want to look at it.”
Knox makes a sound so quiet I almost miss it.Ari doesn’t.Her mismatched eyes flick to him, then back to me.She says nothing, but her mouth curves like she sees too much.
Aldron nods.“Then we begin.”
I move to the chair farthest from the door, then change my mind and take the one with its back to the wall.No one comments.Knox remains standing near the door.Cruz leans against the wall beside him.Akasha sits to my left.Korvin takes the space behind her chair like a bear-shaped threat.Malichai stays beside Ari.
Every monster in the room arranges itself around the exits without discussing it.Protection.Strategy.Prison?I sometimes can’t tell the difference.
Aldron touches the glass dish with one finger.“This mark belongs to a blood-ring that has operated under various names for decades.The current name is uncertain.The old one was the Sable Vein.”
The name moves through me like cold water.Sable Vein.I know it.Not from before.Not from normal life.From whispers.
My fingers dig into the arms of the chair.Aldron notices.“You heard that name?”
I nod slowly.“Once.Maybe twice.They didn’t say it around me much.”
“Who said it?”
“A man with silver hair.A vampire.He is really old, I think.Everyone listened when he spoke.”
Aldron’s expression doesn’t change, but the air tightens.
Malichai curses under his breath, and Knox pushes off the wall.“Who?”
