“I think there’s a condition.” I lifted my chin at the half dozen pairs of red eyes and white hair. “You’re the one who approves it, aren’t you?” Raphael was the authority on who was allowed to become a vampire in Damerel, as I understood it.
“I do,” he said, without a trace of shame.
A stray kick landed the ball at my feet.
A small vampire girl, with uneven teeth, trotted over with outstretched arms and looked at me with wide red eyes.
I knelt down to pick up the ball and tossed it to the girl. A bit harder than intended, but she gave me a big toothy grin and ran back to the group.
“Is it truly so terrible?” he prodded.
I looked away. I hated it, but I couldn’t articulate why. Because that wasn’t how my own family had been? I couldn’t exactlyhold mine up as a paragon of warmth and affection. But it made sense with my worldview. This didn’t. “Is this what you brought me here to see? Vampire kids, happily playing, in the hopes that once I saw that, I’d stop resenting you for turning me into one of them?”
He shook his head. “No. But I thought you might like to see it all the same.”
Chapter Twelve
Samara
Raphael dropped me offat an unfamiliar door when we returned.
I opened my mouth to ask, but he cut me off.
“Four hundred and twelve paces,” he said stiffly. “As far as I can offer you without causing you pain.”
Right. I swallowed down any response. The space I wanted—needed. Raphael was already walking away when I opened the door. It wasn’t the stronger one that had been installed before.
The furniture inside was… mine. The dresser and the bed, anyway. The space was smaller than what I’d had before. It didn’t have the large sitting space, but there was a vanity beside the bed and a single chair by the fireplace. The colors were the standard for the kingdom: deep crimson and purple. I hadn’t realized how used to my other space I’d been until I took in the sight and scents and sounds and realized this was something altogether different and strange.
I’d always planned to leave. So why did it hurt to have Raphael give me exactly what I’d asked for?
The soundproofing wasn’t as good. With vampire hearing, I could listen to the footsteps some distance away. The smell was devoid of any personal history, none of Thea’s lingering citrus scent or the old parchment from the piles of books I studied.
The grimoire. I found the book once more in its hiding spot, tucked away in the hidden compartment of the bed, and pulled it out. I slipped on satin gloves and flipped through pages of spells, but though the book radiated magic, I had no way to use it if I couldn’t tap into my own power.
I braced my forehead against my knuckles. How could I practice? There were no vampires I could practice on. Except, of course, myself. Could I thrall myself?
I moved over to the vanity. The woman in the mirror was a stranger to me: white hair; red, sunken eyes; pale lips. I curled my fingers into fists. I wanted to smash this mirror, just like I had the one in my former bathing chambers. As if not looking at my reflection, not acknowledging how I’d changed, would fix me.
But if I did that, I could never learn to master these powers.
I thought back to the times I’d successfully compelled vampires—Demos and the librarian. I’d been angry and scared too. The maelstrom of emotions had helped me unlock whatever necromantic power was buried inside me.
Of course, I didn’t feel those acutely right now. But vampires didn’t need to be emotional to thrall someone. I’d seen Raphael do it with half a glance.
I stared into the red-eyed vampire in the mirror and tried to mimic Raphael’s confident tone. “You will raise your hand.”
My hand stayed rooted at my side.
“You’ll raise your right hand in front of you,” I clarified.
My fingers didn’t even twitch. “I’ll raise my right hand and hit myself on the side of the head with it!”
Nothing happened. Frustration licked at my heels. I was a failure of a witch, with no clue where to start. I slammed my fist on top of the vanity. The wood immediately splintered, the pain barely enough of a punishment to comfort me.
“Sam? Is that you?” someone called from the hallway.
“Thea?” I plucked the splinter from my finger and went over to open the door.
