Page 57 of Fang Fiction

“So that’s not, um—I mean, that’s not strictly correct. About there being no cure.” Tess looked deeply uncomfortable—even nervous. “You know the black jewel-weed lilies? That grow in the north? You can use them to make…um, a poultice? I think that will cure the wound.”

They all looked at Tess, absolutely dumbstruck.

“How can you possibly know that?” Callum asked, but Sylvie waved her arms at him as if to shoo the question away.

“Who cares how she knows it! If she’s right, it could save your life. Isn’t that good enough for you?”

“It’s not good enough for me.” Nantale folded her arms. “It would take days to travel north to retrieve those flowers. We’d need to send a hunting party, which would risk valuable members of the clan and leave us vulnerable to attack here at the compound. If we’re going to take your word, I want to know the source of your information.”

“Wait.” Callum shook his head, his memory jogging. “Sylvie, did you tell Tess about the moonflower meadow?”

Tess gave Sylvie a panicked look, and Sylvie stuttered, “I—probably, if she says I did, I’m sure I did! My memory isn’t what it used to be—well, look who I’m telling, yours must be even worse, no?”

“I recall perfectly clearly,” Callum growled. “Tess said you told her about the meadow, she led me there, and then I was attacked. So if you didn’t tell her, a vampire outside this clan did.”

“They didn’t,” Tess insisted. “Callum, I swear.”

“Then how do you know about the antidote?” Nantale reiterated. “No one in our clan has ever discovered it. You must have been speaking to someone else.”

“Was it Felix?” Callum turned to Tess, furious.

“No!” Tess blurted, but Callum felt certain she was lying.

“It explains everything,” he fumed. “He brought you here to cause chaos in our clan, to make me think Octavia was alive, to lure me to the meadow—”

“And how would he have done that, exactly?” Tess countered. “I live in New York, remember? How the hell is Felix Hawthorn going to communicate with me and bring me here?”

“You know his name?” Callum seethed. “How do you know his name if you haven’t talked to him?”

“Because I’ve read about him!” Tess exploded. “The same way I’ve read about all of you, because you’re all characters in a goddamn novel!”

There was a moment of stunned silence, then Nantale spoke.

“Explain yourself. Right now.”

Tess dug in her bag and extracted a worn paperback, which she handed to Nantale.

“Blood Feud?” Nantale asked. “What is this?”

“It’s the first in a series,” Tess explained. “Three novels about the Isle—about all of you. Obviously they’re fiction, because most people don’t think vampires are real, except some of us do—I mean, some Feudies do—sorry, that’s what the fandom is called, Feudies, like Blood Feud, see?”

Callum felt woozy. “Am I hallucinating again?”

“No—well, maybe, but not about the books.” Tess sighed. “Anyway, so some of us Feudies, we would, like, find pictures of you and Octavia, or Felix, or Konstantin, and get all into these conspiracy theories of how you were all real vampires and the Isle must actually exist too. That’s how Octavia found me—she read some dumb essay I wrote on BuzzFeed—”

“On what?” Nantale interrupted.

“It’s a website, it doesn’t matter. I wrote this essay about how the Isle was real, and Octavia saw that I lived in New York, so she came to me for help. And she told me not to tell you about the novels because she thought you might think I was crazy, and looking at your faces now, maybe she was right. But anyway, that’s how I knew about the Datura and the black jewel-weed lilies, because I read about them in book one when Isobel gave Felix a poisoned dagger to use in a fight against you.”

“You know about Isobel?” Callum was taken aback.

“When I came here I was dressed as Isobel!” Tess confessed. “Because I had been at my former best friend’s Blood Feud–themed birthday party!”

“So when you said I was a villain…” Callum thought back to that moment, the context suddenly clicking into place. “It was because I’m a villain in that book?”

“This whole clan kind of is?” Tess said apologetically. “And no offense, but the way every vampire here looks at me like they have murder in their hearts hasn’t done much to disabuse me of that opinion.”

“And the moonflower meadow?” Callum asked. “You knew about its source of magic from your books too?”