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Marcella elbows past me with an imperious head toss. I’m left alone in the dark.

ELEVENMarcella

I am not fine.

I lean over the toilet, black blood speckling the bowl, heaving up the contents of my stomach. Bellatrix hovers by the door, sometimes mewing, sometimes hissing. She can smell the stench of death on me, in me, and she’s always fussy when I feed.

“I’m fine,” I say again, before throwing up once more.

My stomach unclenches a little and I lean back, wiping my face on a black hand towel. I savor the weave of it scratching my face, tearing at my acid-burned lips.

“Mommy’s fine,” I grit, stretching a hand toward the kitten to placate her. She twitches her nose and bounds off. “Fuck you, too, then.”

Groaning, I pull myself off the ground and slop toward the kitchen. I don’t need to drink water, an advantage of not actually being alive, but the coolness from the tap feels good. My insides are immolating. I swish, spit, repeat, until I feel some semblance of relief.

When I collapse onto my historical settee, Bellatrix is waiting for me with round orange eyes. She mewls plaintively. “Can it, princess,” I sneer. “You’ve been fed.”

The TV’s in the other room so I can’t even catch up on Arcane. I reach for a pile of Snickers and peel one, but the smell of the chocolate makes me nauseous.

What in the blighted earth is happening to me?

It started right after I devoured Arjun—but he was perfectly normal. His blood smelled like human blood, his flesh sweet and delicious. Not undead, not another draugr or wight, to be sure. But something inside him was evil, some curse I couldn’t taste. Perhaps a poison fail-safe, just in case?

Smart. Whoever laid it on him did it well enough to hide it from my schooled taste buds. But it’ll take more than that to kill me.

I roll onto my back on the velvet. At some point, I stripped my dress off after driving Arjun’s car to a dump. A hundred-dollar bill in the hand of the attendant, and then another for my Uber driver, ensured silence in the matter. I was just a pretty woman dropping off a car. Nothing to see here.

But I think of Lacie’s face when she smelled blood on me, how in my altered state at the dean’s house I almost let it slip that I’d killed Arjun.

I need to be more careful, more for her sake than mine. Imagine if she knew what I harbor—what I am? She would hate me more than she already does. She could go to Dean Shea, or the registrar, and get me expelled. Try, even, to have me arrested. And that wouldn’t do. I don’t want to move again. This place promises so many fine meals.

Yet even as I think it, my stomach turns. I place a hand on the soft drum of my belly, wincing at the touch. I haven’t been this sick in hundreds of years. Not since my first death.

But that memory is more painful than my burning nerves, and I leave it there. No use dwelling on the past.

My phone buzzes, and I grab it.

Little Lamb: You ok?

A thin smile curves my lips. She’s literally next door. She could have just come over, but she’s still mad. And yet, here she is, texting me.

All good, thanks.

Little Lamb: Good. You seemed pretty messed up.

Told you, just something I ate.

I append a kissy emoji. That’ll rile her up.

I should just cut her loose. But I can’t. She’s too much fun.

Plus, her heart was quick as a hummingbird’s at the party, and she could have been knocked over by a feather. Someone has to make sure she doesn’t simply pass out, exposing all our poorly made plans.

There’s a knock on my door and I sigh, heaving myself from my settee. It’s two in the morning, and this has got to be Lacie.

As I swing the door open, fully naked, I say, “Listen, if you wanted to fu—”

Oh. There’s no one here. I look down the hall, lips pressed together. Nothing but faded Persian rugs and shadows.