The Longest Night
Author: Alyxandra Harvey
Date: 2013-12-02 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Vampires; Young Adult; Paranormal; Fantasy; Romance; Novella; Short Stories; Fiction; Urban Fantasy; Supernatural
Description: Since the Blood Moon battle six years ago, Lucy, and her hot vampire boyfriend Nicholas Drake, have kept the peace between the vampires of Violet Hill and the Helios-Ra hunters. But breaking up fights between rogue hunter Aggie and irresistible rebel Callahan is proving a big challenge; Aggie just can’t accept that behind Cal’s burning blue eyes, he is in control of his bloodlust. As Lucy’s best friend and Nicholas’s sister, Solange, return home for the group’s Winter Solstice celebrations, Aggie struggles to admit the real reason she finds Cal a threat – and risks far more than her heart . .
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Rights: All rights reserved

Contents

December 2015

A Breath of Frost

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

About the Author

Also by Alyxandra Harvey

December 2015

The Helios-Ra Academy had ruined Lucy for life. Although she had empathy for the students running drills in their regulation cargos, now she had to listen to them call her Ma’am. She’d just turned twenty-three. She didn’t feel like a ma’am. She barely felt like a grown-up. And every time it happened, she had the violent urge to run out and get something tattooed. Again.

It had been five years since she had to worry about school exams and yet she still felt vaguely concerned all through December. Lucy kept thinking she’d forgotten something important. She checked her pockets for stakes, her cell phone for messages, her sleeve for the hidden vial of Hypnos. Then she’d remember, again, that she didn’t have homework due or exams to study for. And it had been six years since the Battle of Violet Hill, but this many vampire hunters in the same room still made her faintly itchy.

“They can smell fear, you know,” Hunter told her, amused. Her blond hair was in a tight ponytail and she looked terrifyingly efficient, as usual. The floor was polished to a sword-bright shine under her combat boots.

“Shut it, Wild,” Lucy returned, just as amused. Still, she couldn’t suppress a shiver.

“Tell me again how you can relax in your farmhouse full of delinquent Helios-Ra students and vampires and yet this place gives you the creeps?” Hunter asked.

“I sweated blood running laps in this evil gym,” Lucy replied. “Besides, uniforms give me hives. You know that. Where’s the creativity?”

“It was banned after you went through all the gym lockers and decorated everyone’s stakes and school T-shirts with rhinestones.”

“I was expressing myself. It’s healthy.” The school board had considered it vandalism. Whatever.

“You’re getting more and more like your mom,” Hunter said.

“I know. Scary, right?” Lucy’s mother had somehow forced both the academy and the vampires in town to send her their teens for art therapy. She maintained they all experienced too much violence at the Blood Moon Battle of Violet Hill. She prescribed art for healing, and lots of it. For a while, there were as many poetry, collage, and meditation classes as there were fight drills and night patrols.

“What’s scary?” Quinn interrupted in his customary drawl. “My incredible good looks?”

“Your incredible ego, you mean,” Lucy shot back, grinning.

He just pulled her hair, grinning back. Hunter slanted him a glance when he turned to her. “Don’t you dare kiss me in front of the class.”

“I haven’t even said hello yet.”

“I know that look on your face.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Is that a dare?”

“I will knock you on your butt.”

“You’re going to do that anyway,” he remarked drily.

A smile broke through her stern expression. It was quick and bright, the kind she reserved entirely for Quinn. She moved away, her cheeks slightly pink. Quinn looked smug. Well, smugger than usual.

The gym smelled like floor cleaner, sweat, and the cedar branches Lucy had dragged inside in an attempt to lend the space some holiday cheer. It was packed with students in various stages of Christmas-exam stress. There was more than one pair of reddened, sleepless eyes. But no matter how much studying there was left to do for the last few exams, no one was willing to miss seeing Hunter Wild, agent and teacher at the academy, wipe the floor with her vampire fiancée, Quinn Drake. Not even Lucy, and she saw it all the time.

“Where’s Nicholas?” Quinn asked her, as Hunter stepped up to talk to the crowd. A hush fell over her audience when they noticed Quinn standing there, pale as mistletoe berries.

“We figured one vampire was enough for them to handle,” Lucy said. “Not to mention one Drake brother.” She rolled her eyes. At least three of the girls in the front row were already whispering behind their hands. When Quinn winked at them, they started giggling.

Lucy shook her head. “The Drake brothers, making girls stupid since 2002.” The eldest of the brothers, Sebastian, had turned sixteen in 2002, and changed into a vampire, as all Drakes did. Even without the famous vampire pheromones, they were dangerous.

“Please. I was born pretty.”

And they knew it.

Lucy nudged him with her elbow. “Just try not to embarrass yourself.”

Hunter finished explaining the point of the exercise, which was to demonstrate just how fast and deadly a vampire could be. And just how sneaky a Helios-Ra agent could be. Quinn sauntered forward and bowed theatrically.

“Are you going to save my honor?” Lucy heard him whisper in Hunter’s ear. “When one of your overly eager students tries to stake me again?”

“Depends entirely on their technique.”

He laughed. “I love you.”

“I’m still going to kick your ass.”

Quinn was stronger and faster, so fast that at times he seemed to teleport. He avoided strikes in a lethal dance. But he was cocky, and it was in one of these smug, smirking moments that Hunter managed to dose him with a face full of Hypnos powder. For the purposes of the demonstration, it was simple icing sugar. The hypnotizing effects of the drug were so powerful that they robbed the victim of the ability to defy orders of any kind.

The thought of having her defiance taken away made Lucy distinctly queasy.

Hunter dropped low, sweeping out her leg. It hit Quinn across the back of the knees, knocking him off his feet. The applause was thunderous, shaking the rafters. His smile was self-deprecating as Hunter helped pull him to his feet. He didn’t need assistance, of course. She was making a point. Lucy hoped it was strong enough to survive the sea of violent adrenaline currently electrifying the air.

Quinn left soon after. For all of Lucy’s continued attempts to foster—and flat-out force—vampire-hunter relations, it still wasn’t particularly wise for him to linger on campus, even with official permission. The last time he’d come for a drill, one of the students had attacked him. She was now living at Lucy’s farmhouse. With several other adolescents, both human and vampires, all with anger-management issues.

“I’ll give you a lift home,” Hunter offered a few hours later, her breath fogging in the cold air. It was dinnertime and already winter-dark. Lucy’s car was sputtering in the guest parking lot again, deathly allergic to the cold.

“I’m going to have to call Duncan again,” she said mournfully. The yellow car was her favorite, and Nicholas’s brother had already made it last several years past possible and straight into miracle status. She glanced at the thick night pressing in. “And thanks,” she added, climbing into Hunter’s shiny, perfectly capable SUV. “I can’t leave them alone too long after dark.”

Hunter knew exactly what she meant. “How’s the halfway house going now? After the Mary Walker incident?”

Keeping violent paranormal teens in the same house was a delicate balancing act, at best. Sometimes it was like juggling half a dozen rare, antique plates. Sometimes the plates fell.

Mary Walker hadn’t just fallen, she’d shattered spectacularly to sharp, deadly pieces, slicing into everyone as she fell.

Lucy still wasn’t entirely sure how it had happened. Mary was getting better, listening more, instead of just railing about vampires all the time. She’d stopped wiping the doorknob to her room with holy water. But then one night she booby-trapped the entire farmhouse, killed two young vampires, and set the kitchen on fire. A few hours later, Isabeau arrived with some kind of complicated magic spell to shield the entire farmhouse. A few days later, Mary’s car was eventually fished out of the lake, with her body still in it.

“We’ll get there,” Lucy said, refusing to give up. “I just wish they’d stop calling it Last Chance farm. Even though they’re not wrong. After Mary, who knows how long this will last? I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. I mean, a degree in Social Work can only go so far.”

“If anyone can make it work, you can. Just watch your back.”

Lucy snorted. “Helena comes by about once a week to put the fear into everyone. She made Kali sweat last week, and you know how hard it is to make a vampire sweat.” Nicholas and Quinn’s mother was notorious.

Hunter pulled out onto the snowy street. “Heard from Solange yet?”

“Not yet. She should be here already. It’s nearly Solstice.” Lucy, Nicholas, Solange, and Kieran had a tradition to meet every year in in Violet Hill for the winter solstice, no matter where else they happened to be living. Solange had been traveling the world for years, but she always made it back. She was cutting it close this time though. “How are the wedding plans?”

“If I hear the word ‘tulle’ one more time, I’m getting married in my pink cargos,” Hunter said.

Lucy grinned. “I can add rhinestones to your stake for you. You know, make it fancy.”

“Don’t tempt me.” She wrinkled her nose. “I think we might elope.”

“Do it.”

“You wouldn’t be mad? Not to be there?” The headlights made the falling snow look like shooting stars. “More to the point, you don’t think Helena would pull my spleen out through my nose?”

“Nah, she likes you. And she hates parties. Liam might pout though. He loves weddings.”

Hunter smiled brightly. “Still—” She stopped suddenly, hitting the brakes.

Lucy grabbed onto the dash. “What are you— Oh.” There were mangled bushes and the glint of metal in one of the birch trees on the side of the road. Something swung between the high branches. Footprints muddled the soft snow underneath.

Hunter calmly checked the stakes, Hypnos, and daggers on a weapons belt she pulled from the backseat, before handing it to Lucy. Lucy caught the stench of a Hel-Blar the moment she opened the door. “Yeah, that’s not good.”

She couldn’t tell if it was still in the area. It might have left already, or it might be lurking behind the pine-and-cedar shadows. Hel-Blar were feral vampires, with mottled blue skin like old bruises, and every tooth a fang. Their saliva was enough to turn anyone into a Hel-Blar, human or vampire.

Lucy and Hunter fanned out with an ease borne of practice. This wasn’t the first time they’d taken on a Hel-Blar, nor would it be the last. Though if there were more than one, running away would be the smarter option. And it was one they never even considered. You didn’t survive the Drake brothers by being mild-mannered. There was a wildness in them equal to any monster that lurked in the mountains of Violet Hill.

Lucy lifted her crossbow, which was always in her backpack. Something snapped in the snow. A steel claw trap had snapped its jagged jaws together an inch away from her foot. She caught Hunter’s eye and nodded to the trap. She nodded back grimly, stepping more gingerly through the bushes. A cold creaking sounded above them.

“God, it’s like a horror movie,” Lucy muttered. Adrenaline flooded through her, as familiar as old flannel. She looked up. “Noah!”

She knew the young vampire currently swinging in loops of paracord above their heads, blood dripping steadily from the raw gashes on his arms and neck. He was one of her boarders. His fangs glistened in the frigid beam of Hunter’s flashlight. Noah moaned, struggling weakly.

“I’ll cover you,” Hunter said to Lucy, assessing the shadows.

“I’m getting you down,” Lucy told Noah. “Try not to fall on your face.”

She had to take off her mittens to work the carabiners locking the paracords together. The metal froze her fingers and made them clumsy. “Who did this to you?” she asked, pulling as hard as she could, until she was using her entire body weight to unscrew the twist lock. She swung, feeling more like a monkey than a storybook ninja to the rescue. “Hel-Blar aren’t this sophisticated.”

“Wasn’t Hel-Blar,” he said. “But I can smell them.”

“Yeah, hard to miss.”

“Hurry,” Hunter said sharply.

Lucy swung harder until the metal finally gave in and budged. After that it was a matter of opening the carabiner fully so Noah could wriggle free of the tangled cords. He dropped to the ground, landing hard. Lucy followed, coming up out of her crouch just as a Hel-Blar lunged from the cedars.

Hunter blinded him with her flashlight and then staked him through the heart, quick and clinical. He crumbled to ashes. The rotting-mushroom stagnant pond stench intensified.

“Two more,” Hunter warned them.

Lucy stood in front of Noah, who was using the birch tree to prop himself up. He might have said something about being saved by girls, but he wasn’t that brave. Also, he was bleeding all over himself.

The Hel-Blar crashed through the undergrowth, clacking their jaws. “I thought we got rid of most of these guys,” Lucy muttered, lifting her crossbow.

“There are a few nests in the mountains that we just can’t get at,” Hunter replied, throwing a stake. It bit through his chest but didn’t quite pierce the heart. Her follow-up roundhouse kick took care of that. Lucy released her crossbow bolt. It would have hit true if Noah hadn’t slumped over, knocking her elbow. The bolt went wide. The Hel-Blar sprang at her, vicious fangs gnashing together in anticipation. He grabbed her hair as she stumbled, Noah collapsing in a moaning, apologetic heap behind her. Lucy knew she couldn’t fight the strength of the Hel-Blar’s mottled fingers so she swung out and twisted so that she suddenly was standing next to him, instead of being pulled toward his fetid mouth. She jerked her arm back, the holster under her sleeve releasing a stake with deadly and forceful accuracy.

The Hel-Blar disintegrated into the snow. Lucy blew her bangs out of her eyes. “Just once, I’d like a normal night.”

Hunter just wiped the ashes off her stake. Lucy crouched down next to Noah, who was trying to claw his way up the tree trunk and back into a standing position. “Holy water,” she said grimly as his flesh blistered around his wounds. “It’ll hurt like hell but you’ll heal,” she assured him. “Who did this?”

“I don’t know,” he said, fury burning red veins into his pale pupils. “Some goddamn hunter.”

Lucy nodded to Hunter mildly. “Well, that goddamn hunter just saved your undead life.” She hauled him up. “And she’s giving you a ride home because I’m not carrying you, so shut it.”

Hunter was too busy examining the remains of the elaborate vampire trap with narrowed eyes to worry about a vampiric temper tantrum. “This isn’t a Helios-Ra trap.” She circled the tree carefully. She paused, noticing a rough symbol cut into the tree. It was no more than three lines meant to represent a stake. “It’s that new underground anti-vampire group,” she said. “Whitethorn.”

Lucy exhaled. “Well, crap.”

* * *

Her sister would have told her to go for the heart.

Knowing how difficult it was to successfully push a stake through a vampire’s heart, especially when that vampire was conscious, Aggie chose a different approach.

Plus, a staking would get her expelled. And she was already on probation. Again.

She pressed against a tree, trying to ignore her numb toes. At least December in New York had coffee on every corner and diner windows fogged with steam. There might be coffee in Violet Hill but it was probably made with chicory root and anyway, she was miles away from town with nothing but snow, trees, and more snow. All this fresh air was unnatural.

Almost as unnatural as sharing space with a vampire.

She knew he was coming. She could feel it. Her heart sped up even as she told it not to. It always did that. Callahan was on his way back home; it was Sunday night after all, and Sunday nights were family night. Well, they called it family night but Aggie knew a mandatory curfew when she was on the receiving end of one.

She kept her breaths shallow so they wouldn’t mist in the frigid air and give away her position. Yen had once hidden in a garbage dumpster to cover her scent so she could stake a vampire feeding off the homeless guys living in Central Park. A little frostbite was nothing. She had two stakes, Hypnos powder in her cuff, and a steel needle-stake in a holster under her sleeve. She was ready. She’d get him this time.

“Not again.”

Aggie whirled, stake stabbing the air. She narrowly avoided her best friend’s heart and pulled a muscle in her arm for her trouble. “Shit, Paige,” she snapped. “I could have killed you.”

Paige didn’t look particularly concerned. She crunched through the last of her bit of her candy cane. Her fire-engine red hair was in two braids, woven through with silver tinsel. No one did Christmas spirit quite like Paige. “Who are we not-killing tonight?” She slid Aggie a glance, then rolled her eyes. “Never mind. As if I have to ask. Your nose is going to run if you stay out here much longer.”

Aggie shoved Paige down into one of the bushes and reclaimed her position behind the tree. “Snow down my neck!” Paige gasped. “Snow down my neck!”

“Serves you right. Keep an eye on that part of the forest, would you?”

Paige sighed. “Don’t you ever get bored of this?”

“It’s what we do. We’re hunters. And anyway, Agent Wild said we have to be prepared to fight in any weather.”

“Yeah, she’s also dating one of the Drake brothers. I’d much rather be doing that.”

“Whatever, so she’s not perfect.” The Drake brothers were unfairly hot. There was no sense in denying the obvious. “She has more vampire kills than anyone else at the academy. She’d have taken Callahan out by now.”

“You know, this obsession of yours is bordering on a bad teen movie crush.”

“Shut up,” Aggie said, kicking snow at her.

“I’m just saying—”

“No, I mean, shut up. He’s coming.”

“Oh, God, here we go again.” Paige yawned and looked through her pockets for another candy cane. The last time she’d tried to interfere she’d nearly lost an eye. Vampire fangs were pointy. And Aggie bit. “Don’t go Mary Walker on me.”

Mary had lived at the farmhouse before Aggie moved in. Actually, she was the reason there was an extra bed for Aggie. She’d been working through her issues, or whatever it was the counselors called not killing vampires every night, when she snapped. She’d managed to sneak holy water into the blood supply, and then guilt made her drive her car into the lake. That part Aggie never could understand.

And she didn’t have time to think about it now.

Callahan emerged from the treeline, silent and graceful as any woodland creature. He passed for human easily enough when he was in town, but stalking through the snow with his eyes gleaming wolf-blue, he was definitely otherworldly. He was tall, black haired and angular, with cheekbones that could cut through ice. The holy water scar across his tip of his left eyebrow did nothing to detract from his beauty.

Aggie bent her knees slightly, getting ready to leap. She’d have preferred to be hiding up in the tree, but it was coated with ice and too slippery to climb. She’d make do. Yen always had. They’d barely had enough to eat, never mind fancy weapons like the ones at school. Even at ten, Aggie knew how to whittle branches into points and create makeshift stakes from rusty fence railings.

His boots didn’t crunch in the snow. She could envy him that talent and still hate him.

She forced herself to wait, to be patient. Hunter always said to choose your moment, not to let it choose you. If she waited too long he’d be too close to the house. There were practical precautions like blood stocked in all the vampire rooms, deadbolts, UV lights, and nose plugs scattered everywhere; but there were also magical charms. Aggie got herself caught in a spell on her first night at the farm. She was so determined to prove that magic didn’t exist and vampires needed to be dusted, she’d ended up swinging from a tree in a net, covered in some kind of magical blue slime that made her smile goofily at everyone, including Cal. That he’d been the one to find her still made her grit her teeth.

She lunged for him, stake in hand.

He dropped low at the last second, and Aggie flew over his head, too far into the leap to correct herself. Momentum carried her forward, despite her flailing arms. She had just enough time to hook her ankle around the back of his head. He stumbled and they both plowed into the snow, leaving deep grooves.

Cal twisted so that he took the brunt of the fall. His arms closed around her shoulders, pinning her on top of him. She snarled. His fangs elongated in a responding hiss. She kneed him in the groin. He grunted in pain but didn’t let go. He did go faintly cross-eyed, which she’d gloat about later.

Much later, since right now all she could think about was the shape of his lower lip and his chest pressed against hers. If she leaned down slightly they’d be kissing. She should lean down slightly.

“Pheromones!” Aggie shouted wildly, suddenly realizing why she was thinking about kissing him. Her carefully planned attack veered ever so slightly into panic. She struggled like a cat being dropped into a cage of dogs. “Asshat!”

“It’s instinct!” he shouted back, still not releasing her. “Move your damned knee and I’ll let you go.”

“Paige, he’s hot!”

“I know that,” Paige replied from the bushes. “But I don’t play for that team.”

“Pheromones!” Aggie yelled. “Pheromones!”

“Watch your knee!” he bellowed.

An arc of freezing water stabbed between them. They yelped, jerking apart. Aggie was soaked through, her teeth chattering before she’d even had time to wipe her eyes clear. Cal rolled to his feet, shaking his head until his hair stood up in dark spikes. The line of his jaw was distracting. He was still too close. Aggie crab-walked backward frantically before standing. Paige snorted a laugh.

Lucy stood nearby, a garden hose in her hand. She wore striped hand-knit mittens and a hat with a pom-pom. “Are you two quite done?”

Cal spat out a mouthful of water. Aggie crossed her arms over her chest, her lips turning blue. There was already a bruise on her elbow where she must have landed on it. There was a rip in Cal’s shirt which vindicated her slightly.

“If you’re flirting, you’re doing it all wrong,” Lucy said mildly.

“This from the girl who broke my nose,” Nicholas interrupted, amused. He came out of the shadows, gray eyes gleaming. “A lot.”

“That wasn’t flirting,” she insisted. “Mostly.” She nudged him with her shoulder. “Shush, I’m about to go all Yoda and shit.”

“We weren’t flirting,” Aggie replied tightly, horrified. “I was trying to stake him.” If Cal thought for one second that she had a crush on him, she’d stake herself. Just because Lucy and Nicholas—a human and a vampire—were disgustingly cute together didn’t mean it was normal.

“I don’t know why I bother patrolling. No one out there wants to kill you as much as you want to kill each other,” Nicholas said. “Why, this time, Aggie?”

“He’s a vampire.” Her explanation might have had more impact if she hadn’t said it to another vampire.

“You know the house rules.” Lucy tossed the hose aside. Paige scrambled out of the bushes to get out of the way. “And you know there are magical wards set all over the place.”

“Why do you think she attacked me out here?” Cal muttered.

“One of these times, one of you is actually going to succeed,” Lucy pointed out. “What then?”

“Cake?” Aggie supplied. Lucy’s eyes narrowed. For a girl barely older than they were and wearing three different crystals, she could be surprisingly scary. “Sorry,” Aggie added.

Cal just stood stiffly, fangs poking out from under his top lip. Lucy didn’t even blink. Yen would have dusted him by now. Instead, Lucy fished a stake, a cell phone covered in rhinestones, gum, and a tangle of nose plugs from her pocket. She handed him the nose plugs. “Put these on.”

They helped block the lure of warm blood, especially after a battle. Aggie should have worn hers to block Cal’s vampire pheromones. Rookie mistake.

“I can’t believe you turned the water on us in this kind of weather.” Aggie shivered so violently she nearly bit her tongue in half.

“Maybe next time you’ll think twice,” Lucy said with an arch and thoroughly unapologetic smile. “You’ve both earned yourself meditation time.”

Cal’s shoulders slumped. “Damn it,” he muttered.

“That’s ‘om’ to you,” Lucy corrected cheerfully.

* * *

Aggie forced herself to walk slowly, every muscle in her body screaming at her to run. If she ran, her sister Yen would think she didn’t trust her.

At nine years old, Aggie knew two things for sure: a vampire had killed her dad, and Yen and Aggie were all each other had left. If Yen wanted Aggie to hang out in Central Park at midnight, she would do it. Even if there was sweat pooling under her arms while the December wind blew frigid and sharp as fangs. Yen took care of her. She was only sixteen but she knew which restaurant and grocery store dumpsters had the freshest food, and where to sleep without getting hassled by social services, cops, or gangs. She even took Aggie to the library so she “wouldn’t grow up stupid.” And Mrs. Boneta at the deli always had a cup of hot chocolate for her, ever since the night Yen had knocked out a thief just as he’d been about to pistol-whip Mr. Boneta for the cash in the register.

It wasn’t so bad really.

Until the sun went down.

Mostly, Aggie hid and waited anxiously for Yen to come back from hunting vampires. But for the first time, Yen needed her help. At Christmastime, people in thick coats thronged the park for skating and snowball fights and there were pretty red bows everywhere. It was nice, even if it got dark too early. But this year, people were going missing.

Aggie pretended to limp away from the skating rink as though she had blisters, her stolen skates dangling over her shoulder. Tonight was just pretend, but Yen had promised she could try actually ice skating in the morning. She’d also told her to cry because it would be more believable. Aggie didn’t have to pretend that part. She was cold and scared and it was really dark away from the skating rink lights.

“Daddy?” she asked tremulously. She was supposed to act as if she was lost. If her father were still alive, he’d never have let her get lost.

“Well, what have we got here?”

But he wouldn’t have been able to protect her from vampires either. Not like Yen.

Aggie wiped the tears off her cheeks, where they were growing uncomfortably cold. “I’m lost,” she said in a small voice. “Can you help me?”

“Even better.” The first vampire grinned, flashing her fangs. “I can help myself.”

There were two of them, all hunger and cruel beauty. For a moment, Aggie was mesmerized. She’d heard that vampires were ugly monsters and she’d expected some kind of stench or bloody saliva. But these girls were only a little bit older than Yen. One wore a baby-doll dress with little pink bows. She looked like a birthday cake, sweet and special.

Aggie had paused for too long. If she’d been alone, they’d have drained her.

Instead, Yen dropped down from the tree above them. She’d rubbed herself in dirt and snow to cover her scent. Not that vampires sniffed a lot of trees. Yen took out the girl in the dirty jeans by landing on her head. She used the speed of her fall to drive a stake down into her heart. The girl made a strange sound, and fell to ashes under Yen’s boots as she landed. The girl in the pretty dress gave a strangled scream of shock and rage. No, not a girl. A vampire. Aggie had to learn to recognize them for that they really were.

The vampire backhanded Yen, sending her crashing into the bushes. She turned to Aggie and Aggie broke into a run, abandoning Yen’s first lesson: Never run. Stand and fight. Always.

The vampire gave chase, eyes flashing silver. Yen scrambled free of the thicket.

“Aggie, Ochiru!”

Aggie did as she was told and dropped suddenly, hitting the ground so hard her jaws clacked together. The vampire reached for her but it was too late. Yen had already released a bolt from her miniature crossbow. It whistled through the air and Aggie saw the moment the vampire recognized the sound, but the bolt was faster. It slammed into her chest and she fell apart, a pile of ashes in an empty party dress.

Yen limped toward her baby sister, grinning fiercely. “I told you, you can trust me.”

* * *

Aggie paused for a brief moment on the threshold of the living room to dry off. As usual it was stuffed with couches, dog fur, and vampires. Paige elbowed her aside to get to her favorite cushion. The farm dogs, Van Helsing and Gandhi, were sprawled on the floor waiting for popcorn to fall. Family nights usually involved movies and pretending that you didn’t know eight different ways to kill the person across the room from you.

“Zombies?” Paige asked hopefully. Lucy had a weakness for bad horror movies.

Lucy shook her head. “I think it’s time we watched The Breakfast Club again.” Unfortunately she also had a weakness for 80s teen movies.

There was a chorus of groans. Catelyn scowled. “Okay, who the hell pissed her off this time?”

Lucy slipped the DVD into the player. “This isn’t a punishment. It’s a classic.”

“Casablanca is a classic.”

“Potato, Potahto.”

“I still want to know whose fault this is,” Noah muttered as Aggie and Cal studiously avoided everyone’s condemning gazes.

Lucy always made them watch The Breakfast Club to prove that people from different social groups could learn to get along. When Aggie pointed out that the only thing the characters had in common was detention and that high school sucks, Lucy smiled and said, “Exactly.” If they made it work on so little, humans and vampires could make it work too. There was no winning an argument with her. Especially not about John Hughes movies.

“You guys should thank me,” Lucy grinned, sitting on the floor and resting her head on Nicholas’s knee in the chair behind her. The dogs inched closer hopefully. “If my mom was here she’d make you use the talking stick to share all your angsty teenage shit.”

After Lucy’s parents left on a world trip, Lucy and Nicholas turned the family homestead into a house for troubled students. It didn’t matter to them if they were vampire or human. Lucy was determined to make everyone get along. She was weird, but kind of cool if you could get past her cheerful irreverence for the things that made most people wake up in a cold sweat.

With eleven detentions and two suspensions all in the first term of school—all for infractions against vampires in town—Aggie had no choice but to get used to it. Especially since one of those transgressions involved Hunter’s fiancée Quinn Drake. How was she supposed to know he’d been on campus to help with a demonstration? He was a vampire. She’d done what she was trained to do.

So now it was the farmhouse or expulsion.

She had nowhere else to go, and what’s more, she loved the academy. She’d just have to find a way to get used to knowing Cal was in the room across the hall, along with the other vampires. She wasn’t the only one who was having trouble acclimatizing; there were daily fights in the hall every time the sun came up and went down.

“Movie night sounds great,” Kali said quickly. She was tucked into the farthest corner. She always sat the farthest away and said the least. A talking-stick sharing circle was her idea of hell. She held a pink mug filled with blood, like Cal, Noah, and Nicholas. Lucy designated all pink mugs for blood consumption. She claimed it was not only sanitary to separate dishes, but that a vampire’s worst problem was a tendency to brood. And it was hard to brood properly while holding a pink mug.

This time they managed to get almost halfway through the movie. It was a record. Tell that to the third coffee table they’d built this month alone. And to Kali as she crashed through it.

Aggie didn’t even see what set them off. One moment it was popcorn and bad 80s music, and the next Catelyn was attacking Kali. Fletcher and Paige were the only ones who didn’t lunge forward in response—Fletcher because he was so meek and quiet, and Paige because she refused to risk getting blood on her favorite dress.

The fight didn’t last long. Nicholas leaped out of his chair so fast he blurred.

Vampires always have the advantage. Aggie could hear Yen’s voice in her ear. Two hunters are better than one. Use every trick.

Lucy took advantage of her position and went low, kicking her legs between Catelyn’s ankles and taking her down. She landed hard, and the stake in her hand shimmered briefly before shattering. The magic wrapped around the house prevented lethal force, if not violence.

After a brief savage moment, Nicholas pinned Kali’s arms behind her back. She was snarling as he forced her out of the room.

Vampires always go for the kill. Don’t hesitate. Heart, throat, holy water.

Lucy sat on Catelyn’s legs. She snapped her fingers and Gandhi, the biggest of the Rottweilers, sat on Catelyn’s chest to further secure her.

“With me,” Nicholas barked over his shoulder to the other vampires. “Now.”

It wasn’t until Cal let go of Aggie’s shoulder that she realized he was even standing next to her. He’d held her back from joining the fight. Yen’s voice turned to a screech in Aggie’s head.

“Stand down, Aggie,” Lucy said sharply. “That’s an order.”

From the expression on her face, Aggie knew it wasn’t the first time she’d said it. Aggie felt the cool press of Cal’s fingers through her shirt. His eyes were a pale electric blue, like winter lightning. He released her so abruptly, she stumbled slightly. He stalked away without a word.

As usual, family night ended with blood and broken furniture.

More unusually, it wasn’t Cal and Aggie’s fault this time.

She honestly didn’t know how she felt about that.

* * *

Aggie spent her tenth birthday waiting for Yen.

By four o’clock in the morning, it was obvious that something was wrong. She should have been back by now. Aggie switched on the GPS in Yen’s phone and grabbed two stakes and a miniature crossbow. Yen had been teaching her how to use it in an abandoned warehouse full of rats. She also had bottles of holy water which they bought off Napoleon. He rode the subway all day and if you knew where to find him, he had all sorts of vampire hunting kits and weapons to sell.

Yen’s phone was currently in an alley only a few blocks over. That wasn’t a good sign. If she hadn’t made the short distance back, it was because she couldn’t. Panic was bitter and fluttered in Aggie’s belly like wasps’ wings. She forced herself to check her weapons one more time, and pulled her hoodie up over her head. The last thing she needed was a Good Samaritan stopping her because she was too young to be out alone so late.

She paused at the mouth of the alley. The shadows were thick and shaped like monsters. She swallowed on a dry throat and crept around several planters filled with weeds and dead chrysanthemums. She couldn’t see anyone, no bodies left on the ground or sprawled on the fire escapes.

The GPS flashed imperiously. Yen was definitely here somewhere. There was a metal Dumpster at the end of the alley, beside the back door to an Indian restaurant. Despite the seriousness of her situation, Aggie’s stomach growled at the thought of naan bread. There hadn’t been anything to eat today. She tried to ignore the smells of curry and chai tea. She stepped farther into the darkness.

There was no warning. She just knew she wasn’t alone anymore.

She turned slowly on her heel. The silhouette of a man filled the opening of the alley. He looked like a businessman in a suit and shiny shoes. But she knew him for a vampire instantly, even before he lifted his lips off his fangs. His eyes were pale yellow and impossible.

Fear and adrenaline made her lightheaded. The moment stretched on until she could have lived her entire life in that filthy alley. He smiled. He was faster, stronger, meaner. She was human. Not only that, she was just a little girl.

Yen’s advice throbbed in her ears. Turn your disadvantages into advantages.

He’d never think she’d know what he was.

Or that she’d be armed.

He didn’t bother with threats. He just lunged for her, deadly and sudden as black ice. She scrambled back and tripped over her own foot. She sprawled on the cracked concrete, skinning her palms raw. He crouched down, reaching for her.

She flung holy water in his eyes.

His screech lifted the tiny hairs on the back of her neck. As he clutched at his face, she fumbled for the crossbow in her backpack. Her fingers trembled but she managed to load the bolt and fire. It caught him under the heart. Blood oozed through his shirt. Yen had perfected the angle to give her just enough time to yank a fang out before they disintegrated. She wore them on a chain around her neck as a trophy and a warning. Aggie just wanted to hit the heart before he killed her.

She fired again and this time, she was on target. He hissed, turning to dust that clung to the puddles of black water on the ground.

Aggie ran to the Dumpster, trying not to throw up at the smell of garbage and the fact that she had just killed someone. No, not someone. Some thing. She flung the lid open, gagging.

Yen lay on masses of vegetable peels and slimy refuse, clutching her favorite oak stake. There was blood on her throat. Aggie’s vision went white and she clutched the metal side to keep from fainting. Her sister had been bitten. She was dead. Undead.

Yen stirred, cracking an eye open. “I’m not bit,” she croaked. “Just broke my collarbone so I had to hide.”

Aggie started to cry.

“Hey, the Kiku sisters don’t cry,” Yen said sternly, just before she passed out.

* * *

“You’re going to give me Santa nightmares,” Aggie said to Paige a little while later. Paige had changed into flannel pajamas covered with reindeer and snowflakes. There was tinsel draped over her lamp and from the picture frames on her side of the small room.

“Scrooge,” Paige said. She didn’t glance up from the gingerbread man she was adding to the miniature tree at the foot of her bed. “We’ve got two weeks off from school. Seriously, what’s there to complain about?”

“That’s two weeks I’m stuck here,” she grumbled. “With them.”

Paige shrugged. “At least we don’t have to deal with dorm showers. And running laps on that damn track.”

“Just vampires.”

“It’s not that big of a deal. Lucy and Nicholas seem to have it figured out.”

Aggie considered Paige her best friend. Well, her only friend, really. She was one of the very few people Aggie didn’t want to punch in the face. But Paige had weird ideas for a vampire hunter. Especially one banished to what basically amounted to a halfway house. Last year she’d hated vampires just as much as Aggie did, but a few months with Lucy and she just shrugged them off like they were normal.

“How can you be so comfortable here?” she asked Paige, getting up to peer uneasily out of the window. The snow was faintly blue under the moonlight.

“Hey, I’ve been here since August,” Paige said. “I’m considered rehabilitated.”

“Then why are you still here bugging me?”

“We all agree that I’m your best hope, delinquent.”

“Well, crap. I’m doomed.”

Paige grinned. “Have some candy cane hot chocolate. It solves all problems, both existential and mundane.”

“Now you sound like Lucy.”

“Who do you think keeps me stocked in chocolate?”

Aggie went back to the view of snowy fields and vampire shadows. “What do you think they do out there?” She wondered. “Besides the obvious?”

Paige craned her neck to peer over her shoulder. “I don’t know. Vampire meditation?”

She raised her eyebrows in disbelief. “Nicholas doesn’t seem the type.”

“Neither does Lucy. Have you seen some of her scars?”

“True.” She wiped the fog on the glass from her breath just in time to be blinded. The security UV lights set around the house switched on at the same time. The vampires covered their eyes, perfectly outlined in harsh yellow light. They made ideal targets.

Aggie stuck her head out of the window. “That wasn’t my fault!”

Paige rolled her eyes. “Way not to sound guilty.”

Aggie slammed the window shut as the lights went off again. She snatched a gingerbread cookie off Paige’s tree and bit its head off.

“I’m so proud,” Paige grinned. “That’s almost Christmas spirit. And you weren’t the one trying to decapitate a vampire tonight. Well, the second time.”

Yen wouldn’t have been proud.

Aggie knew that even before she found her sister’s stake on her pillow. Her belly went cold. “Did you put that there?”

Paige glanced over. “No, why would I?”

Aggie would know Yen’s favorite stake anywhere. It was carved with her initials on the handle. Aggie had done it herself with the needle broken off a pin. It took forever.

And it had been missing since the day Yen died.

* * *

Hunter had inherited her grandfather’s house after he died at the Battle of Violet Hill. She’d spent weeks finding and dismantling all of the hidden anti-vampire booby traps. Quinn didn’t find the second holy water dispenser until he took a shower and nearly died. They kept the whitethorn fence to discourage the other, less friendly vampires Hunter had no intention of kissing. Historically, whitethorn wood was used for stakes, long thought to be anathema to vampires. More importantly the fence was soaked in holy water. Nicholas skirted the wooden porch railing, just in case. He tugged on the back of Lucy’s coat, spinning her around before she could knock on the door. She gripped his arms to steady herself. When he leaned in, she stretched up on her tiptoes to meet him halfway.

The kiss flared between them until she barely felt the December cold. He slid his fingers through her hair, thumb touching her jawline. Their tongues touched and her fingers tangled in his belt loops to steady herself. Her breath was ragged and hot in her chest.

“Not that I’m complaining,” she grinned against his wicked mouth. “But what are you doing?”

“We’re never alone,” he said, kissing her ear slowly, until she shivered. “You’ve stuffed the farm full of crazy people.”

“You should be used to that. It’s how you grew up.” She leaned into him. “And I hate to say it but we’re not alone now. Security cameras, remember?” She waved at one of them just as the front door opened.

“Get a room, you two,” Quinn grinned.

Lucy just ducked under his arm, into the warmth of the tidy house. Hunter was adding another log to the fireplace in the living room. Lucy handed her a small package. “I made you guys something.”

Hunter pulled off the wrapping to reveal a small vampire Santa felt doll, complete with red hat and fangs. She shook her head, laughing. “You’re the one who keeps sneaking these into the Christmas garlands at the academy. I should have known.”

“You really should have,” Lucy agreed.

“She made the delinquents help her sew,” Nicholas pointed out fondly.

“Art therapy,” she maintained. “Also, I was getting blisters.” She dropped onto the couch, reaching for the plate of cookies on the coffee table. “Where’s your sister?” She scowled at Quinn.

He just shrugged. “You know traveling over time zones isn’t easy for us,” he reminded her. “She probably had to take a ship.”

“She’ll be here,” Nicholas assured her. “She’s never missed one of your solstice bonfires.”

“She’s never been this late either,” she grumbled. She ate two cookies.

The headlights of a car pulling into the driveway speared through the windows. Nicholas smirked. Quinn smirked back. Lucy eyed them suspiciously. “What have you done?” She peered between the curtains, recognizing one of the many Drake family jeeps.

And the pale girl currently climbing out of the driver’s seat.

“Solange!” Lucy squeaked. She practically leaped over the couch to get to the front door. “You’re late!” she hollered, barreling down the icy steps. They threw themselves at each other like they were in some cheesy commercial and tumbled into the snow, hooting with laughter. Hunter and Kieran hugged, with nearly as much violence.

“Where have you been this time, fangface?” Lucy asked Solange, shaking snow out of her ear.

“Spain. And Iceland. But I’m home for good now. I miss my pottery wheel.”

“And me,” Lucy poked her. “You miss me.”

“That too.”

Lucy finally stood up to hug Kieran. “Hey, 007.”

“So you finally did it, hippie. I hear you started a halfway house for people as weird as you.”

“Weirder,” she said proudly.

Inside, they drank hot cider and ate sugar cookies until Lucy felt vaguely ill. “Okay, so what’s up with Whitethorn,” she asked, brushing crumbs off her sweater and willing to be distracted.

Hunter looked annoyed. “I don’t know. And I hate that.” She reached for the rest of the cookies.

“New group?” Kieran asked.

“Yeah, and they’re getting careless,” Quinn said. “We found three more vampire traps. Any one of us might have blundered into one them.”

“And not Hel-Blar traps,” Nicholas agreed. “Usually those are just stuffed with rotting meat and blood.” He made a face. “Not exactly appetizing for the rest of us.”

“Any Huntsmen in town?” Kieran wondered. “They fight dirty.” And they broke the hunter-vampire treaties in Violet Hill as often as they complied.

“Don’t think so,” Hunter replied. “Helios-Ra keeps a pretty close eye on them. Let’s say we don’t encourage them to hang around. And Whitethorn shares photos of vampire victims before we even know about them sometimes. Huntsmen generally can’t be bothered with online stuff.”

“Connor took a look at the website,” Nicholas told them. “But they post from a bunch of different computers and phones. They have proxy servers and he said something about VPN and a bunch more stuff that I didn’t get. Anyway, he won’t be able to physically pinpoint them until he’s back in Violet Hill.”

“What about Chloe?” Kieran asked. “She’s a computer ninja.”

“She left this morning to visit her parents for the holiday,” Hunter replied. “And all that would do is stop the posts, not find the group, right?” Nicholas nodded. “Whitethorn’s web postings are mostly helpful,” Hunter continued. “But this stuff about the traps is going to be a problem. Especially when some hiker blunders into one.”

“We’ll keep dismantling them,” Nicholas said.

Lucy thought of Noah strung up in a tree, slowly bleeding to death. “I hope it’s enough.”

* * *

Conspiracy Theory was one of the few places open late in Violet Hill that didn’t sell incense or freshly pressed organic fruit juice. The décor was comfortably shabby and heavy on the candles and paintings by local artists. It was half club, half coffeehouse, and helpfully looked the other way when underage patrons visited, so long as they didn’t make idiots of themselves. Aggie couldn’t stop herself from searching the crowd for Yen’s face. She’d done that for two years before it became obvious she was dead. When she finally made contact with the Helios-Ra, they’d had a list of the bodies they’d found after the battle. Yen’s name was on it.

Aggie was on her way to get another triple-shot caramel latte when she spotted Cal leaning on the counter. He wore a tight T-shirt and dark jeans and his tousled black hair accentuated the paleness of his eyes. He was smiling. Aggie paused. If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought he was human. It was the smile of the boy he must have been before the vampires came. She couldn’t think why it made her feel so peculiar.

But it was a nice change from obsessing over finding Yen’s stake.

And it made no difference to her if Cal liked his girls skinny and perky. And willing to snuggle up to a pale, perfect stranger. A girl like that, in a town like this, deserved to get bitten. Except that as a Helios-Ra student, Aggie was expected to save all girls from vampires. Even the stupid ones.

And now she really had no choice. Cal glanced over and saw her standing there. If she didn’t say something, anything, he’d think she’d been staring at him. Paige followed the direction of Aggie’s scowl, and accurately translated the set of Aggie’s shoulders. “You’re about to do something stupid.”

“Looks like.”

“Any chance I can stop you?”

“Nope.”

“I’ll be over here with my latte then.” Paige settled more comfortably on the squashy velvet sofa.

Aggie marched up to the counter, finding comfort in the press of Yen’s stake hidden in her boot. She stopped beside Cal, raising a pointed eyebrow at the girl’s hand on his arm. Which was none of her business.

“You can’t feed on her,” she said quietly, knowing he could hear her perfectly well over the music and the insect-drone of the cappuccino machine.

“This isn’t feeding,” he returned, mildly. “It’s called socializing.”

“Socializing? Please, I’ve seen you go three days in a row without talking.”

“I had no idea you paid such close attention. Should I be flattered?” His tone was polite, if faintly mocking, but his jaw was clenched.

“Hi.” The girl leaned over Cal to smile at Aggie. “Are you a friend of Cal’s?”

She was friendly and pretty. Normal. Aggie hated her instantly. “We’re not friends,” she said flatly. The girl looked uncertain. “In fact, I should warn—”

“Excuse us.” Cal cut her off. He smiled apologetically at the girl, but his hand clamped unyieldingly around Aggie’s wrist.

“I will break your arm, you undead leech,” Aggie snapped.

“And cause a scene? In public?” he returned. “Isn’t that against Helios-Ra Hunting 101?”

The crowd swallowed them as he forced her down the narrow hall and out the side door. There was the crunch of ice under their boots, muffled music, and thousands of stars overhead.

Aggie yanked free, a stake already in her other hand.

“Are you following me?” Cal asked her, annoyed. He didn’t look the least bit cold in his short sleeves. Aggie tried to keep her arms close to her sides for warmth, but not so close as to interfere with the range of movement if she needed to attack.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she replied, faintly mortified. “Does she know what you are?”

“Do you?”

She frowned, momentarily bewildered. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He sighed. “Never mind. What the hell were you doing in there, anyway?”

“Socializing.” She quoted his words back at him.

“Since you have the social skills of a rabid skunk, I almost believe you.”

Unfortunately, he wasn’t the first to say so.

“You were a little obvious in there, weren’t you?” she asked. “I thought your kind was supposed to be subtle?”

“My kind? You can say it, you know. ‘Vampire’ isn’t a dirty word.”

“Depends on who you ask,” she pointed out. “Do you even know her name?”

“Why bother? I just thought I’d drain her dry and then dump her body in the recycling bin at the end of the alley,” he said sarcastically.

He couldn’t know she and Yen had found a girl just like that once.

Something must have showed in her face because he took a step closer. “Hey, take it easy. I was kidding.” His fangs retracted. He looked concerned. Human.

She stumbled back out of his reach, her heart speeding up. “Don’t.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Just don’t.”

She broke her sister’s cardinal rule and fled.

* * *

Aggie bit down hard on her lower lip to keep it from wobbling. Yen always got mad when she cried. “I want to come with you.”

“I know,” Yen said sympathetically as the chaos of Grand Central Station boiled around them. She wore combat boots, a parka, and jeans. Her hair was pulled back, even though it exposed her neck, which she rarely did. “But you can’t. This isn’t a vacation. You heard what Napoleon said, there’s a battle brewing in Violet Hill. Anyway, we can’t afford another ticket.”

“We could steal it. It’s nearly Christmas, everyone has full pockets.” Aggie was dangerously close to pouting.

“Ag, I’m not taking my eleven-year-old sister to a war zone. End of discussion.” She softened her tone. “It’s only a few weeks. I’ll probably be home by Christmas. We can go ice-skating again.”

“I guess.”

“And Mrs. Boneta is letting you use the storeroom to sleep in. So don’t you dare sleep outside. It’s not safe.”

“What if something happens to you?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“But what if?”

“Aggie, I know it’s scary, but you have to be strong, okay? I’ve left you all the extra money. You can do this.”

Aggie forced herself to nod. “Be careful.”

“I’m going to stake a few vamps and come right home.” Yen hugged her hard. “And if we’re lucky, I’ll find a way to get us into that school they have over here. You’ll see. It’ll be great.”

* * *

Aggie didn’t sleep.

Paige snored peacefully, wrapped in Christmas and a three-candy-cane mochaccino sugar crash. Aggie sat with her back to wall by the door. She’d flipped the lock and checked it more times than was strictly healthy.

She distracted herself on her laptop, which wasn’t much of a distraction since most of the sites she bookmarked were underground vampire hunter sites and Google alerts on animal attacks in the Violet Hill area. When an alert pinged, it led her to a secret website she could only access because she had three different codes. Whitethorn was run by someone in the area, but no one could figure out who.

A photograph flashed onto her screen. She’d seen countless victim photos, helping to sort out which were vampire attacks and which were actual animal attacks. Violet Hill was still pretty wild and rugged, even just a few miles outside the border of street lights.

This photo was different.

It was the girl from Conspiracy Theory, with blood on her throat, running down her collarbone and into the snow. There were puncture marks from fangs.

Cal’s fangs.

She’d actually believed him when he said he wasn’t feeding on her. He’d almost had her. A small treacherous part of her had started to believe that Cal might be different. Snow piled at the windows while she berated herself for being such an idiot. She knew better. Her dead sister knew better.

Aggie’s heart rate suddenly increased, thumping like the hooves of a startled deer.

Cal was home.

She barreled out of her room, just as he exploded into the hallway, ripping off the T-shirt he slept in. Judging by the welts on his bare chest and shoulders, it was soaked with UV holy water. His skin was seared raw and bloody over the tattoo of crows flying over his left shoulder. His fangs were sharp and the whites of his eyes were veined with red. Pain and fury mixed a cocktail that looked a lot like bloodlust. Two out of those three emotions, Aggie could understand. Intimately.

“What’s going on?” Paige mumbled sleepily from the doorway. “Om!” she added suddenly, as if meditation would stop Aggie propelling herself at Cal.

This time he was ready. Eager, in fact.

They were a summer tornado, cold vampiric fury and hot human rage crashing together. Magic ignited between them. Blue sparks exploded, leaving scorch marks on the ceiling.

“Om, Om, Om!” Paige shouted.

The house shook right down to its foundations as Aggie and Cal fought the magic and each other with equally intensity. Doors slammed open all along the hallway. Fletcher tried to intervene and Aggie broke his nose. The world had narrowed to Cal’s burning blue eyes, to the thump of her heartbeat almost loud enough to drown out the memory of her sister’s voice.

He blocked her strikes with maddening ease, faster and stronger than she was. She’d learned to fight dirty for that very reason. He had her pinned to the wall, his cold fingers clamped around her throat. Aggie’s breaths were ragged and dry in her lungs, scraping like rusty needles. She released the stake in her sleeve and it grazed his ribs, leaving a bloody trail.

She managed to get a punch in, slamming his head back. He stumbled against the opposite wall. Catelyn leaped into the fight in her plaid flannel pajamas. Noah grabbed her by the hair and tossed her aside. She crashed into a lamp. The dogs barreled through, growling and barking. Teeth clamped around Cal’s leg. Blood stung the air, further maddening the vampires.

Nicholas was a pale blade cutting through the complicated web that had caught them up. He knocked Cal into the wall, cracking the plaster. With his other arm, he gripped Aggie’s sweater, holding her off the ground.

Pink light touched the windowsills in the living room.

Kali and Noah went limp and slid down the wall. Cal pushed through, refusing to give into the dawn. Nicholas dropped Aggie, but only because Lucy wedged a broom between her and Cal. Cal finally slumped to the ground at Aggie’s feet. He was vulnerable. Wounded. The welts on his chest were raw and wouldn’t heal properly until he fed again.

“Go ahead,” Lucy said to her quietly. “He’s unconscious. Now’s your chance.”

Aggie hesitated, knowing Lucy didn’t mean it. Yen wouldn’t have hesitated. “He attacked a girl. That’s where he got all those cuts and bruises.”

“Not unless he can be in two places at once,” Nicholas said, forcing the words out as he fought the heavy drug of morning. “I found Cal fighting a gang of yahoos at the side of the road. They took off, but judging by his broken wrist and shoulder and the amount of blood on him, they were winning.”

“That’s convenient, don’t you think?”

“Not as convenient as the fact that you were the last one seen with him at the coffeehouse. Fighting again, of course,” Nicholas added.

Aggie scowled. “Did he tell you that?”

Lucy shook her head. “No. He very specifically didn’t mention you, actually.”

“Oh.” Her fury turned to confusion. It was just as uncomfortable. “Well, I saw this photo,” she said, grabbing her laptop. “And this is the girl he was flirting with.”

Lucy pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket. “I’ll call it in to Hunter.” She touched Nicholas’s cheek when he wove slightly on his feet. “Go to bed,” she murmured. “I’ve got this.”

“Be . . . careful,” he slurred.

“I’m always careful.”

Even on the brink of being catatonic he could snort disbelievingly. He shuffled toward the tiny room beside Lucy’s bedroom, where he slept. There were locks on the inside of the door, barred and shuttered windows, and a bar fridge filled with blood like all the vampire’s rooms. Paige and Fletcher helped drag Cal, Noah, and Kali to their respective beds.

Aggie didn’t know what to feel. This should have been simple. She was the good guy saving the idiots from monsters.

“Aggie, come with me,” Lucy said, after hanging up with Hunter. She went straight to the stove to boil water for hot chocolate.

Aggie sat down. She’d be expelled from the academy. She had nowhere to go. She’d have to steal money for bus fare back to New York. And then what? Dumpster diving and vampire staking while dodging the cops and the teen shelters. “Are you kicking me out?”

“I guess that’s up to you, isn’t it?” She leaned against the counter as the water boiled. “Whitethorn posted that photo, didn’t they?”

Aggie blinked. “Um.”

“Any idea who they are?”

“No.”

“Not that you’d tell me even if you did,” Lucy said wryly. “Just be careful with them. Being anti-vampire isn’t the same as being pro-human.”

“Cal was with that girl at the coffeehouse,” Aggie felt compelled to point out. She didn’t mention that Whitethorn had sent her an e-mail to recruit her. If she passed their test. They hadn’t mentioned what that was yet. “It was a reasonable assumption on my part.”

“Your assumptions stop being reasonable when they come from fear instead of facts,” Lucy pointed out, joining her at the table with the mugs of hot chocolate. “You attacked before asking any questions. Just because it was Cal. And that much holy water would have killed him anywhere else. He was lucky the house magic gave him those extra seconds to react.”

“I didn’t dose him!” Mostly because she’d never thought of it. “My heart speeds up whenever he’s around,” Aggie grumbled. “My body knows he’s a monster, even if you choose not to see it.”

“Are you sure that’s what your body is telling you?”

“What else could it be? How was I supposed to know someone jumped him? This is Violet Hill.”

“True. But the thing about Violet Hill is that nothing is ever exactly as it seems. There are hundreds of ways we all misunderstand one another.”

“I can’t just forget.” She didn’t mention the stake she’d found. What was the point?

“I’m not asking you to. Cal has suffered as much as you have. You have no idea what he’s been through. His file is thicker than the last Harry Potter book. So I’m asking you to act in the present instead of reacting to the past.” Lucy rubbed her face with both hands. “Because, dude, I really can’t stand giving these old-lady psych lectures anymore. It’s totally lame. But since the garden hose won’t reach this far it’s all I’ve got.”

* * *

“What are you doing now?” Paige mumbled, sitting up in her bed. She squinted at Aggie, who’d frozen while reaching for the doorknob.

“I’m going to pee, what do you think?”

“In your parka?”

“It’s cold.”

“You are such a bad liar.” Paige pushed aside her blankets and scrambled out of bed. “What are you really doing?”

“Go back to sleep.”

“Yeah, like that’s going to happen.”

Aggie sighed and counted to ten. The counselor at the academy had been trying to get her to count to ten when she was annoyed, to help her keep her temper in check. So far, it wasn’t entirely successful. Paige just crossed her arms and waited. She’d been on the receiving end of Aggie’s temper often enough that she was used to it. And since she was human, Aggie hardly ever tried to stab her anymore.

“I’m breaking into the office,” Aggie finally said.

“Cool.” Paige grabbed her sweater, another flashlight, and slipped on a pair of reindeer slippers. “Let’s go.”

Aggie smirked at the slippers. “You’re going to sneak around in those.”

“Stealthier than your combat boots,” Paige snorted. “Now are we going or what?”

There was a very small window of time in which to be even remotely stealthy at the farmhouse. Vampires came and went all night and humans all day. There was about an hour after dawn where a true peaceful quiet fell. It was Aggie’s best chance.

Paige followed her out the back door to the wooden garden shed that had been converted into an office. The sky was thick with pink clouds. It would snow again today. Aggie wished she had time to take photos. The light on the birch tree bent over with snow was perfect.

They skirted the fire pit and the herb garden and Paige elbowed Aggie aside. “I’m better with locks,” she said, crouching down. “I assume you brought tools?” Aggie handed her a picklock kit.

The room smelled strongly of cedar and there was a jar of candy on the desk, next to a laptop and a handmade pot filled with decorated stakes. Aggie briefly coveted the silver one with the dragon’s head handle. The walls on either side of the desk were lined with file cabinets and bookshelves.

“So why are we here exactly?” Paige asked.

“I want to see the files.”

“Anyone in particular?” She waggled an eyebrow.

“It’s not like that,” Aggie mumbled, but her voice sounded weird, even to her. Her cheeks were faintly warm. “Let’s just hurry,” she said while Paige chortled. “And no more sugar for you. You even laugh like a Christmas cartoon now.”

Paige used a bobby pin to fiddle and fuss at the lock of the file cabinet. It finally clicked open and Paige went straight to her own file and Aggie’s. Aggie flipped through the folders, trying to remember if she even knew Cal’s last name.

Paige whistled through her teeth. “You beat up an old lady?”

“She was a vampire.”

“Still.”

“She tried to bite me!” Aggie protested.

“And you gave a teacher a black eye?”

“That was an accident. Mostly. It was Mr. York.”

“Oh, well he’s a jerk.”

“See, it wasn’t my fault. I was provoked.”

“Yeah, because you’re so warm and fuzzy, usually. The first thing you ever said to me was, ‘If you ask me to help you with your math homework because I’m Asian, I will stab you.’”

“Two people had already asked me that and it was my first day!’”

“All I said was hello.”

“Well.”

“It was like befriending a porcupine.” She glanced back at the file and grimaced. “Your sister wore fangs as a necklace? No offense, but that’s gross. Not to mention unhygienic.”

Momentarily distracted, Aggie tuned away from the cabinet. “They have stuff about my sister in there? Let me see.”

“Killed at the Battle of Violet Hill. Age 16. Homeless.”

“We had a home,” Aggie muttered. “New York.” It rankled to see it written so starkly, without any mention of how hard Yen fought to keep them alive and together. “Renegade. Fang trophies, suspected agitator.”

Aggie tossed the file aside. “Fletcher has PTSD,” Paige said. “And Noah has anger issues. Tell me something I don’t know.”

The beam of Aggie’s flashlight caught the edge of a folder on the desk. She checked the name, just in case.

Callahan Lewis.

“Lucy wanted me to find this,” she said, eager for the distraction and reluctantly impressed. “She totally played me.” She skimmed the summary at the top of the first page. “He lived alone in the woods for a full year before someone named Isabeau found him.” She swallowed, imagining how alone and hungry he would have been, feeding off animals and avoiding all contact, even with other vampires. Something inside her softened, something she didn’t fully understand. She’d wanted to do the same when she found about Yen, only there was nowhere in New York to be alone. That’s why she’d come here as soon as she was able. She’d lived in a tent in the woods until Hunter stumbled over her while patrolling and brought her in to the school.

“He had a girlfriend too,” Paige said. “Jane Corbeau.”

“Corbeau is French for crow,’” Aggie murmured. Mrs. Boneta had spoken more Spanish and French than English. “That’s why he has that crow tattoo on his shoulder.”

“She was obsessed with vampires,” Paige read on. “She wanted to be one, but she didn’t survive the bite.”

“Cal obviously did,” Aggie said. “Do you think he bit her?”

“It doesn’t say.”

“Wouldn’t it—“

“Girls,” Lucy interrupted from the doorway. She wasn’t smiling.

“Busted,” Paige groaned.

Aggie tossed the file away. “I just—”

“This isn’t about the files,” Lucy said quietly. “It’s about what the dogs just found under your pillow.” She opened her palm to reveal half a dozen vampire fangs, drilled and hanging off a chain.

Just like Yen used to wear.

“Dude,” Paige said faintly. “Even Mary Walker didn’t collect fangs.”

* * *

Kali went missing the same night.

Aggie sat at the kitchen table, unable to stop staring at Yen’s fang trophy necklace.

It made no sense.

Lucy bustled around the room, talking to various Drake brothers on the phone, and then, when they weren’t moving fast enough for her, Hunter. Somehow, Hunter managed to be everywhere at once, even being human.

Paige made hot chocolate and comforting noises. Cal and Noah went tracking and then came back, pearly gray with dawn fatigue. Nicholas found footprints and a splintered stake, but no ashes, no blood. No body.

Through it all, Aggie stared at the necklace. She stopped to check the Whitethorn website but there were no photos or mentions of Kali, so she went back to staring.

She didn’t touch it, though part of her wanted to, and fiercely. The rest of her knew she was being watched and also knew how easily her desperation for her sister could look like guilt.

The fangs were glossy and nearly elegant in their frozen, polished violence. They were harsh and horrible and they reminded her of home.

Paige touched her shoulder and she jumped, knocking over her forgotten cup of hot chocolate. The porcelain shattered, skittering like pale insects across the floor.

“Let’s go to bed,” Paige said quietly. “There’s nothing else we can do right now.”

But Aggie was still thinking about Yen. She wondered how bad a person it made her that she’d already stopped worrying about Kali.

* * *

“Lucy’s almost as bad as you are with the whole Christmas thing,” Aggie said, watching Lucy string lanterns through the trees. She’d already shoveled the snow out of the back fire pit and baked three dozen jam cookies, only half of which were burned.

“It’s a Solstice thing with her,” Paige corrected. “The longest night of the year and all that.”

“I just don’t get her.”

“Well, she’s saving your butt from being sent back to New York, so play nice.”

“I am playing nice,” Aggie insisted.

“For someone raised by wolves.”

“Why does everyone keep saying stuff like that?” Aggie grumbled. She couldn’t stand the glares from Noah and the approving thumbs-up from Cateyln, both of whom thought Aggie collected fangs and dosed Cal’s pajamas with holy water. Even Paige kept giving her little lectures. “I’m going for a walk.”

“Do you really think that’s such a good—”

“Yes.” Aggie cut her off, and let the back door slam behind her. The house was too small, too crowded, too full of Christmas cheer and magic and violence and impossible questions. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t remember the exact sound of Yen’s voice. That scared her most of all.

She took the farm truck and drove until her fingers no longer clenched the steering wheel. She got out, strapped on her snowshoes, and started to walk. For the first time in months, she didn’t miss the sounds of city traffic and the flash of neon lights.

“Yen, what do you want from me?” she asked the cold stars. At least there was no one around to hear her talking to her dead sister. The others assumed she was searching for Kali too. No one had found any more clues and Aggie had no idea how to go about looking for a missing vampire. It wasn’t exactly in her training.

Still, she kept an eye out as she paced along the frozen road.

During the weeks she’d spent camping and trying not to get eaten by a bear—never mind vampires—she’d walked for hours through the forests around the Violet Hill mountains. She’d become intimately familiar with blisters, mosquitoes, and poison ivy. She’d walked until her calf muscles cramped. And still, she’d never found any remnant of the battle.

Aggie hadn’t made the circuit in a few weeks. There’d been training exercises, drills, and midterms. She felt vaguely guilty, as if she was letting Yen down. She was getting soft, letting the farm and the school change what her sister had trained her to be. That had to be why the stake had been left on her pillow, and the fang necklace. A reminder.

Paige would have told her it was suicide to go out into the winter woods. Of course, Paige thought it was suicide to go down the driveway if there was more than an inch of snow on it. Aggie just kept walking until she struggled to stay steady on her snowshoes. She was so lost to the search and her own whirling thoughts that she barely noticed the dimming of the sun in the white winter sky until it was too late.

She was alone after sunset, clumsy in her parka, and slow in her snowshoes.

She was as bad as that girl flirting with Cal at Conspiracy Theory.

Worse.

She was lost.

“Idiot,” she muttered, her breath frosting in the air. Snow drifted between the trees. “Perfect.” The stars were bright as little knives. At least the moon was bright enough on the snow that she didn’t need a flashlight. She’d be able to see her bloody death coming.

She reached for her stake, turning around to follow her tracks back to the road. Hopefully.

And then she wasn’t alone anymore.

The crunch of boots on the snow gave him away. She knew it was deliberate. He could move as soft as water if he wanted to. She turned toward him, heart thumping like rabbit feet.

“Aggie.” Cal spread his hands, showing that he was unarmed. His teeth were just teeth, white and perfect but harmless. He wore a navy blue peacoat in concession to the cold. He’d have been too noticeable wandering around in a T-shirt.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, mostly because she didn’t know what else to say. She felt awkward, which was ridiculous.

“If I stay home I’m afraid Lucy will make me swing from the trees with twinkly lights.”

Aggie smiled before she remembered she never smiled at vampires. The welts from the holy water had left faint red scars on his collarbone. It was hard to scar a vampire. He must have been in excruciating pain when she attacked him in the hall. Something very close to guilt nibbled at her. She pushed it back. Maybe Cal hadn’t fed on that girl, but another vampire had; that girl needed someone to be angry on her behalf.

“You smell angry.”

Her eyes widened. “You can smell my mood?” Another unfair advantage.

“You look angry all of the time, so it’s hard to tell otherwise.” His smile was quick and surprisingly charming. She was charmed. And technically he’d just insulted her.

He was even more dangerous than she’d thought.

She put a little more space between her and his pheromones. His smile was positively wicked, as if he knew something she didn’t. “Can you smell the stake in my cuff too?” she muttered. “Or the vial of holy water in my boot?” That made her think of the welts on his chest. “I didn’t dose you,” she said quietly. For some reason it was important he knew that.

“Okay.”

“You believe me?” she asked, surprised.

“You’re not exactly subtle about trying to kill me,” he pointed out drily.

He had a point. And it sounded so much worse when he said it like that. He could have tried to kill her back at any time. He might have succeeded. Another vampire definitely would have tried.

“You’re far from home,” he said.

“So are you,” she returned suspiciously.

“I wasn’t accusing you of anything,” he pointed out mildly.

She winced. He was right. “I’m lost,” she admitted, which was as close to an apology as she was going to get.

“Strange time to take a walk.”

“I was looking for the battle site,” she blurted out. He looked different. She knew it was because she’d read his file. He wasn’t just a vampire; he was a boy who’d suffered alone for months and months. Even the way his expression stilled seemed new to her now. As if she could decipher his mood, like a friend would.

Clearly the cold was going to her head.

“Never mind,” she added.

“I know where it is,” he said finally, so quietly she almost didn’t hear him. His voice was as soft as the snow settling on the branches.

Aggie stumbled over her own feet. “What?” She grabbed his arm. “Where?” She realized she was touching him and hastily let go.

“Why do you want to go there?” he asked. “It’s . . . awful. Saturated.”

“Saturated?”

“With blood.”

She swallowed thickly. “My sister died there.”

Cal nodded and started to walk away without a word. She stared after him for a long moment before realizing he was offering to show her where the site was. She hurried after him, gasping for breath as she struggled through the snow. Ice cracked on the surface, like thunder under her feet. Cal was just another shadow between the trees. She couldn’t keep up. She was going to lose him. Panic clawed at her throat.

And then his tracks were deep grooves, cleared of snow and easy for her to follow. She took off her snowshoes and felt the relief of being able to run again. The trail led her to more forest and a clearing. They passed a beaded lamp frozen in the river. Broken and rusted lanterns dangled like Christmas ornaments next to jagged holes from crossbow bolts and deep grooves from stakes. The charred remains of wooden platforms and ropes dangled from a high branch overhead. No amount of snow could completely hide what had happened here, even six years later.

Cal rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable.

“I can feel it too,” she murmured, even though she had no supernatural senses. This place was quiet and sad, and full of secrets. Someone had left roses, recently enough that they sat on the frozen crust, but they had withered to a dusty red.

He met her eyes, pale irises gleaming, before stepping back to give her privacy. She walked around slowly, not sure what she’d expected to find. Blood in the snow? Bones? Both the Drakes and the Helios-Ra had gone to great pains to identify all of the bodies and give them proper burials when they couldn’t find next of kin. There was a monument at the school for the fallen. Aggie had scratched Yen’s name into it with her pocket knife. And since the battle, Hunter and Quinn had created a kind of emergency unit to break up confrontations and clean up the aftermath of the inevitable violence.

She’d read all about it. She’d even written essays on the topic. Dry words and theories were nothing compared to standing on the place where her sister died.

Needlessly.

Yen had chosen to join the battle. She’d chosen to leave her little sister behind to follow the lure of blood vengeance. She’d chosen wrongly.

Aggie could admit it to herself, this one time. She’d thought finding the place where her sister died would change something inside her. She was supposed to cry. She was supposed to feel better, or worse. It was all supposed to make sense now.

Instead she just felt cold and confused.

“Let’s go home,” she said quietly, turning away.

Cal didn’t speak as she drove them back to the farm. He didn’t offer empty condolences or try to get her to share her pain. That alone made the ice inside her stomach melt slightly.

She parked around the side of the farm and they cut across the adjoining field. The last thing she wanted was for the others to see them together. There’d be more questions. Teasing. Paige would be merciless, and then Aggie would have to duct-tape her mouth shut and she’d end up with even more detention.

And it might feel like a date. A morbid, creepy date with frozen toes, but still.

Aggie shifted, the silence making her itchy. She knew how to stake, decapitate, and dismember a vampire. She had no clue how to engage in small talk with one. She slid him a sidelong glance and wondered if he felt like an idiot too. He was always so quiet and composed, like nothing surprised him. She’d tried to stake him a dozen times and he never really lost his temper. She’d never met anyone like him. He was a gentleman, in the old-fashioned sense of the word.

Well, until he pushed her.

He flung his arm out, knocking her off her feet and into the snow several feet behind him. She scrambled to her feet, cursing. “What the hell do— Oh.”

A Hel-Blar came out of the woods into the field, stinking of rot and spoiled mushrooms. Aggie gagged, reaching for her stake. Hel-Blar bites were contagious to both humans and vampires.

“Get help,” Cal told her.

“Get real,” she returned.

The edge of the forest could hide a dozen more Hel-Blar. Or hunters. You just never knew in Violet Hill. The cold made her movements slower and stiffer, but at least she had two stakes and Hypnos powder. Getting close enough to dose him would be tricky. She’d have to circle around while he was distracted by Cal. She threw a stake, hoping to catch him between the shoulder blades.

It sounded good in theory.

In practice, the Hel-Blar was faster than the only other one she’d ever come across. And there was ice under the snow. She dodged his attack and slipped, landing on her tailbone hard enough to knock the breath from her chest. She flattened and rolled when he leaped for her. His stench made her eyes water. He crouched over her, snapping his jaws. Saliva hit the cuff of her coat. She squirmed out of it, terrified it would touch her skin.

She kicked up at him just as Cal grabbed the Hel-Blar’s shoulder and flung him away. The Hel-Blar sailed through the branches, snapping them into splinters before he hit a tree trunk. Black blood dripped from his mouth, where he’d bitten through his lip with his rows of needle-fangs. Aggie pushed into a crouch, pain radiating up her spine.

“Stake.” Cal held out his hand.

Aggie paused. Just the thought of giving a vampire her last weapon was enough to send more adrenaline pumping through her. The Hel-Blar pushed out of the branches, snapping his jaws and hissing. He’d keep coming until someone stopped him. And she was too far away.

“Aggie,” Cal snapped. “Come on.”

She tossed him the stake. Training had her aiming for his heart without conscious thought. He caught it before it could do any harm, shooting her a dark glance before leaping at the Hel-Blar. He threw the stake and it slammed into the Hel-Blar’s chest. Cal was back at Aggie’s side before the disintegrating ashes hit the ground.

“You’re hurt. Did he bite you?” Cal’s fingers slipped under her hair to examine her neck and the ragged, bloodstained holes in the sleeve of her coat. She tensed. His eyes flared. “Aggie, did he bite you?”

“You saved me,” she blurted out. It went against the basic laws of biology. Against her entire life up until now.

“But did he bite you?”

“No,” she said. “I just hit a rock when I landed. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I think I’d remember if that thing bit me.”

She was still staring at him when a shout came from the woods. They glanced at each other and then broke into a run. Aggie fumbled for the flashlight in her cargo pocket. The moon was hiding and it was darker in the forest. The light would give her away, but so would running into a tree.

Fletcher stumbled out onto the edge of the field. There was a gash under his left eye and blood on his collar. “Watch out!” He shoved Cal out of the way. A stake slashed between them, cutting through Fletcher’s arm. Blood dripped into the snow.

“Stand down!” Aggie yelled, wondering what hunter was mad enough to prowl around the Hamilton farm. Cal gave chase before she could stop him. She wanted to follow him but you didn’t leave an injured man on the field, and Fletcher looked awful.

He spat blood out onto the snow. “I was chasing that Hel-Blar.”

“We got him. Did he get you?”

“No.”

Cal emerged from the woods, shaking his head. “Whoever it was is gone. I can’t track the scent with the Hel-Blar stench.”

“Some hunter,” Fletcher guessed. “I didn’t—” He looked down at the bleeding gash on his forearm. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“This.” His eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted, landing face-first in the snow.

Cal sighed and crouched down to sling him over his shoulder. “Let’s get him back to the farmhouse.”

Aggie followed behind, searching the shadows even though she didn’t even know who the enemy was anymore. She hopped the fence and headed to the back porch, which blazed with enough twinkly lights to fill Rockefeller Center. Aggie barged into the kitchen. “Cal’s got Fl— Gah!”

Nicholas had Lucy caged against the counter, an arm on either side of her, hands braced on the cabinets. That kind of deep, dark kiss should have fogged the windows. It was slow and thorough and blazed between them like fire. Nicholas pulled back slightly but his gaze stayed scorchingly fastened on Lucy, even when he spoke. “Aggie, go beat someone up.”

“I already did.” She absolutely, positively would not blush. The front door slammed open. “Or Cal did. Hel-Blar. And something else beat up Fletcher. He’s in the living room.”

Nicholas pushed away from Lucy. “You know, most people collect stray dogs, not rabid homicidal teenagers.”

“But I don’t know anything about dogs,” she grinned, before slipping past him to get the first aid kit from the shelf by the door.

Fletcher was on the sofa, eyes closed. He’d gone from pale to gray-green. Lucy tapped his cheek but he didn’t move. His lashes didn’t even flutter. “Put him in my car and I’ll drive him to the academy’s infirmary,” she said. “They’ll want to keep an eye on him.”

“But he wasn’t bitten,” Aggie said. “Another hunter had bad aim.”

“I know. It’s just a precaution,” Lucy replied. “Until he’s conscious and coherent enough to confirm all the details.”

Nicholas carried him out to the car and the rest of the housemates descended, drawn by the scent of blood and the dogs pacing up and down the hall.

“What happened to Fletcher?” Paige asked.

“Vampire,” Catelyn replied decisively.

“For all you know he tripped and fell,” Paige snapped. “You don’t have to blame every damn thing on them.”

“You saw Fletcher,” Catelyn insisted. “Something attacked him. What more do we need to act?”

“How about actual facts? We don’t actually know what happened in the woods. And we can’t stake vampires just because they’re vampires.”

“Why not?” Catelyn had a steel-tipped stake in her hand suddenly. Noah snarled, showing his fangs. Cal just looked tired. “They drain people. They kill.”

“Yeah, well, you bug me too and I’m not allowed to stake you,” Paige snapped, annoyed. “So chill.”

“And he did save Cal,” Aggie added reluctantly. “The gash on his arm was from a hunter’s stake, not fangs.”

“You’re defending them? Are you turning into a blood-doll now too?” Catelyn sneered. Aggie had her father’s dark skin and her mother’s Japanese features; she’d been called names before, by idiots too countless to mention. “Blood-doll” made her hands clench into fists the way no other insult could.

“Just like Lucy,” Catelyn continued. “It’s sick.”

“If she were a blood-doll, I wouldn’t be so thirsty,” Noah drawled.

And now Aggie was being defended by a vampire. Twice in one night.

Clearly, the world had gone completely insane.

“In fact, Lucy might make a nice snack, after I finish with you,” Noah added, just to piss Catelyn off.

Nicholas came down the hall, quiet as smoke. There was no warning, no scuff of a shoe on the floor or exclamation of anger. He used the edge of the table to gain height and then punched down at a vicious and deliberate angle as he landed. Noah sprawled on the floor, nose broken and fang chipped.

“The hell, man,” Noah croaked, spitting blood. “Isn’t that illegal or something?”

“Let’s get one thing straight,” Nicholas replied with a kind of quiet fury that had everyone going still and pretending to be invisible. “I’m not your teacher, parent, or counselor. You’re in my house. More importantly, you’re in Lucy’s house. So you’ll show her some respect or you’ll wake up in a Hel-Blar nest in the mountains, without weapons, without so much as a stitch of clothing to shield you. Understand?”

Noah wiped blood off his face, nodding tersely.

Aggie watched Nicholas stalk away. “Okay, that was hot.”

Paige shook her head. “You are so weird.”

* * *

The trees were thick with snow and the cold had already frozen the tip of Lucy’s nose. She had her crossbow in one hand and a belt studded with steel-tipped stakes. It was long past the time that regular, normal folk were in bed. She looped her arm through Solange’s, grinning. “It’s just like old times, isn’t it?”

“What, wandering about in the middle of the night looking for someone to attack us?” Solange asked wryly.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“You love it.” Solange wore her black hair in a single braid down her back, just like her mother. Unlike Helena, there was already dried clay on Solange’s pants, instead of blood.

“Kinda. And you’re really finally home for a while?” she asked as they continued to tramp through the woods. “You’ve stopped beating yourself up and exiling yourself on a self-imposed guilt trip? Literally?” she added knowingly.

“Sheesh, a degree in social work and psychology and suddenly you think you’re so smart,” Solange said. She wrinkled her nose. “You’re right though.”

“The Battle of Violet Hill was not your fault.”

“Maybe not, but I sure made it worse.”

“Viola the undead vampire cow made it worse,” Lucy said very firmly. “Regardless, I’m glad you’re back.”

“I ran out of countries to visit,” Solange smiled. “You would love the vampires in Italy. They have a party in this tiny mountain village and their human friends make blood-cakes. Plus, there are chocolate fountains everywhere. And in the deserts near Morocco they have these midnight parades.”

“With all the new vampire tribes and traditions you know now, we could start a vampire museum.”

“See, now I’m really scared because I don’t think you’re joking.”

“I think it’s a great idea,” Lucy insisted. “And I’m going to set it up right in the Helios-Ra gym.”

“You always were subtle.”

“Subtle takes too long. Especially with some of these hunter types. They’re kinda dumb.” She grinned to soften the insult. “Hunter will explain it to them. She’s good at that.”

They patrolled for another hour until Lucy started to limp. “I think my toes froze and fell off.”

“I don’t see anything anyway,” Solange said. “Let’s go back.”

They were in the jeep when Lucy’s phone pinged. “Chloe traced an e-mail,” she told Solange. “Going through the farm’s wifi or whatever. She monitors it for us, just in case.” Lucy scrolled down the screen. “A recruiting e-mail from Whitethorn.” She paused, stomach sinking. “Sent to Aggie’s laptop.”

* * *

“Aggie.”

Lucy stood in the doorway of the bedroom. Aggie put her camera down. She’d been thinking it might be nice to walk in the woods with a camera again, as well as a stake.

“We need to talk.”

“Are you breaking up?” Paige teased. Her smile died at the look on Lucy’s face.

“Bring your coat. We’re going out,” Lucy added, walking away.

Paige winced at Aggie. “Dude. What’d you do now?”

She reached reluctantly for her sweater and her coat. “Nothing.” Probably.

Lucy waited in a dark green truck. Nicholas’s brother Duncan had brought it over the night before. “Get in,” she said through the open window. Her red and white striped scarf was relentlessly cheerful against her grim expression.

Aggie slid into the seat. It already smelled like Nag Champa incense. There was a blue eye-shaped bead dangling from the rear view mirror. “It’s Greek,” Lucy explained. “It keeps the evil eye away. Solange brought it back for me.”

“Am I expelled?” Aggie blurted out as Lucy backed down the driveway. The sun glinted off the icicles dripping from the trees.

“You ask that a lot.”

Aggie noticed that Lucy hadn’t actually answered the question though. They drove for nearly a half an hour before Lucy pulled over. A path was already cleared through the trees. “Who did this?” she asked.

“Nicholas and Quinn,” Lucy answered. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“You need your eyes open, Aggie, and speciesism’s blinding.”

“I don’t trust vampires,” she said. “They’re the reason my sister is dead.”

“I know,” Lucy said. “I’m not saying vampires are all fluffy bunnies and lollipops. But neither are humans. We need to figure our shit out.”

“Is that why you never turned?” Aggie asked. They all wondered about it. It seemed as good a time as any to ask, with only the snow and the bare trees all around them.

“‘I’m more useful as a human right now,” she replied.

“But you’ll turn one day? Really?”

“Who else is going to save Nicholas’s butt? It’s a full-time job.” Her smile faded. “Too many people died at the Blood Moon battle for us to let this town turn on itself. One civil war is enough, thanks very much.”

The path led them to a circle of pale birch trees, drooping with snow. A bright red ribbon tied was tied around each trunk. In the center was a boulder with a lantern. Lucy took a packet of matches from her coat pocket and lit the candle.

“What is this place?” Aggie asked, feeling nervous for no reason.

“It’s a Spirit Stone,” Lucy explained. “Like the memorial gardens for fallen hunters at the academy.” There were names inscribed in the rock, starting at the bottom and spiraling up to the top. “Except each one of these represents the name of a vampire who died at the Battle of Violet Hill. Not just on that one night, but the weeks leading up to it. And these are just the ones we know about.” She pointed to a name. “London was Solange’s cousin. She was only nineteen.”

Aggie felt trapped. “I know what you’re doing.”

“Do you?” Lucy asked mildly. “Good. Then pay attention. The shape of your teeth or what you drink for breakfast doesn’t make you a bad guy. You know what does? Stringing people up in the woods to die. Draining someone of their blood when all you need is a mouthful to survive. And the inability to recognize that someone else’s life is just as sacred as yours.”

“But they’re not technically alive,” Aggie said quietly.

“They love. They laugh. They die. If that’s not living, what is?” Lucy looked her right in the eye. “So remember that, the next time a group like Whitethorn tries to recruit you.”

* * *

They found Kali’s clothes the next day.

There was a ragged hole in the back of her shirt at heart level.

Lucy tried not to cry. Someone called Aggie “Mary” under their breath. Everyone watched her suspiciously, waiting for more fang trophies or some kind of fit of rage. Lucy did regular sweeps for holy water booby traps. Aggie mostly stayed in her room, especially when she thought she could smell Yen: pine sap and bubble gum. She’d used pine needles from the trees in Central Park to rub on her clothes so she smelled cleaner than she sometimes was. Washing up in public bathrooms wasn’t always easy. Every time she looked in the mirror, she didn’t know who she was looking at, herself or Yen.

And she knew she hadn’t touched Kali, but she was starting to have to remind herself of that.

She decided to go for another walk, even though the last one hadn’t worked out that well. The cold was a welcome distraction, slapping at her like angry hands. Lucy and Nicholas were sitting by the solstice fire. Lucy set up a cauldron full of apple cider and judging by how wide her eyeballs were, she must have drunk enough to be running on pure sugar. A jeep crunched up the driveway and disgorged a black-haired vampire girl and a Helios-Ra agent. The famous Solange Drake, and to a vampire hunter, the even more famous Kieran Black.

Seeing hunters and vampires hug like old friends was just more confusing. It made Aggie’s head hurt. She ducked into the woods and kept walking, snow falling on her eyelashes.

She wasn’t surprised this time when Cal stepped out of the pines to walk beside her. Her heart quickened, but it wasn’t fear. It was something else. Something fragile, breakable.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” she asked.

“Of course,” he replied, hands in his pockets. “I’m undead, remember?”

“Do you ever feel haunted?” Aggie asked.

“Yes.” He didn’t pause.

“By Jane Corbeau.”

“How do you know about her?”

Aggie just shrugged.

“She loved vampires,” Cal said. “Almost as much as you hate them. She wanted to be one.”

“So you turned her.”

“Not at first. I got turned, just to make sure it was even possible,” he said.

“You were the test.”

“It was the only way I could stop her from running out and baring her neck to the first vampire she saw.” Aggie shivered. “Exactly. She was too trusting. Sweet.”

Two words which had never been used to describe Aggie.

“So what happened?”

“I changed. It was . . . unpleasant.” Aggie knew there was a wealth of painful information stored in that single mild word. “And I tried to talk her out of it. We were in the mountains. She slit her wrists in front of me. It was either bite her or watch her die. Turns out, I had to watch her die anyway.”

Paige would have hugged him. Aggie just stepped a little closer. It was all she could do. “And now she haunts you.”

“No, not her.” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “Not anymore.”

“Who, then?”

“You.”

He kept walking, but Aggie stopped in her tracks. She felt his words inside her chest like roses blooming: part flower, part thorn. “Me?” she asked stupidly.

“I think about you,” he said quietly, not turning to look back at her. His voice was smoky and warm, vulnerable. “All the time.”

“But . . . I try to kill you. A lot.”

“But you never do,” he pointed out. “And I think you could, if you really wanted to. “

That was even more of a compliment than knowing he thought about her. The cold seemed to fade away. She was warm down to her toes.

And then Paige barreled at them like a bear chased by honeybees. Catelyn chased after her, stake in one hand, flashlight in the other. “Aggie, thank God!”

Aggie caught Paige when she slipped on a patch of ice in her excitement. “What’s wrong?”

Paige shoved a crumpled piece of paper at her. “I found this.”

She blinked at it, nonplussed. “What is it? Report cards? Already?”

“It’s your confession. To killing Kali,” Catelyn explained. “And your promise to kill the others, starting with Cal.” She didn’t seem nearly as concerned about it as Paige. Aggie half expected a celebratory high five.

Paige frowned at Cal. “You don’t look dead. Well, any more dead than usual.”

Aggie scanned the note, reading the rest out loud. “Then I’ll finally be free to join my sister.” She went cold.

Paige shoved her, hard. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.” She hit her again, mouth trembling as she suppressed tears. “I thought you went full-out Mary Walker.”

“Paige, I didn’t write this.” She looked up, appalled. “God, don’t cry.”

Paige sniffled. “She’s a beast,” she said to Cal.

He smiled briefly. “I know.” He sounded so amused Aggie couldn’t take insult.

“Who would write this?” Aggie asked. “And why?”

“To scapegoat you?” Paige frowned. “Okay, now I’m really pissed off.”

“Gee, thanks. My impending death wasn’t enough?”

Paige waved that off. “You’re a dumbass, sweetie. But you’re not a coward.”

“Really feeling the love here.”

“You’d never have staked Kali in the back,” she insisted, now that she was thinking clearly again. “You’d have killed her to her face.”

Cal took the note from her. His fingers brushed hers, cool and electric. She shivered. “What are they scapegoating you for?”

“Attacks on vampires, what else?” Aggie said, feeling ill. She was so interconnected with vampire violence that someone could use her as a shield and it would be completely believable. She thought of the Spirit Stone and all the names marching in a spiral to the lantern light. “Well, screw that,” she muttered. She slayed monsters. She wasn’t a killer. There was a difference. She glanced at Cal, tall, lean, and silent beside her. Wasn’t there?

“Let’s get back to the farm,” Cal suggested.

They jogged back, the frigid air searing Aggie’s lungs. Paige coughed, holding a hand to the stitch in her side.

Catelyn scowled. “I don’t see why we’re rushing to rescue vampires.”

“Just come on,” Paige muttered, yanking on her sleeve.

* * *

The longest night of the year was full of stars and snow. The bonfire crackled cheerfully. Lucy was surrounded by her best friends and no one was trying to kill them.

Lucy frowned. “Something’s not right.”

“That’s just the three gallons of apple cider you drank,” Kieran said fondly.

“No, she’s right.” Solange stood up. Kieran reached for a stake.

“I smell something . . .” Nicholas paused, jaw clenching. “Gasoline.”

Before they had a chance to move, an arrow sliced through the air. It slammed into a bag of Hypnos powder hidden in the tree branches above them. The mesmerizing powder covered them. Lucy and Solange exchanged a glance, recognizing the same type of paracord that had trapped Noah, attached to the bag.

“Don’t move.”

Lucy knew that voice.

But it was too late.

* * *

When they reached the farm, Cal held them back, nudging them behind a concealing hedge of cedar. His arm crossed over Aggie’s hips and Paige behind her. Catelyn threatened him silently with her weapon. He just held a finger to his mouth for silence.

The twinkly lights strung through the trees looked like frozen fireflies. In the backyard, Lucy’s solstice fire burned bright and cheerful in a ring of melted snow. Standing around the flames were Lucy, Nicholas, Solange, and Kieran. They were still as statues; the only movement was their wild eyes, flickering furiously and helplessly.

“Hypnos,” Noah whispered from a tree branch, startling them. “And gasoline.”

Aggie didn’t waste time cursing, though she thought of a string of words that would have shocked the proverbial pirates. “What happened?” she asked Noah.

“I don’t know. I just got here. I was taking the high ground to see if I could follow the tracks in the snow.”

“And?”

“Too messy. Can’t tell.”

Aggie motioned to Catelyn to take the left and for Paige to circle around the other side. She’d go straight to the center.

Catelyn just stared at her. “Since when do we rescue vampires?”

“Put it this way,” Aggie said, feeling a strange sort of pride. “You’re rescuing Lucy and Kieran. And the farm. This is our home. Are you going to let someone just attack it?”

Catelyn finally moved and Aggie went to follow. Cal caught her elbow. “We need a plan,” he murmured in her ear.

Aggie smiled at him, grim but confident. “I’ve got a plan. Courtesy of Lucy.” She ducked low along the hedges until she reached the tap at the side of the porch. She forced it open when the ice threatened to fuse it shut. She grabbed the hose and hauled it toward the yard, spraying water at the fire. The flames hissed and sputtered. Water clung to the snow in icy rivers. Solange shifted slightly, her dark hair falling over her shoulder. Gasoline stung the air, dripping from the end of her braid.

Orange light flickered behind Aggie and she smelled more gasoline; this time it was burning.

“Down!” Cal shouted a warning. Aggie dropped, twisting to the left. A flaming arrow flew past her right shoulder, singeing her sleeve. Cal leaped, moving so quickly her eyes stuttered to see him. He was a whirl of pale eyes and pale teeth clad in shadows. He plucked the fiery arrow from the air before it could slam into Nicholas.

“Trap,” Nicholas croaked, fighting the lingering compulsion of the Hypnos. “Get out of here.” His eyes flared as he tried to move toward Lucy, but his body wouldn’t respond.

Another arrow sliced the air.

Aggie aimed the hose toward the back shed where the arrows were coming from. She turned the nozzle until the spray was a thin sword of ice water. There was a muffled shout and the farm dogs began growling and barking. They snapped at Fletcher’s legs, forcing him out of hiding.

He was soaked and surrounded but he still had another arrow nocked to his bow. He held the tip down over a small fire burning in the metal barrel Lucy used to collect rainwater for the vegetable garden. It was partially hidden behind the shed, the light blending into the Christmas bulbs strung everywhere.

“Gandhi, Van Helsing, stay,” Paige snapped. If they attacked Fletcher, he’d release the arrow and everything would burn.

“Yeah, you keep them off me,” Fletcher said harshly. His hand trembled faintly. He hadn’t planned on getting caught.

“You were wounded,” Aggie said, trying to hastily connect the dots before they turned into grenades and exploded in all of their faces. “I saw you. Cal saved you.”

“A necessary evil,” Fletcher said. “To keep my cover intact. Until we were ready.”

“We?” Keep them talking, Yen would have told her, until they’re distracted, and then move in for the kill. You only need a second. Of course, she’d been talking about vampires, not humans.

“Whitethorn,” Fletcher said. The facade of the meek, quiet boy fell away. Fire traveled slowly along the hidden ropes. They burned blue, hissing as they seared through the snow. “It took me ages to get myself sent to this stupid farm. But it was worth it. Now I can take out the Drake bitch, as well as her brother and everyone else who stands with them.”

“So you’re nuts, then,” Aggie said calmly. Cal was behind him, moving silently and steadily.

“I’m saving us all.”

“By becoming a serial killer?” she mocked, trying to keep his focus. Cal had nearly reached the edge of the circle. A few more steps and he’d be close enough to drag Nicholas out of the way. Solange and the others were still out of reach. She needed to buy Cal more time. And she didn’t think she could spray the arrow with the hose fast enough to extinguish it before it left the bow. “Way to be a hero.”

“And you put the blame on Aggie,” Paige added, the fury in her voice not entirely a ploy. “You left that note. You killed Kali.”

“I needed you guys out of the way. I didn’t think you’d find her so fast.”

“Gee, sorry to ruin your murder plans,” Aggie muttered.

“You should thank me. You went soft. So I turned you back into a weapon.”

“You hid behind her,” Paige spat. “Asshat coward.”

“And you attacked Cal that night at Conspiracy Theory. So it would look like I did it,” Aggie guessed. “And you framed Mary Walker last year too, didn’t you? You sick bastard.”

“Maybe you two could stop taunting the guy with the fiery arrows,” Catelyn snapped from the shadows. “I’m not keen on going up in flames right now.”

Cal was so close.

“You planted Yen’s stake,” Aggie realized slowly. Reason fled like a rabbit. “And her necklace.”

“She was one of us,” he said. “Whitethorn. But you’re just a disappointment.”

“You used her against me. Oh, I’m not just going to hurt you,” she said pleasantly, even as rage tinted everything red for a brief searing moment. She suddenly understood vampire bloodlust a little bit better. “I’m going to end you.”

“Cal,” Fletcher snapped, just as he reached out. “Stop. Or I’ll shoot Nicholas.”

“You’re going to shoot him anyway.”

“But if you take another step, I’ll shoot Aggie first.”

“Well, shit. You’re trying to make me the damsel in distress,” she said. “You really are an asshat.” Her fingers cramped around the hose, cold and slick with icy water. “Don’t listen to him, Cal. He’s going to kill us regardless,” she told Cal. “We’ve blown his cover. How long have you been doing this, anyway?”

“Long enough that you can’t stop me.”

Solange moved again, eyes veining red as she struggled to break the chains of the Hypnos. Lucy looked like she was trying to meditate, her lips moving around the word “om.”

“Fletcher, you can’t take us all on alone.” Aggie reminded herself to try to sound reasonable, but she was usually on the receiving end of pacifying lectures. She’d rather pummel Fletcher into the ground. Lucy was right. Giving them wasn’t any more fun than getting them.

“I don’t have to,” he smirked. “Because I’m not alone. Not for long.”

“Incoming!” Cal yelled the warning just as Whitethorn hunters burst into the yard.

Crossbow bolts glinted like deadly sleet. One of them narrowly missed Aggie’s ear.

On the plus side, if Fletcher loosed his arrow now, he’d kill his own hunters.

Aggie flung the hose away, rolling low to avoid getting stabbed, staked, or otherwise turned into a human pincushion. She knocked Lucy off her feet, out of the trajectory of the flying missiles.

Beside her, Catelyn clotheslined a hunter across the throat. “I don’t even like vampires,” she complained, as he gagged, stumbling back. “Sorry, man.” He still kicked her in the knee and she fell, screaming.

“Stay down,” he barked at her.

“You first,” she barked back. “This is our farm.”

Lucy was the first to break free of the drug.

“Om, you bastards!” she yelled, swinging a punch at the hunter. He flew back into the snow, nose broken. “Damn, Mom was right,” she muttered to no one in particular. “Meditation works.”

She stood over Nicholas even as Solange fell out of her trance and into a forward flip. She kicked a hunter away from Kieran. Nicholas soon whirled into motion, blocking Lucy from a flung stake. He caught it and flung it back in one smooth flick of his arm. It caught the hunter’s right arm, leaving a raw, bleeding cut. Blood dripped into the gasoline-soaked snow.

“Everyone get out of here,” he ordered. Kieran was already shoving Paige and Catelyn away from the area. Noah threw a hunter into a cedar hedge.

Flames raced up a pine tree, popping the glass lights. The edge of Lucy’s coat began to smolder. Black smoke wreathed her. Nicholas dove for her, covering her with his body. He shoved handfuls of snow over her until she slapped at his hands. “I’m fine,” she repeated until he finally heard her. “Nicholas, I’m fine.”

In the chaos, Fletcher bolted.

Cal went after him, blurring between the trees. Before her brain could interrupt with habit and training, Aggie followed at a dead run. She was dimly aware of the sounds of the fighting behind her. She didn’t know what kind of weapons Fletcher had rigged through the trees, but Cal was already pinned to a tree by a bolt through his left shoulder. Blood soaked into his shirt. His fangs were out and there was a circle of red around his sky-blue pupils.

Fletcher lifted his crossbow, smiling. Cal didn’t say a word. Even in excruciating pain, he was silent and patient. She knew he could see her.

She could be Yen’s little sister.

Or she could be Aggie.

She stepped forward even as Yen’s training began its regular loop in her head. She used her body as a shield, turning to face Fletcher.

“Aggie, get out of here,” Cal snapped, struggling against the bolt. It was soaked in holy water, the flesh around it raw and bubbling.

Fletcher tossed her a disgusted look. “I really thought you might be one of us some day. Now look at you. Begging for a vampire’s life.”

“I’m not begging,” she said, catching a glint of the tinsel in Paige’s hair. “I’m telling you to back the hell off.”

“Or what?” Fletcher sneered.

“Or this.”

The arrow caught him in thigh, just above the knee. He howled, dropping his crossbow to clutch at his bleeding leg. “You shot me!” he moaned.

“Yeah,” Paige said, emerging from the shadows. “And I’ll do it again.”

“But I’m human.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re not a monster,” she snorted.

Aggie turned to face Cal.

Stake him while you can. Vampires always go for the kill. Don’t hesitate. Heart, throat, holy water.

“Shh,” Aggie murmured to her sister’s ghostly voice, yanking the stake out. Cal hissed in pain, jaw clenched tight. She stepped back.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

They stood in the snow, staring at each other.

“If you don’t kiss him right now, I’ll never forgive you,” Paige muttered, turning away. Fletcher was still moaning. “And you shut up, you’re ruining the moment.” She punched him in the face and he keeled over. “What?” she said to Aggie and Cal. “I don’t have any rope to tie him up with.”

Cal still hadn’t moved. Aggie knew he was waiting for her to make a decision. Or she could walk away now. She could do something she thought was right, even though Yen would have thought it was wrong.

Was she brave enough for that?

She leaned toward Cal, a scant inch of movement and then his hands were in her hair and his mouth was on hers and the kiss held them together on the longest night of the year. Warmth tingled up her spine. He kissed her slowly, softly, until she made a sound of impatience in the back of her throat and yanked him closer. She said everything she didn’t know how to feel, never mind speak, in the press of her lips. And she knew that Cal, being Cal, understood.

And when a plume of fire shot into the sky, gilding the pine trees and the clouds heavy with snow, she almost didn’t notice. The smell of charred wood and gasoline drifted on the hot wind. A cedar hedge crackled as it burned.

“Hey, you two, you set the forest on fire,” Paige grinned. “Hot.”

The snow around the stone fire pit had melted away to mud and grass. Lucy, Nicholas, Solange, and Kieran stood on the edge with Catelyn, who looked more comfortable with the fiery explosion than sharing the company of so many vampires. When she saw Aggie’s hand in Cal’s she sighed, disgusted. Paige reached for his other hand out of spite, and grinned.

Lucy’s hair was wet against her neck and there was blood on her sweater. The flames turned everything gold. Several hunters lay trussed up like Christmas turkeys at her feet. Kieran used his cell phone to call a unit in to collect them.

Lucy linked arms with Solange, and they both smiled strangely nostalgic smiles.

“Yup.” Lucy grinned. “Just like old times.”

Craving more ALYXANDRA HARVEY?

Don’t miss the start of a romantic new trilogy, The Lovegrove Legacy, about three cousins discovering their hidden powers . . . and the impact they have on the high-society world around them.

Read on for a sneak peek!

www.bloomsbury.com

Prologue

1814

Breaking into a dead woman’s house was easy work since she rarely complained.

Breaking into a dead witch’s house was a different matter altogether.

You were as likely to come across some bit of wandering magic as a weeping relative pacing the floor. When a witch died, many of her spells unraveled and the results were unpredictable at best. Moira might get lucky and the house wards would break first. On the other hand, Mrs. Lawton’s ghost might push her down the stairs.

She’d have to risk it. One-Eyed Joe wanted what was inside, even if he didn’t know it yet. And the old lady’s body would be hauled off to the cemetery tomorrow. Moira had no intention of becoming a grave robber.

Moira stayed crouched on the roof next door for over an hour, watching carefully as a household lamp was carried from room to room. The gargoyle on the corner of the Lawton house was draped in black bombazine, like the mirrors inside would be. Mourning extended to all parts of the house, and the ghost was expected to protect its family while the gargoyle slept.

Finally, the lamplight floated upstairs. She waited an hour after it was extinguished, just to be safe. She wished she had Strawberry with her, but her friend was off on another job. And if she took one of the boys they’d want the bigger cut just for being there. Even though Moira had been stealing things to sell at the market since she was nine years old, and some of those boys barely had a year under their belts.

She hopped over the gap between the roofs and slid down a drainpipe to the parlor window on the north side of the building. It was customary to leave it open for the spirit to pass through. Moira didn’t mind sharing with a ghost; she was used to sharing the rooftops with vampire pigeons, rats the size of hedgehogs, and Nigel the snorer. She left a muffin on the sill as an offering. Mrs. Lawton might have preferred wine or sweets as many spirits did, but Moira only had one lemon-drop candy left and she wasn’t about to give it up for a dead woman with no taste buds.

She wiggled inside, grateful poor girls didn’t have to wear corsets, and Madcaps didn’t even have to wear dresses. Her trousers were frayed in one knee and two sizes too big, but they were comfortable and allowed her to move in ways that would have snapped the spines of soft aristocratic girls.

The house smelled like whiskey, cheap lamp oil, and a dead body. There was no odor of lemon balm, which was a relief. Warlocks smelled like lemon balm, so she knew for sure that she was stealing from a regular witch. Warlocks just weren’t worth the risk. They were ruthless in life and worse in death.

Moira paused, waiting for her vision to adjust to the gloom and assessing her surroundings. The protective eyes painted on the thresholds and over the lintels were draped in black material, just like the gargoyle had been. There was the usual assortment of chairs and trinkets. She didn’t know how people lived in such close quarters with so much clutter. She hated the feeling of being inside a building, without a view of the sky or seven different escape routes at all times. Moira’s feet burned, the way they always did when she was courting trouble. She tried to ignore it, reminding herself the walls were soft enough to kick through, if worse came to worst.

She knew the upstairs had two rooms and the attic was full of mice. She’d sent her familiar inside earlier in the day, just to be sure. Having a cat as a fetch was infinitely more practical than the wolves and eagles the fancy witches coveted. They might be more romantic than an alley cat, but you couldn’t exactly send your wolf-familiar into the body of a real wolf in London to any reasonable purpose, could you? Cats, on the other hand, were everywhere and rarely noticed.

A scrawny russet tabby with a bent ear leaped out of Moira’s rib cage. The fiery pinpricks in her heels subsided to a low warning itch. The first time she’d felt Marmalade leave her body, Moira had thrown up. And then spent the night crying because she thought she was going crazy. One-Eyed Joe found her and fed her mint tea and told her stories about witches and magic. He’d taught her to avoid the Order and never sell to a warlock without a disguise and that her familiar was her closest ally, literally created out of her own magic.

Marmalade swiped at her leg with a ghostly claw. Blood welled on the scratch.

“You know, Strawberry’s familiar is a little white mouse. She brings her flowers.” Marmalade knew full well that Strawberry’s familiar was a mouse; keeping the two apart was a constant struggle.

Magic clung to the cupboard on the wall and billowed like pink steam out of a teapot. Old lady Lawton was a tea-leaf reader and she’d protected the tools of her trade and the magical artifacts in her home from tampering and theft. Luckily, Moira wasn’t interested in those.

She crept forward to the dining table. It was covered in a white sheet on which Mrs. Lawton lay in her best dress. Her gray hair was curled and a silver brooch was pinned to her collar. Moira left the pin even though it would have fetched a decent price. It wasn’t what she was after and it felt rather rude, considering.

She gently pried Mrs. Lawton’s eyelids open. They felt like stiff paper. Her right eye was cloudy and vacant, her left perfectly clear and blue as cornflower petals.

The glass eye of a blind witch three days dead.

She popped it loose, trying very hard not to hear the vile popping sound it made when it came free. She tucked it into the pocket of her striped green waistcoat, refusing to gag.

She placed a coin over the eye socket, as payment. It wasn’t stealing if you paid for it. And, if you believed in the old stories, you had to have a coin to pay your way to the other side. She hoped it would appease the ghost long enough for Moira to slip out the window.

It wasn’t enough.

Mrs. Lawton’s spirit sat straight up out of her body and screeched.

“Thief! Thief in the house!”

“Bollocks!” Moira jumped a good foot into the air and then stumbled back against the wall, gasping. Bloody ghosts. Marmalade hissed, fur rising like a boot brush. When no one came running to investigate, Moira released her breath.

Mrs. Lawton didn’t drift forward like pollen or moonlight or any of the things poets claimed. Ice skittered over the floorboards as she slammed into Moira, mouth opening wide to show rotted teeth. Her breath was toads and mushrooms and mildew.

Moira clamped between her teeth an iron nail she’d dug out of a rafter. The iron helped, but it didn’t banish Mrs. Lawton completely. The ghost’s hand closed around Moira’s throat. Her touch burned even as frost filled the space between them.

Mrs. Lawton shouldn’t have been able to do that, even as a recent ghost. There were wards over London. Locks on mystical gates and portals. Binding spells. The Order.

Mrs. Lawton didn’t seem to care for any of those fail-safes.

And for a dead old lady, she packed quite a punch.

Moira’s feet felt branded, as if she didn’t already know she needed to get out of here. Now. She was weak as boiled turnips. Her vision started to go gray and blotchy.

Marmalade knocked the teapot over. The handle cracked ominously.

Mrs. Lawton turned her phosphorescent head so quickly her neck snapped.

Marmalade batted the teapot as if it were Strawberry’s mouse, rolling it closer and closer to the edge of the sideboard. Mrs. Lawton’s grip loosened. She ground her teeth so savagely, one fell out and corporealized when it hit the ground.

Marmalade flicked the teapot once more and as it tumbled, Mrs. Lawton lunged for it, momentarily forgetting Moira. Moira scooped up the dead woman’s tooth and tucked it next to her glass eyeball before diving out of the window. She scampered up the first drainpipe she found, flattening herself onto the roof to catch her breath. Her black hair tangled around her, catching in the shingles. A neighbor thundered out of his door in his nightshirt.

When Marmalade jumped up beside her, Moira rolled over onto her feet, brandishing a dagger. The cat calmly licked her paw. Moira let out a shaky laugh. “That did not go as planned, Marmalade,” she said. “Let’s go home.”

She walked the ridge like a circus girl, balancing lightly and keeping her chin high. When she reached the edge she turned right, intending to head home.

Pain gnawed at her, as if her boots were full of angry bees.

She stumbled to a stop, cursing. She wanted to go to her favorite summer rooftop made of slate tiles that held the heat pleasantly. There was even a spot of thatch she’d used to plug up a hole that made for a fine pillow. She kept excellent care of the roofs, as all Madcaps did. A leak meant ladders and repairmen and sometimes the Order’s Greybeards with their spells and pointy swords. But without a reason to look up, most shop owners didn’t have the time to bother, at least in the East End.

It was different in Mayfair, where rooftops were spelled to keep Moira and her kind away and gargoyles crouched, stuffed with magic. Madcaps had long learned the trick of pacifying gargoyles, if nothing else. And anyway, Moira preferred the East End. Home was home, whatever it smelled like. And however many hungry, crazy ghosts roamed.

And it was safer here, so long as she kept to the chimney pots and the shingles. Mrs. Lawton couldn’t follow, not while her body still lay in state. And the other Madcaps left symbols scratched into the tiles, warning of unsteady roof timbers, vermin, Greybeard patrols, and recruiting men. They were even worse than the ladies who came with baskets for the poor and pamphlets about the dangers of living on the street. As if any of the street urchins, Madcaps, or regular orphans ever chose St. Giles or Whitechapel because it was the better alternative. Just ask her brother.

Before the Order had caught him.

A flock of vampire pigeons circled overhead, sending children below shrieking for cover. Moira wasn’t worried. Madcaps never fretted over the pigeons. They’d trained them with bloody leavings from the butcher stalls at Leadenhall market. It was one of their few weapons against the Greybeards and even occasionally, the ordinary night watchmen. London was not kind to the poor or the supernatural.

She preferred to control her own life even if it meant sleeping wrapped around a chimney pot for warmth. Dirt and cold rain didn’t scare her, not like having her essence trapped in a Greybeard’s bottle.

And she didn’t particularly like Mayfair, which was fine since its inhabitants loved it enough for everyone.

Which made her wonder why she was now running toward it.

But she’d learned, even before Mrs. Lawton, that when the bottoms of her feet itched the way they did right now, she ignored them at her peril. The last time she’d ended up dodging the nightwatch for an hour and a half after she was caught with a handful of stolen pocket watches. The Order might claim you, but the nightwatch could clap you in irons and shuffle you into a poorhouse. She shuddered at the thought and kept running, her trousers rolled above her ankles and her boots marked with sigils for speed. She stayed well south of Newgate prison, raced past courtesans waiting outside the theater on Drury Lane and along the Strand to Pall Mall.

All because her toes itched.

The alleys between buildings widened. She left the shops that tilted together like dandies holding each other up after drinking themselves sick. She ran until the worn shingles turned to copper flashing and marble columns. The clubs and shops were made of white stone, gleaming like bones. She wanted to stop on one of the flat roofs to catch her breath, but pain stabbed up her ankles and all the way to her knees when she paused too long.

It only receded when she kept moving, kept running, and only toward Grosvenor Square of all places, all mansions and columns and balconies. A single mansion could have taken up an entire block in Whitechapel. They were fit for aristocrats and royalty, not Madcap girls dressed as boys with pockets full of stolen goods. The gargoyles became elaborately carved art in rose-colored stone and marble, not river clay fired in a coal grate. They still stank of magic though, that curious mixture of fennel seeds and salt.

She kept running, though she didn’t know why.

Until she turned around.

She slid down the pitched roof of a window overhang and dangled off the edge, her fingers cramping as she struggled to hold on. Not precisely an improvement.

But what could you expect from magic that made your feet itch?

The sigils painted on her boots gave her cat’s feet on the rooftop, but they weren’t enough to make her fly. Not only were her arms screaming, but if someone happened to look out of the window, she’d be hauled off to prison as a housebreaker. Gritting her teeth, she swung herself like a church bell, back and forth, back and forth, until she’d gained enough momentum to let go. Flying, it turned out, felt a lot like falling. She hit the steep roof of a stable, landing with a painful thud that made her wince. The neighbor’s poodle began to bark.

All around her came the cracking of stone and the splintering of shingles. She heard it even over the clatter of carriage wheels on the street below, the restless horses in the stable, and an orchestra playing music for the fancy folk. They danced while overhead, the magic wards they didn’t even know protected them, broke.

Gargoyles of all shapes and sizes, all sneers and smiles, deserted their posts. A few crumbled to dust but most—too many—launched off roof points, dormer windows, and rain spouts. They took to the air, the stretch and flap of their wings leathery and brittle. They cast off pieces of shingle and stone all over London. Moira had never seen anything like it.

With the gargoyles gone, the rooftops weren’t safe.

London wasn’t safe.

Chapter 1

It was the most boring event of the Season.

Emma was promised dashing young gentlemen in starched cravats dancing until dawn, and kisses in dark gardens. Instead, there were only whiskered old widowers in creaking stays who smelled like lavender water and arthritic cream, and more wallflowers than seats. As if being a wallflower wasn’t bad enough, being forced to stand in uncomfortable shoes that pinched while debutantes cast her pitying glances—and the few young men cast her none at all—was so much worse.

She longed for the forests of Berkshire and the stars overhead. She stifled a yawn since her chaperone, Aunt Mildred, would lecture her all the way home that yawning was neither pretty nor polite behavior. Neither was tapping one’s foot to the music, eating too many pastries off the buffet table, or laughing loudly. In short, anything remotely amusing. Worse yet, Gretchen was hiding in the library and Penelope was in the garden with the very handsome and muscular Mr. Cohen. Penelope somehow managed to consistently flirt with social scandal and skip away unscathed. But that left Emma alone, once again.

If only Lord Durntley would trip on his way to ogle Lady Angelique’s bosom. If only he’d crash into the footman and toss the tray of custard tarts so it could land on Lord Beckett’s abysmal toupee.

If only something interesting would happen.

She leaned against the wall, even though young ladies weren’t supposed to lean, slouch, or otherwise bend. With nothing left to distract her, she took the small bottle out of her reticule, winding the ribbon around her finger and letting the candlelight shine through its murky depths. It was rather strange-looking to be jewelry and didn’t appear to contain any kind of perfume Emma would ever want to smell, let alone smear on her wrists, but it was the only thing she had of her mother’s. She carried it as a sort of talisman.

She’d only actually seen Theodora Day, Lady Hightower, three times in her entire life. Three identical Christmas mornings at their country estate, chaperoned by the housekeeper, five footmen, and a great-uncle she hadn’t seen since. Each time, her mother sat in a chair by the window, staring at the woods, pale as the snow outside. She hadn’t even blinked when Emma approached to sing her a carol. She never spoke, except to scream the one time Emma tried to hold her hand.

Four debutantes drifted Emma’s way, giggling and trailing chaperones and admiring younger sons of earls and viscounts. “Lady Emma,” Daphne Kent simpered formally, even though their families were friendly and they’d known each other since they were children. Now that they were out in society, they were meant to acknowledge each other with long boring titles and curtsy and talk about nothing at all. “What a unique bauble.” Her eyes sharpened. Emma had no idea why. She’d never been interesting to Daphne, and likely never would be.

The other girls, Lady Lilybeth Jones, Lady Sophie Truwell, and Lady Julia Thorpe curtsied a greeting, perfectly in unison. They wore identical white dresses, ornamented with beaded ribbons and ostrich feathers in their hair. Emma curtsied back, barely stopping herself from rolling her eyes. Gretchen wouldn’t have stopped herself at all.

“Isn’t it just a lovely ball?” Sophie smiled. “I vow, I’ve never seen such beautiful roses.” There were enough yellow roses in the ballroom to sink a ship. Their scent mingled with perfumes, hair pomades, and the melting beeswax from the candles.

Emma stifled a sneeze. “Lovely,” she agreed.

“Did you hear? Belinda has had an offer already!” Lilybeth squealed as if she couldn’t help herself. “From Lee Hartford!”

Julia glanced away, mouth tightening. “She’s only sixteen.”

“Don’t be jealous,” Daphne said. “You’ll get your chance. Anyway, he’s only a baron’s second son. Your father should look higher.”

Lilybeth tittered. Sophie looked sympathetic. Emma just blinked. It was as if they were speaking a foreign language.

“Pardon me,” Julia murmured before walking away, the pearls in her hair gleaming. Her hands in their elbow-length gloves were fists at her sides.

“Never mind her,” Daphne confided. “She’s quite desperate. She fancied herself in love with Lee. Worse, she fancied him in love with her.”

“You’re positively wicked,” Lilybeth said.

“Hush,” Sophie added. “We’ll be overheard.”

Daphne, for all her fluttering eyelashes and simpering smiles, looked smug. Until she realized the young men were watching, and then she blushed prettily. Emma felt bad for Julia. The other girls turned to look at her expectantly. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to get married. She didn’t want to poke fun at others to be noticed. She didn’t want to wear white dresses, as expected of all debutantes in England. She simply didn’t fit. She never had.

“I think Julia’s very nice,” Emma said finally, just to fill the silence.

Daphne shook her head on a sigh. “Let’s go, girls,” she added, pityingly. They moved off like a flock of geese, whispering and giggling. One of their beaus trod on Emma’s foot as he hurried to follow and didn’t notice enough to apologize. Emma gave serious consideration to tripping him. Especially when he jostled her hard enough to make the ribbon slip off her wrist.

The perfume bottle fell to the floor. It broke in half, leaking thick fluid that smelled like rot and roses. A crystal bead rolled out, coming to a stop against her foot. She stared down at it, annoyed. “That was my mother’s,” she snapped, but he was already gone.

She bent to gather the pieces. One of the shards sliced into her left thumb, drawing blood through the thin silk of her glove. Around her, a country dance was in full swing, polished shoes squeaking, and skirts flouncing. Aunt Mildred searched the floor for her and her cousins. If Emma crossed the room in order to make her way to the library to hide out with Gretchen, she’d be caught. She needed a quiet corner. For some reason, holding the broken pieces of her mother’s perfume bottle made her want to cry.

She eased backward until she was mostly hidden by the potted palms. She slid along the wall until she came to the nearest doorway and then stepped into the relative peace of the hall. A silver candelabrum filled with beeswax candles burned on a marble table. The soft, humid scent of orchids and lilacs drifted out of the conservatory. She pulled off her stained glove so as not to instigate one of her aunt’s mind-numbingly dull lectures, and practically dove into the indoor garden.

Extensive windows and a curved glass ceiling held in the warmth and moisture of hundreds of flowers. The marble pathway wound around pots of daffodils, lilac branches in glass vases, and banks of lilies pressing their white petals against the windows. She tried to see the stars through the ceiling but mist clung to the glass, obscuring the view. Instead, she contented herself with wandering through the miniature jungle, listening to the faint strains of a waltz playing from the ballroom.

It wasn’t all she heard.

The soft scuff of a shoe had her turning around, frowning. “Is anyone there?”

She thought she caught a shadow, but it was gone before she could be sure. It wasn’t the first time since her coming out that she’d thought someone was watching her. Only it didn’t just feel like being spied on.

It felt like being hunted.

It made no sense. Who would bother to spy on her? She was the seventeen-year-old daughter of an earl. She was barely allowed to visit the chamber pot without a chaperone. Nothing interesting ever happened to her.

Shivering, she reminded herself not to be a goose. There were a hundred reasons why someone would walk through the garden room and not want to be seen. Like her, they might be hiding from a chaperone. Or more likely they were looking for a private place to steal a kiss. That was why there were so many strict and tiresome rules about proper behavior; no one wanted to follow them in the first place.

Thumb throbbing and still holding what was left of her mother’s keepsake, Emma forced herself to go deeper into the scented shadows. If only to prove to herself that she wasn’t one of those girls who were afraid of every little thing.

Although sometimes, fear was the only logical response.

And not only because the ground lurched under her feet, as if it had turned into the deck of a ship in a storm. She grabbed the nearest table to steady herself. Pots of orchids rattled together. The room lurched again, making her belly drop. Her ears popped. A vase of calla lilies tumbled to the polished floor and shattered. She felt as if there was ice melting off her, or invisible chains falling away. It was the strangest thing.

But still not as strange as a girl stumbling out of the leaves, covered in blood.

Chapter 2

She crumpled before Emma could reach her.

The girl’s brown hair fell in ringlets out of its pins, dragging on the ground. Her eyelids fluttered. Emma thought her name was Margaret, but couldn’t recall for certain. They’d made their curtsies to the queen together last month, wearing ostrich feathers and ridiculous court-ordained panniers.

Now she was wearing blood.

Emma dropped to her knees beside her. “Where are you hurt?”

Margaret moaned, managing to open her eyes. “I don’t know.” She jerked suddenly and began to weep. “Feels like the time I fell out of a tree when I was little. Broke my collarbone.”

Emma gingerly pushed her hair off her shoulder, wincing at the bump protruding under Margaret’s pale skin. “You’ve broken it again. The earthquake must have knocked you off your feet.”

She shook her head. “No, there was . . . can you feel it? It’s so cold.”

Pain must be confusing the poor girl. And no wonder. Blood filled the hollow of her cracked collarbone and dripped down her arm, soaking into her gloves. It looked worse than it had just a second ago. “I’ll get help.” Emma leaped to her feet.

She rushed down the path, clutching the hem of her gown so it wouldn’t trip her up. “I need a doctor,” she called out, sliding the last few feet along the slippery flagstones. She could hear agitated voices in the ballroom. “Someone help—” She crashed into a man just inside the door, partially obscured by ferns. He caught her in his arms, steadying her.

“Not that way, love. The tremor knocked a candle into the curtains. Ballroom’s on fire.”

She recognized the voice and stifled a groan. “Not you,” she muttered.

Anyone but Cormac Fairfax, Viscount Blackburn, heir to the Earl of Haworth.

They hadn’t said more than a word to each other in months, not since that night in the gardens when he’d kissed her. The next week he’d gone away to school and refused her letters and turned away whenever she entered the room.

She still had a fierce desire to kick him.

He’d recently turned nineteen, and was tall with strong shoulders under his navy blue coat. His cravat was simply knotted and blindingly white under a severe jawline. His dark hair was tousled, and his eyes narrowed with disgust. She’d hoped he’d gotten ugly since she’d seen him last, at Lilybeth’s dismally boring birthday celebration.

No such luck.

He was just as handsome, just as lean, but the edge of danger was new. She wished it was unattractive. He raised an eyebrow and looked ready to make some pithy comment when he noticed the blood on her thumb. He seized her wrists. “You’re hurt.”

She squirmed in his grasp. “I am now,” she said, trying to break free. “Let go.”

He was too busy staring in horror at the broken perfume bottle she was clutching. She had to admit the odor was unpleasant but it didn’t deserve that kind of reaction, surely. Especially not with wisps of smoke starting to drift out of the ballroom behind him.

“Where did you get that?” he asked, oblivious to the danger.

“Never mind that,” she snapped. Didn’t he know how fast fires could spread? “There’s an injured girl back here. We need to get her out.” She yanked out of his hold, throwing him a dark glance over her shoulder. “Are you coming or not?”

He followed, grim-faced as the corridor filled steadily with smoke. The flickering of the fire in the ballroom seemed to have a curious violet hue. She thought she smelled lemon balm and fennel seeds.

Margaret had managed to push herself up into a half-sitting position. Her cheeks were clammy, her eyes red with tears. “I smell smoke,” she said, coughing.

“It’s all right,” Emma said with more confidence than she felt. “We’ll get you outside and with all the smoke someone’s already fetching a doctor, I’m sure.”

“What’s your name?” Cormac asked.

“Margaret York.”

“Gently then, Margaret,” he murmured, bending to scoop her into his arms. She gasped when the movement jarred her collarbone. “Sorry, not far now.” His comforting smile died when he glanced at Emma. “The door,” he snapped.

She yanked it open, glaring back at him. If he hadn’t been holding an injured girl, she might have thrown a potted orchid at his head. He carried Margaret outside, laying her carefully in the grass. He took off his coat and placed it over her for warmth.

Smoke crept out of the ballroom windows like dark snakes. The lawns were crowded with frantic guests. A gentleman in old-fashioned buckled shoes fainted. Footmen raced about, opening doors and sweating under their powdered wigs. The light was too bright at the windows, the smell of scorched silk wallpaper and paint wafting out. More footmen raced from the kitchens with buckets of water.

“I have to help with the fire,” Cormac said to Margaret. “But you’ll be fine.” He turned to Emma. “Can I trust you not to get into any more trouble?” he asked acidly. She’d never seen him with a temper. He was usually draped over some girl or another, smirking.

They both watched him go, his white shirt tight over the muscles of his arms and back.

“He’s divine,” Margaret murmured.

“He’s a prat,” Emma returned. Margaret just smiled. “I have to make sure my cousins are out,” Emma added. “And fetch that doctor for you. Will you be all right here?”

“As long as I don’t move,” she assured her through gritted teeth.

Emma went right through the hedge, not bothering to go around it. She found Penelope standing on a bench by the fountain looking disgruntled. Mr. Cohen was nowhere to be seen. “Have you seen Gretchen?”

Penelope shook her head. “I was looking for you.”

“She’s probably still in the library then.” They went around the side of the house. Gretchen was always in the library. Not because she loved novels the way Penelope did, but because it was the only decent place to hide. She loathed these affairs and when she couldn’t avoid them, she snuck away as soon as she could.

“I hate this ball,” Penelope muttered, sounding more like Gretchen than herself.

Emma cupped her hands around her eyes, peering through her reflection into the shadowy rooms of the Pickford mansion. Penelope climbed into the bushes and did the same. The bite of smoke covered the usual smells of Mayfair: horses and roses. “I’ve found her.” Emma tapped on the glass.

On the other side, Gretchen poked her head around a bookcase, frowning. She appeared to be holding a pink dog. She pulled open the window. “What on earth are you doing out there?”

“Didn’t you feel the tremors?” Emma asked.

“A few tremors require you both to stand in the rosebushes?”

“The house is also on fire,” Emma added. “You might have noticed?”

“It is?” Gretchen sniffed deeply. A warning bell rang from the front door, alerting the watch and the neighbors. If the wind picked up, the fire could spread throughout the city, ravenous and pitiless. Gretchen handed the dog to Emma, before hiking up the hem of her ball gown and sliding out of the window. Beside her, Penelope raised her eyebrows. “What is that? Candy?”

“It’s a dog.”

“If you say so.”

Gretchen patted it absentmindedly. The dog licked her nose frantically. “I don’t have biscuits,” she said. “You look like a tea cake. Honestly, I’m embarrassed for you. And I hope you bit Lady Pickford for doing that to you,” she said conversationally.

Smoke drifted between the trees. “If only it would rain,” Emma said.

The sky opened overhead like a broken water jug. Rain pattered over the roof, soaked their dresses and tangled their hair like seaweed. In moments, the gardens were a maze of ruined silk, mud, and slippery stone. A balding duke slid on his perfectly polished shoes right past them and into a hedge. A dowager who usually limped on a diamond-studded cane gathered up her hem and darted over the lawn, her wrinkled knees bare. Prim Aunt Mildred was shouting something about the apocalypse. Footmen passed buckets to one another, emptying the ornamental pond.

“Doesn’t this seem rather odd?” Emma asked, frowning. Earthquake, fire, Cormac. Something wasn’t right. She worried at it like a loose tooth.

Gretchen snorted. “I’m holding a pink dog. Odd doesn’t quite cover it.”

“Daphne just fainted,” Penelope pointed out, crossing her arms so her dress wouldn’t cling to her figure. Her grandmother would never forgive her the impropriety. Her parents wouldn’t care; they rarely came out into society. The other fashionable girls in their thin white gowns were soaked through, corsets, ribbons, and legs outlined in great scandalous detail. A young lord tripped over his own foot when he turned and saw through Emma’s wet dress. Penelope shifted to cover her, glowering at him so fiercely he hid behind a tree.

Gretchen tilted her head as chaos continued to boil around them. “Daphne is playacting,” she said dismissively. “And not very well, I might add. Who faints in such a comfortable position? Not to mention she ought to have toppled right into those rosebushes if gravity was at all involved.” She sighed. “And that footman is barely strong enough to hold that kind of bucket. He’s doing it all wrong.” She thrust the wet dog at Penelope. “Here, take the tea cake, would you?” She dashed away toward the struggling footman. “Lift with your knees, not your back, muttonhead!”

Emma watched her go, resigned. Gretchen would now classify this as the best ball they’d ever attended since she’d avoided the actual social gathering in favor of hauling buckets of water and battling a fire. In the rain, no less. Gretchen loved the rain. Emma was less enamored with it. She pushed her soggy hair out of her face where it clung uncomfortably to her forehead. At least it would help stop the fire from spreading. Already it seemed less virulent, its burning jagged teeth easing from bite to nibble.

“I suppose we ought to help,” Penelope said dubiously. She spotted Mr. Cohen cowering under the cover of an elm tree. “That tears it,” she muttered. “Let’s, shall we?”

Emma followed her gaze. “I thought you liked him.”

Penelope glanced away, her cheeks red as berries. “Not anymore.”

She scowled. “What did he do?”

“Nothing. It’s not important.”

“Penelope. I’m wet and cold and perfectly willing to shove him into the shrubbery.”

“He called me fat.”

Emma hissed out a breath. “I beg your pardon.”

“It’s nothing, really.” She forced her voice not to wobble. “He embarrassed me, is all.”

“Think how embarrassed he’ll be when I wrap his smalls around his fat head.”

Penelope, feeling decidedly more cheerful, had to drag Emma toward the burning house, where they stood uncertainly at the edge of a line of shouting men. Someone broke the window from inside the ballroom, glass cracking into the hollyhocks. Smoldering drapes followed, coiling like a smoke-breathing serpent.

“Why does Emma look like she’s swallowed a bee?” Gretchen asked when her cousins pushed their way toward her.

“Mr. Cohen called Penelope fat,” Emma replied.

Gretchen’s smile died. “Did he, now?”

Penelope now felt perfectly vindicated and couldn’t quite recall why she’d let Mr. Cohen hurt her feelings in the first place. “It’s nothing.”

“I hope he wakes up swollen like a balloon,” Gretchen muttered.

While her cousins stewed and plotted painful vengeance involving Mr. Cohen swelling to such proportions that all the buttons popped off his evening wear and he ended up naked in the ballroom, Penelope couldn’t help but admire the parade of half-dressed men under a flash of lightning. “Well, now,” she grinned appreciatively, wounded pride utterly erased. “There should be more fires, don’t you think?”

“What?” The sight of Cormac in his shirtsleeves, the wet fabric clinging to his muscles was particularly distracting. Emma felt compelled to stare, as if under some sort of spell. She blinked rain out of her eyelashes when Cormac went blurry. She had to remind herself that she’d sworn to hate him. She turned her attention back to the buckets sloshing from hand to hand, until her fingers cramped. Smoke stung her eyes and seared her throat.

“And I had no idea Tobias was so well-muscled, did you?” When the rain faded to a patter in the leaves, Penelope pouted. “Drat. What a shame. If we’re not all going to die horribly in flames, I’d rather like to see more shirtsleeves.”

Emma was still wondering why the sight of Cormac lifting heavy buckets and wiping mud off his face made her feel so peculiarly warm. Even her toes in her paper-thin dancing slippers were hot. She must be catching a fever from standing out in the storm. Cold water spilled down her dress but she barely noticed. The rest of her was burning with sweat and screaming muscles. She didn’t look up from the endless parade of heavy buckets until Gretchen came out of a cloud of smoke, grinning and covered in soot and dirt. “Fire’s nearly out.”

The rain started to fall again, the wind pushing it mostly toward the house. The cousins remained relatively untouched, darting under the widespread boughs of an oak tree.

“Should rain be able to do that?” Penelope asked, perplexed. “Not that I’m complaining but . . .” She shook her head. “Do you think someone slipped laudanum in the lemonade? Because this is turning out to be the strangest night.”

The pink dog leaned against Gretchen’s ankles, looking miserable. She bent to scoop him back up into her arms so they could shiver together. The guests became a river of silks and wilted cravats pushing toward the waiting carriages.

“I need to find the doctor,” Emma remembered.

“Why?” Gretchen looked instantly concerned. “Did you burn yourself? You should have left the buckets to me.”

“I didn’t get near enough to burn myself,” Emma assured her. “But a girl was hurt during the tremor. She’s broken her collarbone.”

“I thought I heard someone say the doctor was with the ladies near the hideous cherub statues,” Gretchen said. “They sent someone to fetch him as soon as the curtains caught fire. I’ll get this dog back to Lady Pickford, after I inform her the fire was no doubt penance for abusing this poor thing with pink fur and ridiculous ribbons,” she added, spotting Lady Clara self-administering smelling salts.

“I’ll get your Aunt Mildred to the carriage,” Penelope added to Emma before picking her way through the wet grass.

Covered in mud and soot, Emma went in search of the doctor. She found him surrounded by pale ladies clutching smelling salts, and a footman with a nasty burn on his forearm. His shirt was charred into tatters. She told the doctor where Margaret was waiting and then returned to join her so she wouldn’t have to wait alone. The main path was currently congested with girls in various states of dismay, both feigned and unfeigned, surrounded by attentive young gentlemen eager to help. Cutting through the garden seemed the path of least resistance.

She really ought to have known better.

She’d already had every indication that the night was an unmitigated disaster. She wasn’t sure what made her assume the worst was over. Chronic optimism, perhaps.

Or chronic madness.

It did run in the family, after all.

About the Author

ALYXANDRA HARVEY is the author of the Drake Chronicles— Hearts at Stake, Blood Feud, Out for Blood, Bleeding Hearts, Blood Moon, and Blood Prophecy—as well as the standalone novels Haunting Violet and Stolen Away. Alyx likes medieval dresses and tattoos and has been accused of being born in the wrong century—except that she really likes running water, women’s rights, and ice cream. She lives in an old Victorian farmhouse in Ontario, Canada, with a few resident ghosts, her husband, and their dogs.

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@AlyxandraH

Also by Alyxandra Harvey

Read the Drake Chronicles

from the beginning . . .

Ruling Passion—includes Hearts at Stake,
Blood Feud, and Out for Blood

Find out more about the Drakes at
www.alyxandraharvey.com

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The passion continues with three original
e-novellas featuring your favorite characters
from the DRAKE CHRONICLES . . .

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Copyright © 2013 by Alexandra Harvey

All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published in the United States of America in December 2013
by Walker Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.
www.bloomsbury.com

For information about permission to reproduce selections from his book, write to
Permissions, Walker BFYR,1385 Broadway, New York, New York 10018

ISBN 978-0-8027-3773-1(e-book)

Table of Contents

- Cover
- Title Page
- Contents
- December 2015

- A Breath of Frost

- Prologue
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2

- About the Author
- Also by Alyxandra Harvey
- eCopyright