I’d forgotten about thepartyalready. I swallow hard. “Where?”
“Inverness Castle,” she says. “You’ll need a red dress and…” She hesitates. “You’ve stopped taking your supplements, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” I say.
“How did Aliz Astra react to your blood?”
I stare at the river, water reflecting the grey sky. “Have you asked the dean the same question?” I ask and hear an aggravated sigh across the line.
“No, Rebecca. I haven’t.”
“She’s gotten used to it,” I say, ignoring my mistrust. I don’t want to talk about Aliz with her. I don’t want to hear Penny say her name ever again. “I’m fine.”
I spend the rest of the day working on the map. I sit at my desk, an empty cup of coffee at my side as I try to line up the tunnels I’ve drawn so far with the hedges of Ada Astra’s maze. I have a picture on my phone, not the best quality, but it’s clear enough. At one o’clock, the coffin in my room creaks open. Aliz crawls out in an unceremonious manner, practically falling as she fights with the lid of her coffin. She yawns into her elbow before glancing over atme.
“Tonight’s the night,” she says, looming behind me. Her sleep shirt is half open, with just a few buttons keeping it closed, and I try my best not to look at her. Her hands rest on my shoulders, kneading my skin through my jumper. “You’re so tense,” she adds. One more day of this. If I finish the map tonight, this torment, this hyperawareness of her, will finally be over.
But I don’t finish the map.
As much as I try, twisting the page and trying to jam Ada Astra’s hedges into the circle, there are still gaps that don’t fit, and worst of all, with each new line, I find myself getting more and more tired, my exhaustion mixed with dread. Monday’s mission will not be like my previous trip to Inverness. As the day goes by, Penny sends me more information.
My target is a vampire called Eugene Trellis. He is the organiser, roughly six hundred years old. Until now he has worked exclusively in Edinburgh, and this is his first foray into the Highlands. A note, between parentheses, says that he’s seeking to turn Inverness into anew “vampiric destination.” The party is a way for him to find investors for a club. So, it’ll be a show of wealth.
And power.
My hand achesas I scratch lines onto paper, searching for the quickest way to the centre, as though it’s no more than a puzzle, a mere diversion. Perhaps to Ada Astra it was.
“You can’t miss another Integration class,” Aliz tells me, just as I propose we continue our search. “How are we going to find the library if you get kicked out?” I can’t help but laugh at this. Now that I know the dean wants me here, I doubt I’ll get kicked out. But all the same, I go to class, listening to Clemence’s lecture on sixteenth-century vampires and their impact on modern feminism.
All through the class, Aliz’s name flickers across my phone’s screen, random messages popping up in our shared chat. If Stephan sees them, he doesn’t say anything, extremely focused on the lecture.What does pizza taste like?she asks, followed by,What do you think would happen to a vampire if they went to the moon? ShouldIgo to the moon?
And all through her nonsense, I try to not smile, taking notes instead.
After dinner, Aliz and I head down into the tunnels. If I’m right about the maze, if it really is a map, tonight might be the end of our search. We’ll find the library andThe Book of Blood and Roses,and the Familiar’s mark will finally vanish from my neck. The thought alone makes my heart race, but I try to stay calm. Aliz looks at the map, holding it carefully in front of her. In the middle of the chaos of the tunnels is the perfectly round labyrinth, with a red line tracing the quickest way to the centre.
She doesn’t say anything, but based on how she looks at me, I can tell she’s as hopeful as Iam.
Students turn to stare at us as we walk past them, and I wonder what they imagine we’re going to do down here. Slowly, the straight walls start to curve. The ground becomes flat.
We reach a tunnel with a wide opening and a staircase on one end that’s been bricked up. “That must be the tunnel to my sister’s place,” says Aliz. “The hunting lodge used to be connected to the campus, but a century ago it got bricked up to stop students from going there.” I swallow, thinking again of the ache of our proximity by her sister’s window. Her breath on my neck.
“I think this is our way in,” I say, indicating the two entrances separated by two Corinthian columns, with another two on either side. “If I drew it correctly, we should take the left one,” I say.
“Of course you drew it correctly,” Aliz says. “You’re a genius.”
I offer her a blank stare, biting my cheek to keep myself from smiling.
The first five tunnels perfectly match what I sketched, giving me a confidence boost. We’re finally going to find it, despite Ada Astra’s best efforts to keep it hidden.
Aliz starts to slow behind me, putting more distance between us, and I don’t have to ask why; when I last stepped into this maze, even if I didn’t know it was one at the time, the tunnels were just about wide enough for a single person. Now, if we walk side by side, our arms will be pressed together.
“Why are we stopping?” she asks, a slight strain in her voice. I don’t turn, afraid I might find red eyes boring into mine.
“This wall wasn’t meant to be here,” I whisper, staring at my map beneath the glow of one of the labyrinth’s candles. Aliz leans close enough to see the map, her arm pressing to mine.
“Did we take a wrong turn?” she asks. I glance up at her. Her eyes are black, reflecting the flickering glow of the lantern.
“No, but I must have missed a hedge.” I hand her the map and draw out my phone, trying to make sense of the shadowy lines from the picture. “Maybe we should have turned left,” I say, and as we do just that, we come upon another wall. It’s longer, higher, and, unlike the rest, covered with elaborate stone engravings—the same design I saw last time. Roses and thorns. Aliz grabs my hand.
