The robin’s heartbeat pulsed through the silver dish like a trapped moth, frantic wings brushing against my palms where they rested on the desk. My daughters leaned over the scrying pool, twin shadows rippling across water that wasn’t water, but a mirror. Through the bird’s eyes, I watched wisteria buds tremble above Serafina’s head as she lingered beneath the pergola, blissfully unaware of the hexed hawk circling overhead.
“Now,” Amabel hissed.
Wind stirred the edges of my hair as their combined magic surged—air currents carrying the hawk lower, talons glinting with our little curse. The Withering Veil had been Eluned’s idea, all spite wrapped in elegance. Charming.
Casimir moved first.
Not a flinch, not even afalterin his steps as he moved in front of Serafina and caught the talons on his forearm.
“No.” Eluned’s chair screeched across the floorboards as she kicked back from the desk. “No, no,lookat her! She’s fine!”
“The curse took.” Amabel didn’t lift her gaze from the shimmering surface. “You saw the spark.”
“Inhim, nother!” My younger daughter raked manicured fingers through hair that still carried the scorched sugar scent of her latest glamour potion. “He didn’t even let her hear him scream. What’s the point of suffering if she doesn’t know he’s bleeding in her place?”
Ah, youth. Such a limited palate for cruelty.
Through the robin’s gaze, we watched Koa pierce the fallen hawk’s heart, as perfect a thrown dagger as ever I’d seen. Zane darted around, plucking cursed feathers before Serafina even saw them.
“You’re certain the curse made contact?” I asked, knowing full well it had.
“It did!” Eluned threw herself into an overstuffed chaise, skirts pooling like spilled wine. “Wasted on a dhampir.”
Amabel’s reflection in the scrying pool sharpened, a predator spotting weakness.
“See how quickly he healed the wound?” Her finger drew a slow circle above the mirror, rewinding the hawk’s final moments. “No blisters. No bleeding. No discoloration. As if the curse rolled right off.”
I let silence stretch until their squirming became palpable. Until Amabel’s shoulders tightened and Eluned’s toe began tapping an uneven rhythm against the rug. Only then did I lean forward, letting lamplight catch the witchfire burning behind my eyes.
“Tomorrow, we’ll scour the Rosu genealogies,” I said.
Amabel opened her mouth, perhaps to argue that she’d already considered this angle, then snapped it shut at the brush of my thumb over her knuckles. A spider’s caress. A queen’s command.
“This is dull.” Eluned slumped deeper into the cushions. “Let’s send a banshee next time. Or a shadow wraith. Something withpropertheatrics.”
“And risk alerting the entire vampire court?” Amabel’s laugh held edges enough to draw blood. “You might as well hang a sign announcing ‘Dark Witches At Work.’ ”
Their bickering faded to static as I studied the dhampirs through fractured moments—Koa methodically scraping our hawk into a bucket, Zane searching out every fallen feather, Casimir distracting Serafina in the distance. He should’ve staggered under the Veil’s kiss. That he didn’t suggested possibilities.
“He reacted too fast,” Amabel said.
“He’s adhampir,” Eluned groaned. “Everything about them is supercharged, and the oldest is—”
“No, nothim.” Amabel’s nail tapped the mirror’s edge where Koa’s blade still gleamed. “Thequietone. He didn’t wait for orders. Didn’t hesitate. Just killed.”
“You think he enjoys it?” A shiver ran through Eluned—the good kind, the kind that precedes midnight mischief. “Killing?”
“I think he doesn’t trust magic to finish what steel can,” Amabel retorted.
Their heads bent together, twin crowns of ambition and idiocy. Through the remaining sliver of the robin’s vision, I watched Zane pause mid-step, red hair catching sunlight as he glanced toward our spy. Clever boy.
“The redhead knows,” I pointed out.
“Should we make him scream?” Eluned perked up.
“He’s already screaming.” Amabel leaned closer to the fading image. “Look at his hands.”
Zane’s fingers flexed at his sides as he glanced at Seri, a telltale twitch.
