Ronald’s eyes darted frantically in their sockets. His chest moved with shallow, rapid breaths. He was clearly terrified but had no way of getting away.
Claudius’s fangs extended. He leaned in slowly, deliberately drawing out the moment as if he was savoring Ronald’s fear.
The bite itself was almost gentle, given the scene itself. Claudius’s fangs made two neat punctures before he began to feed from the terrified man.
Ronald’s eyes went glassy. His breathing hitched, then steadied into a slower rhythm. The trance kept him upright, kept him frozen in place while his blood drained into Claudius’s mouth.
Ant forced himself to observe rather than react. The vision was a documentary of events. He didn’t feel Ronald’s pain and had no way of feeling the horror Ronald was going through. His job was to witness, nothing more.
After thirty seconds, Claudius pulled back. Blood stained his lips, and he licked them clean with obvious satisfaction.
“Excellent vintage,” he said conversationally, as if discussing wine. “You can taste the fear. It adds a certain...complexity, I believe you would call it, to the flavor.”
Edmund laughed as Claudius bent to feed again.
The vision should have ended there. It wasn’t possible for a vampire to drain a person’s blood completely. There was a certain point where there just wasn’t enough blood left in a person’s system to power the heart, and the body automatically shut down. Ronald’s death would break Ant’s connection to the event, releasing him from the reading, and Ant could feel that moment approaching.
But something was wrong. Just as Ant was sure he would see Ronald’s body slumped over the desk – which was surely the next part - the visionstutteredand then restarted.
Ronald sat frozen at the desk, pen in hand. Footsteps in the hallway. The door opened without a knock.
No.
Ant tried to pull back, to break contact with the scene, but something was holding his consciousness hostage - as if it was him who was being held in a thrall, which was completely impossible for a magic user of his abilities to be. But somehow, the magic interference in the room had wrapped around his vision like chains, holding him inside the loop.
Ronald turned in his chair. “Lord Raven, I wasn’t expecting…”
“Mr. Finch. Burning the midnight oil, I see.”
The conversation played out exactly as before. Every word and action in the scene was completely identical to the first time Ant had seen it.
“I insist you stay.”
The trance locked Ronald’s body. Claudius tilted his head, exposing his throat. Edmund made his comment about proper send-offs. Claudius fed, pulled back, fed again.
Then the vision stuttered and reset.
Ronald at the desk. Footsteps. The door opening.
“Lord Raven, I wasn’t expecting…”
Ant’s mind screamed in protest. His gift had never trapped him in a loop before. Every single time he’d done a scene reading, he was shown the past once, and one time only, before it released him. But the wards around the room were interfering somehow, twisting his magic into something completely haywire.
The vision played through again. Ronald’s fear. The trance. The feeding. Claudius’s laughter.
Reset.
Again.
Ronald turned in his chair. “Lord Raven, I wasn’t expecting…”
Every loop dug the traumatic event deeper into his mind. Ant tried to catalog details, worried he might have missed something, and that was why his magic was playing up, but the repetition was eroding his ability to separate the observer from the observed.
“I insist you stay.”
Ronald’s eyes, wide with terror. The pen falling. Claudius’s fangs.
Reset.
