“Actually”—I swallowed—“do you mind if I join you tomorrow for tea? Or breakfast like we used to? I just . . .”
“Need some time to yourself?” Thea offered, concern still painted on her face with her pinched brows and pursed lips.
I nodded. Either I could lie through gesture as a vampire, or it was true enough.
“Very well.” She pulled me into another hug, though this one was brief, just a flash of warm contact that made me want to cry again. And cry even more with how I wanted to pull her in and listen to the pulse of her neck. “But I will be holding you to that. I’ll see you dark and early.”
She disappeared down the hallway. The soft patter of her footsteps didn’t fade for several minutes. I stayed outside my door for another beat, listening for any noise in Raphael’s chambers. But none came. Still, he must have been close if this damned fledgling bond didn’t hurt. Frustration licked at me, at the unnatural connection between us, but I pushed it aside. I had more important matters to attend to.
Slowly, I cracked the door to my own chambers.
I needed to get my grimoire.
I took a stepinto my room, shutting the door behind me, and froze.
The place appeared immaculate. No furniture broken. No blood staining the carpet. My dresser drawers were shut, the bed made.
But I could smell it. Beneath the cleaning products and fresh linens, there was an undercurrent of rot, a tinge of death no one would be able to wash away. It might not have been overpowering, but for a moment, standing there in the entrance, it was impossible to focus on anything else.
I would need new quarters. Ones as far away from Raphael’s chambers as this cursed bond would let me go.
I hope they let me keep the bed. The one Raphael had designed for me. The one I’d felt safe under after years of never being able to truly rest when I closed my eyes.
I shook the thought off.
The fledgling bond presented an obstacle, but it was temporary. If all went to plan, I’d be leaving this bed, this room, in a few days. If the bond lasted longer . . . living as the necromancer across the hall from Raphael would be foolish.
As the necromancer, I had a duty. A duty to make the world safer for witches and voids alike. A duty to make sure no more mothers were ripped apart in front of their daughters. Even if the order had come from the witch king himself, as Raphael pointed out.
I shook off the thought and went farther into the room, doing my best to block out the lingering smell of death.
I went straight for the grimoire’s hiding spot, where Thea had returned it in the chaos, reaching in to graze the leather cover with my fingers.
“Ouch!” I snapped my arm out of the drawer.
I looked at my fingers. The pads of my fingertips were bright red. The Black Grimoire had burned me.
Because I’m a vampire now?
But I was also the necromancer. This was mybirthright.
I didn’t let myself dwell on the possibility that becoming a vampire might somehow block my newfound magic. They’d once mentioned turning witches with magic was forbidden, so it stoodto reason my magic should remain. But the grimoire was keyed against vampires.
What was I going to do if I couldn’t even touch the spell book? How would I learn its secrets?
No. I wouldn’t—couldn’t—let this stop me. I pulled the drawer wide. By mistake, I used too much force and heard the wood creak as some mechanism snapped. What would have been a mildly hard jerk as a human had nearly destroyed it. I bit down on the inside of my cheek, trying to focus through the frustration. The emotions still hit me sharply, but they were a little more manageable now that I knew from Raphael it was due to my transition.
I exhaled through my nose and pulled a tunic out, one I’d worn to training. I wrapped my hand in it. Carefully, I knelt down once more and reached into the dresser. Through the fabric, my fingers didn’t burn.
I pulled the book out and grinned. The black cover was exactly as I’d remembered it, though even now it felt warm through the fabric in a way it never had before. Wordless whispers caressed my ears, a dark magical song I felt dance over the hairs on my arms. I shut the drawer as best I could with its now broken alignment and settled onto the settee with the book. Just having it near made me feel better, more confident in my path forward. It had chosen me.
My translation slipped out. I lifted the parchment, looking over my familiar scratched notes, as the words took on new meaning now that I knew what my role was.
This is the book of the necromancer.
This wasmybook.
The witch who alone serves Anagenni, they who control all who have perished.
