Page 87 of You’re So Vein

My interest is very definitely piqued.

“Excuse me? Have you forgotten how that man has been the bane of my existence literally since I moved back to Argleton? There is no possibility of our being together. I don’t have to be in love with him to know that he can’t be the killer.”

I should be happy that she’s sticking up for me and keeping my secret, but my stomach sinks. I was wrong to place so much hope in our two kisses. It must have been part of her game to win the election.

It hadn’t felt that way when her tongue slaked over mine, and she made that tiny, delicious mewling noise in the back of her throat. But Komal wouldn’t lie to her best friends about love, which means that there’s nothing between us—

“What’ll it be?”

I turn to face Lilac. She smiles as she recognises me. “Durant, nice win at the debate.”

“I appreciate your support. And your discretion.” Lilac is a younger vampire than me – I was there when she was first introduced at Dusk Court. There was some controversy around her Siring, but I was too involved in my relationship at the time and my sister’s upcoming rites to pay attention. I rarely paid attention at court unless it had to do with the gardens.

I’d been surprised to run into her in Argleton – the first vampire other than Alaric, who never left his castle – and worried that she might figure out what Hannah was, or that my family did not simply decide to leave court on a whim and disappear. But Lilac has never said a word about our life at court, so I’ve given her the same courtesy. We occasionally share a glass of blood together. But I haven’t done that in a long time. It means leaving Hannah at home while I go out and enjoy myself, and that feels wrong.

It’s interesting that the coven is looking at her as the husker. If she’s been husking vampires, I can’t understand how she can control her hunger in this very room, where the scent of blood is thick in the air. But then again, Upyr believe all sorts of things about Dhampir that aren’t true. Perhaps the stories of huskers aren’t all truth, either.

“Tonight we’re serving a di Sangro special.” Lilac’s purple-tipped fingers turn the label of a bottle towards me. “He’s Gideon’s favourite sommelier. He brought cases of the stuff.”

I screw up my face as I set down the goblet Gideon gave me. “Do you have anything that doesn’t come from that cretin’s cellar?”

She taps her chin, considering. “I have a dusty bottle of Mother Superior out back. It’s from a Midnight Court sommelier – very exclusive, small-run batches. Gideon’s been saving it for a special occasion.”

“You’re a saint.”

Lilac leaves, returning with a dusty bottle that she presents to me before pouring us each a glass. She passes her fingers over the rim, and her lips part slightly as she whispers what I recognise as a Dusk incantation.

“Enjoy.” She flashes me a meaningful look as she slides my glass across the bar.

Curious, I sip. Lilac’s voice echoes inside my skull.

Hello, Augustin. I have to resort to a Midnight Murmur because this whole place is swarming with supernormal hearing. I think the Nevermore Coven suspect the husker is here tonight, which is why they’re acting squirrelly. I trust you and Alaric to keep them safe. I trust Gideon with nothing.

But also, there’s something you need to know. I understand you’ve chosen the story that, after your father lost his seat on the Conclave, your family decided to leave court abruptly and live in obscurity. That’s a lie – I know it, you know it, and someone else in this room knows it, too.

The night your whole family vanished, your parents ordered their rooms closed off, citing privacy for Isabelle’s Kiss. There was some chatter around court that something else was going on, that your father was experimenting with forbidden magic, and that was why he’d been kicked out of the Conclave. I was a new vampire myself, with unfaltering belief in my new immortality and curiosity about magic, so I snuck past the guards to see for myself what shenanigans the great mage John Durant had concocted. But instead, I saw Dante di Sangro sneaking out the window of a Durant bedchamber, and he was covered in blood.

When you all disappeared, the rumour was that John’s spell had got away from him, but I always remember the blood on di Sangro’s clothing. And then you showed up here, alone, or sometimes with that child, and you never talk about them or Isabelle…

I never told you before, because it seemed like something you didn’t want to remember, and I respect any vampire’s right to privacy. But now that di Sangro is here, with the husker still at large… It feels important that you know. That’s all. Don’t forget to tip your bar wench.

My blood goes cold.

Dante di Sangro, a high priest of Dusk Court, who had once been important to me before he bitterly opposed my father’s position on the Conclave and Isabelle’s Kiss, had been in the room the night my parents and Isabelle died?

What possible reason could he have had to be there?

Does that mean he knows about Hannah?

And what if… what if Hannah hadn’t killed my parents, after all? What if she isn’t the monster from the Upyr myth who tears open her mother’s womb? What if Dante killed them all and left Hannah alive to take the blame?

I thought Dante’s warning about Kael was a sign that he was trying to repair what he’d broken. But this…

Maybe our one tentative ally in the Conclave delegation is really a cold-hearted killer?

35Komal

Mamma: I’m taking Papa to the specialist tomorrow afternoon because he’s still feeling fatigued. Preeti wants to know if you can go to the boys’ parent–teacher interviews because she doesn’t know where their classrooms are. I said that would be fine – you’re such a whiz at all that. Don’t worry about your father, he perked up when I mentioned my new brilliant idea – you invite the Michelin-star people to visit his shop and try the pakoras. You can make that happen, can’t you?