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"You don't wish for this curse, lassie."

"Curse? How is turning into a giant bear that can rip your face off a curse? That would help me out a lot right now. Can you, like, bite me or something? Turn me into a bear?" she says. "Is that why you put your teeth around my neck back at the Council cave?"

"'Council cave?'" I repeat, unable to hold in my astonished laugh. "It's not a cave."

"Looked like a cave to me. Smelled like a cave to me. Looks like a cave, walks like a cave, talks like a cave, is a cave. Now, can you bite me or not?"

"Don't fucking say things like that," I tell her, growling and pushing away from the bar. I can smell her from here, even under all of the dirt caked on her body and filth she accumulated in the tunnels under the city. "Don't fucking talk about me biting you."

"Jesus Christ, fine."

"I think it's best you go to bed and we finish this conversation in the morning."

"I'm hungry," she says. "I don't want to go to bed on an empty stomach."

"Then go to the fucking kitchen and find yourself something."

And with that, I storm out of the room.

Because the other option, if I don't leave right now, is I'm going to give in to what she said, and I will bite her. That will seal the bond between us the minute I taste her blood. The magic will bind our souls together. And then it will rip my soul apart when the Eternal Society wins again and takes out Midnight House for another century or two.

And I won't be around to give a fuck.

All because Vivienne told me to bite her. In the fucking library of Midnight House.

Six

VIVIENNE

"This is going to ruin the tour," I intone miserably to the bar.

Sighing, I turn around, setting my elbows on the cool marble counter. And my mood immediately improves, because my God, this library is absolutely incredible. Two stories of bookshelves filled to the ceiling. An area in the domed rotunda set up with cozy-looking armchairs. A fireplace on one wall, now empty, sure to make the entire room even more spectacular on a crisp fall night.

And now I can afford to read for fun. Not just for school, not just for research.

My mouth twists to the side as I remember the last thing I have time to do right now is read for fun. In fact, I should probably comb my way through this library, see if I can find anything about these rituals or about the other houses that apparently have it out for me. But why? Why would they want to take out House Midnight?

Power, obviously, is the most obvious answer. Some sort of way to consolidate whatever power the remaining houses hold away from House Midnight.

"At some point House Midnight must have been a major threat," I say out loud.

And I feel the key in my pocket—warm, nearly shocking me into dropping the water I've been left holding. And then the weight of it lightens considerably.

I take that as a hint and tug at where the key resides. It's no longer a key. I pull out a thick sheet of paper and blink in surprise.

It's a library card. Well, no, that's not the right word, because it certainly isn't a library card in the sense that I'm going to take it to the public library and use it to check out books. But a small, old-school Dewey Decimal System card.

It's yellowed with age, but the serif typewriter-style font is still crisp and black against the cream.

"366.092," I read out loud, tracing the call number, "and 623A: Annales Constantis Perpetui et Domus Noctis."

"Annals of the Perpetual Council and House Midnight," I say the translation out loud slowly, then quickly realize my mistake.

"Nope. Wrong translation," I mutter, tapping the card. "Because it's not 'Perpetual Council'—has to be the Eternal Society that Lachlan was talking about."

An illuminated manuscript on vellum appears.

Nice. It's too bad I don't have any gloves. I raise my eyebrows, half expecting the card to turn into a pair of white curator-style gloves to protect the old manuscript, but nothing happens.