“You’re much better at this than I would’ve thought,” Raihn whispered in my ear, several hours later. He snuck up on me—the sensation of his breath against the crest of my ear sent a shiver over my skin, leading me to take a big step away from him.
“It wasn’t very hard,” I said.
“Still. I give you points for even trying it. Feels like a very different kind of move for you.” He nudged my arm with his elbow. “Daresay you’re evolving, princess.”
“Your approval means so much to me,” I deadpanned, and Raihn’s laugh sounded like one of genuine delight.
All night, I had been working on getting Evelaena as drunk as possible, and I had been very, very successful. Raihn and I stood in the corner of the ballroom, watching her spin around in circles with one of her child nobles, laughing hysterically while the child’s face remained that of porcelain-still calm. The humans, now mostly drained, lay slumped over tables and against the walls, though a few of the children still crawled over them to lap at their throats or thighs. The Bloodborn remained clustered together, watching the scene before them warily, lazily sipping their blood.
“She,” Raihn said, “is going to be in a lot of pain tomorrow.”
“That’s the idea.”
There’s no one looser with secrets than a drunkard. No one easier to slip around than a vampire who needed to spend the next two days recovering from gorging themselves the night before, on blood or alcohol or, better yet, both.
“I loved the night after parties, when I was growing up,” I said. “They’d all be asleep and I could do whatever I wanted for a few hours. If she’s drunk enough, she’ll tell us what we need to know, and then she’ll be out of the way for the next day or two.”
“Sounds perfect.”
Perfect, so long as Evelaena was the only one we had to worry about. I still wasn’t sure that was the case. Lahor might be a city of ruins, but there had to be someone living here other than her.
“Have you seen anyone else?” I asked, voice low.
“You mean, other than the fifty-something golden-haired children in this room? No.”
We both paused, watching those children. They crawled over the bodies and grabbed at goblets, ignoring Evelaena’s wild flailing until she pulled them in and insisted they dance with her.
Even for vampires, their stares were so… still. Empty. And every one of them fair-eyed blonds.
“They’re Turned,” Raihn said, voice low.
I glanced at him. “What?”
“They’re Turned. The children. They’re all Turned.”
I looked at the children—lapping at pools of blood like stray cats drinking gutter water—with fresh horror. The suspicion had been there, in the back of my mind, but now that the thought had been yanked to the forefront… the horror of it rose up my throat slowly. With every second I considered it, it became a greater atrocity.
Born vampires aged normally. But children who were Turned would be stuck that way for eternity, both their minds and bodies frozen in eternal, crippling youth. A terrible fate.
“How do you—” I started.
“Have you tried to talk to any of them? Many of them don’t even speak Obitraen. Found one that only knew Glaen.”
Another wave of disgust. “She brought them here from the human nations?”
“I don’t know how they got here. Maybe she pays traffickers. Maybe some were shipwrecked. Maybe she gets some of them from her human districts. Hell, there are enough of them. Probably all those things.”
I watched Evelaena spin around the room gleefully, clinging to one of her child servants, who seemed to stare a thousand miles past her.
All the same appearance. All so young. And young forever, now.
My stomach turned. Raihn and I exchanged a glance—I knew we were both asking the same silent questions and both repulsed by every potential answer.
“Your cousin,” he said, between his teeth, “is a fucked up piece of work.”
I shook away my discomfort. “Let’s just get whatever the hell we’re here for and get out.”
I started walking into the thick of the party, but Raihn grabbed my arm.
“Where are you going?”
I yanked away from his grip. “Getting some information out of her before she passes out.”
I tried to pull away from his grip, but he tugged me closer.
“Alone?”
What the hell kind of a question was that? I expected my face to earn the usual chuckle and teasing remark, but he remained serious.