Ivy’s hunger was chilling. Recognizing my fear, she pushed herself into motion, going into the kitchen and my spelling supplies strewn all over creation. Nick backpedaled out of her way. Head down, she shuffled about, striding back to Peter with a cellophane-wrapped cotton swab. I would have at least watched to be sure Peter gave a gloppy enough sample, but DeLavine was moving again.

I pulled myself into a ball as he headed for me. Fingers grasping, I fumbled for Ivy’s sword, pulling it awkwardly out from where Jenks had let it fall. This was wrong, so wrong.

DeLavine gave me a raised eyebrow glance, then dismissed me as he picked up the artifact, sitting alone and vulnerable on the bedside table. He had looked at me, but it had been different. He had seen me, calculated the risk, and dismissed me, but this time he’d looked at me as a possible threat and not just a walking sack of blood. I wondered what had changed.

“This is it?” he murmured, casually moving out of the sword’s easy reach.

My fingers tightened on the hilt, but I didn’t think it was the blade that had him watching me while seeming not to.

Ivy came closer, the open cellophane-wrapped swab in her grip. She seemed to have regained control, only a remnant of her runaway hunger perceptible in her subtlest movements. “It will be destroyed with Peter,” she said, but DeLavine wasn’t listening, focused entirely on the ugly statue perched on the tips of his fingers.

“Such a wonder,” he mused aloud. “So many lives ended forever because of it. It should have been destroyed when it was unearthed, but someone got greedy—and now they’re dead. I am…wiser than that. If I can’t have it, no one will.” DeLavine took the thumb of his free hand and pierced the tip of his index finger. “Peter?”

“Yes, DeLavine?”

I held my breath as a drop of blood welled. With a careful attention, the undead vampire smeared it onto the statue. A shudder passed over me as it soaked in to leave a dark stain.

“Make sure,” DeLavine said softly, “that this gets destroyed.” He looked at me and smiled to show his long canines.

“Yes, DeLavine.”

With a confident satisfaction, DeLavine set the marked statue down. My lips curled as it seemed to me that the pain etched in the figure’s face was deeper. Turning with an exaggerated slowness, the undead vampire sent his gaze across the room, landing on Nick scrunched in the corner of the kitchen. “This is repulsive,” he said, and suddenly the room was. “A dirty little hole stinking of emotion. We’ll stay somewhere else. Peter, we are leaving. Audrey will make the arrangements to get you where you need to be come sunset.”

Audrey, I thought, glancing at the woman. So she had a name. I shifted my feet so he wouldn’t step on them, and he made his casual way to the door, snagging his coat on the way. Peter slowly rose, Audrey helping him with a professional grip that wouldn’t hurt her back. The ailing vampire met my eyes, clearly wanting to talk to me, but DeLavine took his other arm in a show of concern born from memory, not love, and escorted him to the door.