That's why I didn't see the stake Cyrus had pulled. My gaze was focused on the Soul Eater's face as it changed, his fangs as they pierced Cyrus's skin.

So I screamed, "He killed your stepmother!"

The Soul Eater paused. I couldn't stop talking. "He pushed her into the fire. He was the one who killed her."

The Soul Eater actually withdrew, as if to apologize. He saw the stake in Cyrus's hand and raised his arm to strike him.

Cyrus was faster. He kicked his father's feet from beneath him. Jacob landed hard on his back and couldn't recover before Cyrus pinned him with a foot to the chest.

"You killed her?" His face contorted in rage. "You killed her?"

"She was a worthless cow," the Soul Eater wheezed. The sound of his ribs slowly crunching under Cyrus's foot was followed by a gurgle of blood from his mouth. "And now, I'll send you to join her!"

He planted his feet on the floor and sprang up, grabbing Cyrus's arm. But he grabbed the wrong one. It took only a second for Cyrus to implant the stake firmly in his father's chest.

I braced myself for the whoosh of wind and the violent storm of ashes that was sure to follow. But nothing happened. The Soul Eater's shout of pain died into sinister laughter.

I thought of Cyrus's heart, how he'd kept it in a box.

I thought of my own heart in its casket in Nathan's bedside table.

The Soul Eater's hand closed around Cyrus's neck. He lifted him off the ground with one arm and wrenched the stake from his chest, releasing a spurt of blood.

Then, without another word, he stabbed Cyrus in the heart. There was no rush of wind, no spectacular flame. Cyrus's second vampire life ended in an inconsequential burst of ash.

Crippling pain gripped me, almost exactly what I'd felt when I'd sired him. But that pain had been a sort of stitching together. This was an agonizing rending of the fabric that had bound us. And the last thing I heard through the blood tie was his scream of terror.

I collapsed to the floor at the same moment the Soul Eater did. He clutched his chest as though his hand could stop the blood that poured from him. A ball of blue flame shot upward from the wound, but still he didn't burn.

"It's not his heart," Nathan whispered, staring in horror.

The doors flew open. Dahlia rushed in, screaming.

Kill me. Let her kill me. When it seemed I couldn't stand another second of the pain, it doubled, tripled, multiplied into oblivion. I stared at the spot where my fledgling had stood, rocking with my knees drawn up to my chest.