She took the knife. And then she plunged it into her own body, and with her own hands tore out a small, weaker version of the creature that had existed within Magnus’s shell. It shrieked in high, thin tones that made Claire’s ears ring, and then Amelie’s cold white fingers closed around it and squeezed with remorseless strength.

It died.

Silence.

Amelie’s shell cracked like glass, and the liquid flooded out of her, too, in a black gush … and underneath lay her vampire body. Horribly shrunken, covered in black spots like mold, but still there. Unconsumed.

The real Amelie, the Founder of Morganville, looked a thousand years old, and she collapsed in a heap like a skeleton held together by nothing but string.

Oliver grabbed her, pulled her away from the blackening spot of the decaying draug, and held her in his arms as he sank down in the far corner of the room. Her eyes were open, but filmed and blind. He fumbled for the sleeve of his leather jacket and yanked it apart with one sharp move, baring a pale, muscular forearm covered with red marks that Claire recognized. Draug stings, in the shape of hands. Amelie had been feeding on him.

And now he was ripping open his wrist with his teeth and forcing her lips apart, giving it to her freely.

It seemed to take ages for her to move, but she finally did, raising her gray hands and taking hold of his arm. Claire had seen vampires feed when they were starving; they wouldn’t let go. Couldn’t.

But it wasn’t like that. Amelie’s touch stayed light on his arm, and after a moment she pushed his wrist away. She still looked awful, but the film was off her eyes, and there was a little more of her, as if the blood had inflated her dehydrated tissues. Still a mummy, but able to blink, move, and speak.

She said, “Let me die, Oliver.”

“No,” he said. There was no real emotion behind it, just a straightforward denial, as if she had asked to borrow a dollar. “You’ve won. You killed him before your transition was complete. You’ll heal.”

“I won’t,” she whispered. “I can’t. There is part of me—”

“You’ll heal,” he repeated. “I’ll hear no more of this. You are the Founder, you will heal, and everything else can be dealt with. Your subjects need you, my queen.”

“I have no subjects. I am no queen.”

Oliver smiled. It wasn’t a good thing. “You have been, and will be again. There’s nothing to fear. You’ve won, Amelie. Your enemies, at your feet.”

She smiled back a little. “You were my enemy once. I never laid you at my feet.”

“Not yet,” he agreed. “But for just now, there will be a truce. It’s a new age. A bright new age for vampires.”

Claire moved, and both of them immediately focused on her, and she wished she hadn’t. There was something shining and predatory about their eyes.