But he blinked, and spoke in an altered tone, like an impatient teacher scolding a student who is slow to learn. “Best hurry, kitten. You should not have woken me with blood, for the masters crave it and will come seeking it the instant its scent reaches their grasping claws. As it will.”

“I thought my sire was the only master. You serve him, but surely you don’t feed him with your blood.”

“The hunter takes souls, not blood. It amuses him to keep me, because of my knowledge of the law. I was not sacrificed to the courts. Instead I was imprisoned in this terrible state, head separated from body.”

“Yes, I met your body in my sire’s palace.” I shuddered, remembering the way Bran Cof’s headless body had stumbled to serve his master’s bidding. With a gasp, I raised a hand to my mouth. “Blessed Tanit! What terrible thing might my sire do to Vai?”

“You know nothing about the courts and your sire, do you?”

Lowering my hands, I took a threatening step closer. “Tell me what you know!”

His sneer turned mocking as he looked me up and down in a most intrusive way. “For each kiss you give me, kitten, I’ll tell you a secret.”

I lifted the shard of glass. “Tell me what I want to know, or I’ll smear my blood all over your face for the courts to suckle dry!”

His lips pulled back in a horrible grimace, yet he also laughed with a slightly hysterical rasp. “You know not of what you speak, girl. The spirit courts crave mortal blood, for blood gives them protection from the tides and allows them to sustain their power. You cannot challenge them.”

“We shall see about that!”

It wasn’t until the latch clicked down that I realized I heard voices. It was the work of a moment to hide myself in shadow as a servant showed two men into the room.

Lord Marius and Legate Amadou Barry had come looking, just as Bee and I feared. They did not see me, nor did they notice that Bran Cof’s eyes were tracking them, because Amadou Barry walked straight to the tall windows so he could look out over the rose garden, and his brother-in-law followed him without looking around.

“Whenever I enter these halls, I think of her,” Amadou Barry said on a heaving sigh as he tapped the glass with the knuckles of one hand. “I know I saw her on the street, Marius!”

Lord Marius laughed. “Be warned! Your balls will wither if you praise her cherry lips and golden hair in my hearing.”

“She doesn’t have golden hair! It is as black as a crow’s wing. Her glorious hair falls like a riot of curls down her back, for a riot is surely how the thought of her affects my heart.”