And then I see it, the stakes, sliding and blinking into the hands of the magicians in the boats closest to us. Even if there’s truth to what he says, these are not people who will sit idly by for a slaughter. They have all been in a kill-or-be-killed situation.

They all chose to kill.

There’s so much blood on everyone’s hands. I look around at their faces. Some are hungry for more. Some love this life, but others just look tired and grim. They’ll keep fighting because they think there’s no other choice.

“Wait!” I shout. “They’re not here to hurt us. All they want is Lucius. All they want is to end this.”

“And then what?” The voice is loud enough to match mine and angrier. I know it. Natasha’s pink hair is easy enough to spot in a boat near the shore. “We won’t have immortality anymore. How do you know that we won’t die?” She jumps off the boat, boots splashing into the water. “You don’t care, do you?”

“I don’t know what will happen, but do you really want to keep living like this?” I gesture behind me at all the pain and death. They feel trapped. Mom must have spent years feeling that way, but there’s always a choice—sometimes it’s just a dangerous one. I point at Numerius. “He’s a way out. We don’t need to fight. We just need to give him my father.” I turn to Lucius. It’s the first time I’ve called him that to his face, and I never thought I would, but I want him to know that I recognize what he is to me, and that because of all he’s done, it means nothing.

Voices ripple across the lake. I’m willing to stand against my own father. That has to mean something.

A gleam shines in Numerius’s eyes. “Father, did you say? How interesting…”

“I thought you were weak, not a fool.” Lucius glares at me, then shifts his gaze back to Numerius.

A slow smile spreads across Numerius’s face, and it reminds me so much of Lucius that I can picture them together, all those years ago, plotting for more power, their smiles slipping more and more from the joy of curiosity to something hungry and wicked. Something that turned them both into true vampires: not creatures who drink blood, but creatures who drink power.

I see my mistake: thinking for even a moment that one of them was better than the other, that something in Numerius had changed over the years.

Being immortal doesn’t let you grow.

All it does is let you lose pieces of yourself.

We’ve led him to a blood bank, and all he has to do is take it.