Rosalind’s stomach lurched.

Aurora stared at her. “It’s just an expression.”

“I won’t touch them.” Rosalind nodded at the casket, her skin growing cold. “I didn’t know vampires actually slept in coffins.”

“Most don’t. I just thought it was kind of cool, so I made a coffin. Only they’re not so good for shagging.” Aurora cocked her head. “I’ve never seen Ambrose take such an interest in a human before.”

“I didn’t enjoy his interest. He seemed a little off-key.” Insane, really. Then again, everyone here was obviously slightly mental.

“He’s six hundred years old, so he’s a little old school; that makes him different. Like, when he was a kid, there was nothing to play with but a wooden circle and a hoop. Public executions were entertainment in those days. But he’s sexy as hell, and he’s always been good to me. And if anyone messes with him, I would feast on their heart.”

Rosalind tried to force a smile. “Another vampire expression?”

Aurora blinked. “No. That was literal. Anyway, he said I’m supposed to be hospitable and shit. So what do humans drink?”

“Water is fine.”

“We don’t have that here.” Aurora rifled around on the desk, bottles clinking. “I know!” She unscrewed a cap from a bottle labelled whiskey, pouring it into a silver goblet, then decanted a measure of blood for herself, topped with whiskey.

She handed Rosalind the bloodless goblet and gazed at her, raising her own. “To the dark side.”

Rosalind lifted her drink. “To the… whatever.” She didn’t want to be rude, but she wasn’t about to toast to the dark side. She took a sip, and the whiskey burned her throat.

“You know,” Aurora said. “Vampires aren’t as bad as everyone thinks. People think that we’re horrible monsters, but we’re not really. We’re just like regular people.”

Right—apart from all the slaughtering, and walls made of human skulls. Rosalind scanned the room, and her eyes landed on something that churned her stomach: fingers poking out from below a pile of clothes on the floor. “Is that a human hand?”

Aurora turned and snatched a severed hand from the floor. “Oh, yeah.” She looked up at Rosalind, her face a picture of innocence. “But he was a very bad person.”

Oh gods. Do I really have to spend the night in here?

“Are you hungry?” Aurora asked. She dropped the hand on the desk and rummaged through the papers, pulling out a half-eaten Snickers bar. “We don’t really eat food, per se, but I took this off the severed-hand guy. He didn’t look like he had any diseases or anything, so it’s probably fine.”

Rosalind’s mind spun like a cyclone. She didn’t belong here, yet she’d willingly plunged into a city of the dead. Maybe the demented witch’s spirit had compelled her to do it. Either that, or she was a first-rate idiot like Caine had said.

Whatever the case, Rosalind was desperate for human company right now—even the evil kind. “Where is Caine?”