Adante said, “As you know, the Blood Clan has been having . . . difficulty maintaining a home base. Always so ostentatious, so loose with our laws.” He smiled around the room. “Present company excluded, of course. But on the whole, from Vlad Dracula on, our Blood brethren have been practically screaming for attention.”

A grumble of assent went around the room, and I had to concur.

Dracula. So embarrassing.

Not only did he have some pretty disgusting feeding habits, but also, he was a total nutjob—known for staking humans to prove they were as vulnerable to a spear of wood through the heart as we were—and much more susceptible to pain. Just, all around, not the best spokesperson for immortality.

Adante continued. “For centuries, we’ve been moving the clan from one continent to another, always seeking more remote locations. But this world is getting smaller, and there are fewer places for the Blood to dwell in anonymity.”

“I hear Antarctica is nice this time of year,” Lina drawled.

The Elder girl hissed at Lina, her fangs bared.

So, she was a Blood. I knew I didn’t like her.

“Unfortunately, the food in the Antarctic is in short supply,” Adante quipped. “And keeping the clan remote has made them difficult to police. It is time to settle the Blood Clan in a place where we can keep them under a watchful eye, and where better than a community where we already have such deep ties?”

I assumed by deep ties, he meant the old rock in the woods and the history lesson Sal had given us. Or maybe there was more. Maybe Madame Bissett was a fairy, and the guy who ran the barbershop a werewolf. At this point, very little would surprise me about Nowhere.

The Elder girl regained her composure but continued to shoot eye daggers at Lina. With effort, she added, “I must agree my brethren could benefit from close monitoring.”

Her Blood dialect was nearly undetectable. I wondered if she spent more time with the other Elders than with her own kin.

“But it is not our sole purpose,” she said. “The time comes to take what is ours.”

A flicker of candlelight shone in her black eyes, and in that gleam, I saw the black rock of the stone marker. The two sides carved with an equal claim.

“Primus interitus,” I breathed.

“It is a sacred place,” Adante confirmed, with a hand over his unbeating heart.

“Sacred,” the doe-eyed girl said. “But also completely boring and invisible.”

Lina bristled at the insult, and I was surprised to find Reg and myself prickling alongside her. It was one thing for me to insult Nowhere. It was another thing entirely for this baby-faced Elder to take potshots.

Adante placed a warning hand on the girl’s arm.