After a lengthy pause, Igraine Blackmoore stirred impatiently, clearing her throat from where she stood at the crowd’s edge.

“Arbiter Harlow?” she called out, all but tapping her foot. “Perhaps you would like to carry on?”

I managed to peel my eyes from Talia, both annoyed and slightly abashed.

“I would indeed,” I said snippily, and this time I sounded a little more like me than like the eldritch chorus of the Arbiter’s voice. Bending back to the Grimoire, I searched for the next legible line. “Combatants, come, and pledge your intentions upon the wreath.”

The three of them drew together seamlessly, almost as if they’d been expecting this; the other family Grimoires must have held their own Gauntlet instruction for their scions. Talia’s hand landed on the wreath first, followed by Rowan’s and Gareth’s piled on top. All three of them paused for a count, and then called out in the same breath, “Upon my honor and my undying witch’s soul, I intend victory for my House!”

As their voices died away, the wreath melted down into a burst of brilliant blue light, racing up the combatants’ arms like a living flame before launching into the sky. High above us, it shaped the tripartite sigil that designated the Gauntlet, before fracturing into a fireworks display—a flower unfurling to reveal an armillary sphere, which deconstructed into orbs that cycled through the lunar phases before dispersing. Raining sparks down on the gathered families like a cascade of falling stars.

As everyone erupted into a tumultuous cheer, I felt the Grimoire pulse where my hand still rested against the page. I looked down and read the final phrase, my voice ringing out like a canon of church bells.

“As Harlow Arbiter and the voice of Thistle Grove, I declare this tournament begun!”

8

Because You Left

In the Avramovs’ grand ballroom, maroon velvet wallpaper clung to the walls, its tattered edges rippling in a faintly chilly breeze even though the room had no windows I could see. A gothic masterpiece of an iron chandelier, lit by real candles fat with strata of melted wax, swung ominously from the ceiling’s embossed copper tiles. To top things off, a portrait of sloe-eyed Margarita Avramov hung above the red-veined gray marble fireplace, overseeing the proceedings with an air of vague contempt. The founder of House Avramov looked like she wouldn’t mind making the Blackmoores eat some salty crow.

It all straddled the line between elegant and decrepit so seamlessly that the ballroom seemed custom-made to host your more vintage vampire ball. It looked like a room that should have a name, something classy yet sinister.

After I shed the mantle and the younger Avramov siblings ushered everyone inside, my parents had downed a courtesy drink and shortly thereafter hightailed it out, crowded social gatherings having never been their scene. I would have loved to leave, too, but I refused to grant Gareth the luxury of forgetting that I was here. Talia and Linden must have been hidden within one of the knots of guests clustered along the walls, so I stood alone, increasingly aware of sidelong looks flung my way, ranging from the hostile to the merely curious.