“You had vampire blood in your system.” The noise in my brain quiet at last, I’m thinking things through. I remember the capsules she forced into my mouth after we hit the tree—when my shoulder was almost certainly broken, and my only hope for recovery and escape was to borrow power from the undead. If she’d done the same for herself, to boost her strength, and then she died …

“It takes vampirism twenty-four hours to gestate,” Daphne interrupts my thoughts patiently. “Or thereabouts, depending on where you are. Sundown to sundown, anyway.” Gesturing at the domed skylight above us, the panes a bleak gray-white from the cloud cover, she notes, “And the sun’s not down yet.”

I take a breath, and finally just ask the question. “Who are you?”

“Just so you know, this isn’t how I wanted to have this conversation,” she begins apologetically. “I mean, there was never going to be a ‘good’ way to get this out in the open, but I’d at least hoped for better circumstances than these. Hell, I did my best to plan better circumstances, but … well…” Daphne squares her shoulders and meets my eyes again. “Auggie, my name was never Daphne Banks. That was an alias I adopted so I could get closer to you—closer to him. My real name is Viviane Duclos.”

25

The universe whirls, a mad carnival ride with us at its axis, and I hold tight to my chair to keep from being thrown clear. With one move, she’s shaken out the past, forcing everything into a new alignment. Rigidly, I croak, “That’s not possible.”

Viviane Duclos—official cult leader of the League of the Dark Star. Jude’s ominous words go on a military parade through my brain: A powerful French sorceress … notorious for her cunning … if Duclos wants you in her grasp, she’s had since the sixteen hundreds to devise countless ways to manage it.

“I’m sorry.” She almost looks sincere. “The truth is, we were never supposed to get to this point. You were never supposed to know me as anyone other than your math tutor—and after the Rising, I would be here, waiting for the Dark Star.”

She looks dreamily into the distance, and I try to understand how this familiar face could be someone I never knew. It seems silly to feel hurt in this moment by the pettiest of her deceptions, but I can’t help it. My voice dripping with accusations, I state, “You told me you were with the Brotherhood. You said you were here to protect me.”

“Two points,” she begins, holding up as many fingers. “First, I am here to protect you. I didn’t get into a swordfight and throw hands with Rasputin just to sell a cover story, you know. Keeping you alive is half the reason I’m here at all.”