“I STARED AT the place where Astrid had stood for a long moment, noting how the room seemed smaller now she’d left it. And then, with a sigh, I took up the charcoal and began to write. A scrap of parchment was no place to say all I needed to, but I did the best I could. Enough time had passed since we said good-bye. Enough nights filled only with questions.
“Dearest Mama,
“Please forgive me for not writing sooner. I received all Celene’s letters, and pray God this one finds you in the best of health. We did not part on sweetest terms, but know that I am well, and thinking of you and the hellion. I miss you both very much.
“The sin of my birth has been explained by the brothers of San Michon, and I do my best to struggle with it each day. I understand why you did not reveal the truth to me sooner, but now I need know all you may tell me. What was my father’s name? How did you meet? Does this monster still live, and if so, where may he be found?
“My very life may depend upon this, Mama. If you have any regard for me, I pray you tell me all I need know. Please give all my love to Celene, save that which you would keep for yourself. You both have as much as I can give.
“Your loving son
“Gabriel
“P.S. Tell the hellion I shall write to her soon. For now, I have bugaboos to chase.
“I folded the letter tight and hid it beneath my pillow as Astrid bid. I’d no idea how long Mama might take to reply, but I wasn’t left to wonder.
“By the morrow, I was given the nod from Sister Esmeé. And after a dawnmass shrouded in mourning song for poor Sister Aoife, I was down in the stables again, saddling up Justice. Kaspar and Kaveh were there to assist, both lads looking stricken at Aoife’s murder. I watched Kaveh in particular, pondering that strange meeting I’d interrupted between him and the dead sister. I wondered what it might have meant, but it wasn’t like I could ask him—even if the lad weren’t mute, he’d likely just lie.
“The stink of char and burned hair still hung in the air from my battle against the coldbloods. Master Greyhand and Aaron were there with me, as was the dour bastard set to accompany us. The ashwood switch that had wrought such a bloody toll on my knuckles those many months was nowhere to be seen—Seraph Talon was kitted like a brother of the Hunt. He wore a long greatcoat and a bandolier loaded with silverbombs, his breast adorned with a silver sevenstar. The idea that Abbot Khalid was sending a seraph along with us brought home just how dangerous our quarry was going to be.
“Talon’s face was grim, his cheeks pinched with sorrow. I could’ve been mistaken, but I fancied I even saw tears in his eyes. ‘Merci, boy. For avenging poor Aoife. Fine work.’
“I bowed. ‘For a frailblood.’
“‘Three coldbloods, unarmed and single-handed?’ Aaron looked at me sidelong. ‘You’ll have to tell me how you survived that one, Little Kitten.’
“I smiled at de Coste, wondering. ‘Cats have nine lives, Aaron. Lions too.’
“‘And you shall have need of all of them,’ Greyhand growled, hefting his saddle. ‘And the grace of Almighty God, to see us through this Hunt unscathed.’
“I nodded as de Coste fixed me with his cool blue stare. His voice was soft, but he spoke clear in the quiet. ‘I thank Almighty God you fought them off, de León.’
“‘I thank him too,’ I replied. ‘And you for your concern, brother.’
“Aaron went back to packing his gear. Greyhand grunted softly, content there seemed some measure of pax between us. But saddling up Justice, I knew there was nothing of the sort. I’d no real proof, yet I was damn near sure de Coste had set the La Cour woman free from the Foundry. Why else would he have been fucking about in the Armory?
“This slick prick had set a highblood on me over the sake of stung pride, and his vengeance had cost poor Aoife her life. It wasn’t lost on me how easily it might’ve been Astrid or Chloe who got caught by that monster instead. And now, I was headed out on the most dangerous Hunt I’d ever faced, with de Coste watching my back.
“Still, I had no choice. An ancien of the Blood Voss was stalking the Nordlund. It made little sense an Ironheart so powerful was east of Talhost, if the Forever King was amassing all his strength in Vellene. And so, with Seraph Talon leading us through the tumbling snows, we set out on the trail back toward the Godsend Mountains.
“None of us understood the horror we’d find at the end of that road. Nor that this would be the last Hunt Greyhand, Aaron, and I would take together. But undaunted, eager even, I placed my fate once more in the hands of God, and set out after our prey.”
In a quiet prison cell high in the midst of a solemn keep, the Last Silversaint reached to refill his glass. Finding only a few drops of Monét left, he spat a soft curse. He was too much a drinker for a single bottle to dull him much, and the sanctus they’d given him was beginning to wear off. Gabriel could feel it now, tickling in the depths of his belly, scratching on the backs of his eyes. His dearest enemy. His hated friend.
“Thirsty?” Jean-François asked, sketching in his damnable book.
“You know I am.”
“More wine?” Chocolat eyes drifted up to meet Gabriel’s. “Or something stronger?”
“Just get me a fucking drink, you unholy cunt.”
Gabriel pressed his shaking hands together as the vampire snapped his fingers. The ironclad door opened, that thrall woman ever lurking on the threshold. The bite at her wrist was only two faint scratches now, the blood she’d supped from her master’s veins healing the wound almost as if it had never been. But Gabriel could still smell the perfume of her blood, turning his head so he didn’t have to meet her eyes.
He felt he’d been in this room all his life.
“More wine, my love,” Jean-François said. “And a fresh glass for our guest.”
The woman curtseyed. “I am your servant, Master.”
Gabriel’s foot tapped a rapid, broken beat upon the floor. His stomach was slowly twisting into an ice-hard knot. That ghost-pale moth had returned, beating in vain upon the lantern’s glass chimney once more. Leaning forward, tracing those teardrop scars down his right cheek with one fingertip, Gabriel peered at the tome in Jean-François’s lap. The vampire was finishing a picture of Astrid as she’d been that night in the Library: framed by burning candles and windows of stained glass. Forever young. Forever beautiful. The likeness was so near, it made his chest hurt.
“So,” the vampire murmured. “An elder of the Ironhearts, roaming the Nordlund.”
“Oui,” Gabriel replied.
“Rather clumsy for an ancien? To have left a trail for you to follow?”
Gabriel shrugged. “Even elders need to feed. And for all their power, the Voss had no way to travel the empire other than means mundane. If the Forever King had a way to speak to beasts of the sky direct, this whole tale might’ve been a different one. But you Chastains were still cowering in the shadows back then.”
“Do not mistake patience for cowardice, de León.”
“A song sung by every bottom-feeder I’ve ever met.”
The vampire raised one blond eyebrow. “’Tis not a Forever King who shall rule this empire in the end, halfbreed. ’Tis an Empress of Wolves and Men. And you are hardly one to make mock of carrion eaters, given the bloodline you are descended from.”
“I was wondering when you’d circle back to that.”
Rubbing his stubbled chin, Gabriel met the monster’s eyes.
“Forty,” he mused. “Perhaps fifty.”
Jean-François blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“You asked what I thought your age was earlier.” Gabriel shrugged. “Now we’ve spent a little time together, I can hazard a guess. You carry yourself like ancien, Historian, but you’re no elder. In fact, I’d put you not much older than I.”
“Indeed? And what makes you say so, de León?”
“You’re not frightened enough.” Gabriel tilted his head. “Tell me, when your dark mother and pale mistress, Margot Chastain, First and Last of Her Name, set you this task, did you think she was locking me in here with you, or you in here with me?”
“I have nothing to fear from you, de León,” the vampire sneered. “You are a drunken wretch, descended from a house of dogs, who allowed the last hope for his species to slip through his fingers and shatter like glass upon the stone.”
“The Grail.” Gabriel nodded. “I was wondering when you’d circle back to that too.”
“I circle nowhere, Silversaint.”
“If only you knew how true that is, you fucking parasite.”
The door opened, and the thrall stood at the threshold, golden tray poised upon one hand. She sensed the tension in the room, eyes upon the historian.
“Is all well, Master?”
The vampire brushed one golden curl from his eyes. “Quite well, Meline. Though it seems our guest’s temper frays when his tongue is parched. See to it, merci.”
The woman drifted into the room, placed a fresh glass of wine on the table, the bottle beside it. Gabriel kept his eyes forward, locked on the illustration in the vampire’s book. The memories of Astrid were fresh now. The wound reopened. The longer he told their story, the sooner he must come to the end of it, and he knew he’d not drunk anywhere near enough for that. And so, he turned his stare to the monster opposite. This horror in silken brocade and sable feathers and gleaming pearl.
“I can talk more about the Company of the Grail,” he offered. “Chloe. Dior. Father Rafa and the others. If you like.”
“I do not like,” the vampire protested, perhaps a touch too strongly. “You cannot bounce around the telling of this tale like a rabbit in heat, Silversaint.”
“I think you’ll find I can do whatever the fuck I please, vampire. At least until your Empress has what she wants.” He studied his black and broken fingernails, the dried blood and ashes and silvered ink upon his hands. “And what she wants is the story of the Grail. What became of it. How I lost it. So what say you we drop the pretense for a spell? At least until I’m drunk enough to return to San Michon.”
The vampire kept his face unchanging. But Gabriel knew well enough to recognize the spark glittering in those chocolat eyes. He could feel it, floating like smoke between them. Smell it, entwined with the wine and blood.
Want.
“As you like it,” Jean-François said, keeping his voice flat.
“Are you certain? As you said, you’ve no use for children’s tales.”
“I am commanded by my pale mistress to record all of your story, de León. Personally, I care not either way.”
“Dead tongues heeded are Dead tongues tasted.”
“Is that what you want, Silversaint?” the vampire asked, dark eyes searching pale grey. “A taste of me? I had heard you’d developed an appetite for us.”
Gabriel picked up his fresh glass of wine, took a long swallow.
“You’re not my type, Chastain.”
Jean-François smiled at the stink of the lie, dipping his quill. “So. Chloe Sauvage and her tattered company. A girl you knew as a sisternovice in San Michon. A girl who’d claimed your first meeting was ordained by the Heavenly Father himself. Discovering you in Sūdhaem seventeen years later must have done little to dissuade her insane notions.”
“Far from it. Chloe was a believer, like I said.”
“You had evaded Danton, the Beast of Vellene and youngest son of the Forever King, who seemed intent upon the boy Dior. You had rescued Chloe’s company from a band of wretched, seen off yet another mysterious highblood who also harried young Dior’s footsteps. And this boychild claimed to know the location of the Grail. The lost chalice of San Michon, that caught the blood of the Redeemer as he died upon his wheel.”
“It’s almost as if you’ve been paying attention.”
“But why agree to accompany Chloe to the River Volta?” Jean-François nodded to the P A T I E N C E inked across the silversaint’s fingers. “Your wife and daughter awaited you at home. And you clearly didn’t believe this Dior knew the chalice’s location.”
“No. I had the boy picked for a fucking liar, and Chloe for a fucking fool. But Danton Voss clearly thought Dior was worth chasing, even if I didn’t. I had business with the famille of the Forever King. Unfinished, and every shade of bloody. Liars and fools they might’ve been, but Chloe’s company could serve me in one respect at least.”
“… Bait,” Jean-François realized.
“Oui.”
The vampire looked Gabriel over, lips pursed.
“What happened to the boy to whom deception sat like a rope around his neck? Who held life so dear he’d charge into a burning stable to save a handful of horses? Who would do anything to save one child, spare one mother the hell that his own mother had suffered?” Jean-François glanced at the sevenstar on Gabriel’s hand. “The boy whose faith in the Almighty shone bright as silver, and lit the dark like holy flame?”
“The same thing that happens to all boys, coldblood.”
The silversaint shrugged and finished his glass.
“He grew up.”