“How about we sit outside today?” she suggested. “It’s so nice out.”
Sahira turned back to her and smiled. “That sounds perfect.”
The teacup warmed her hands when she took her cup from Sahira, and the scent of lavender and peppermint wafted to her. Sahira switched the flavor every day, and Lexi was glad she’d chosen these two today as a sense of peace descended over her.
They left the library behind and made their way down the hall before crossing through the sitting room with its delicate antique furniture and a striking grandfather clock in the corner. The pendulum of the clock swayed as it ticked away the seconds.
With its gray stone walls, the room housed furniture mostly done in shades of blue, and sheer blue curtains framed the double doors leading to the patio. They settled into the patio chairs with their thick blue cushions.
Lexi started to rest her cup on the white table when she recalled why they’d stopped coming out here.
“Oh,” she murmured as she stared across the vast, once green lawn that had been bordered by a ten-foot-high privet hedge.
Now, only charred pieces of that once perfectly manicured hedge stood up from the ground. Half the lawn was nothing more than blackened earth.
Beyond the charcoaled remains, humans trudged down what remained of the road. They skirted broken chunks of asphalt as they walked with their shoulders hunched forward and their heads bent against the sun. Dirt streaked their faces and clothes, and many of them looked like they’d crawled out of a coal mine.
These people looked like this because they didn’t have much clothing left and because the dragons destroyed most of their homes. Lexi often felt like she’d lost everything, but she realized how lucky she was.
Despite her losses, she still had much more than so many. She did her best to give what they could, but they didn’t have much to spare. Normally, she didn’t come to this side of the house, but she couldn’t hide from her reality anymore.
It was outside her home, and now, it was also beneath it.
“I saw Malakai,” she said as she sipped her tea.
“Oh,” Sahira said.
Lexi detected the dislike in her voice; Sahira had never been good at hiding it when it came to Malakai.
“He was out in the daytime,” she said.
“That’s not unusual if it’s overcast.”
“It was today.”
Sahira turned toward the clear blue sky and the sun streaming down on them. Like her, Sahira could tolerate the sun because she was only half vampire.
“Ooooh,” Sahira said more slowly.
“He was wearing an amulet.”
Sahira set her cup down with a clatter and spun toward her. She looked like Lexi had told her he was dressed as a scarecrow and reciting the Wizard of Oz.
“Really?” Sahira asked.
“Yes. It was…”
“Red,” they said at the same time.
“You know what it is?” Lexi asked.
“It’s a sun medallion. At one time, there were a lot of them in the vampire realm. They used to mine for them beneath the mountains there. When the witches destroyed their realm and drove the vampires out, most of the medallions were destroyed or lost. The few remaining ones are all held by the Lord of the Shadow Realms.”
“So the Lord gave it to him?”
“Yes.”
“Which means no one would dare try to take it from him.”
“Not unless they want to have the wrath of the Lord unleashed on them.”
Lexi shuddered at the idea of that wrath coming down on her. “Why would the Lord give Malakai an amulet?”
“Malakai must have done something to earn it.”
“I don’t want to know what that was.”
“Neither do I.”
Feeling unsettled by this development, Lexi lifted her cup and sipped her tea as she watched the people on the road.