I sit on a velvet cushion as a thrall braids my hair back from my face. The thrall's fingers are cold, her movements robotic. Her eyes are glassy—the look of someone who has spent too many years under a vampire's glamour. I catch my reflection in the silver-framed mirror on my dressing table. My face is pale, but my eyes are sharp, flickering with a hunger that has nothing to do with blood.
"The blood-moon revel is still four nights away," the thrall whispers. Her name is Martha, and she's been a servant in Valerius's household since I was a child. It was Martha who taught me which poisonous berries to avoid in the castle gardens and how to stanch a wound without attracting a predator's attention. She wipes a stray smudge of charcoal from my cheek and reminds me to wear my iron ring inside-out, so I don't accidentally brush against an Elder's skin and give my presence away.
"And no matter how eager you are for it, you cannot make the moon rise any faster," she sighs. She has little patience for my restlessness. "It is an honor to dance at the Sanguine Court, Elara. Try to look as though you belong there tonight."
I sigh. I've heard it all before. The servants are fond of telling me how fortunate I am—a bastard daughter of a traitorous mother, a human without a drop of Elder blood, yet treated like a trueborn child of the Nocturne. They tell Hestia the same thing.
I know it's an honor to be raised alongside the aristocracy of the night. A terrifying honor, of which I will never be worthy. It would be hard to forget it, with all the reminders I am given.
"Yes," I say instead, because she is trying to be kind. "It's great."
Vampires can't easily feel the warmth of human emotion, so they concentrate on posture and tone. Martha gives me an approving nod, her eyes like two flat stones. "Perhaps some young Lord will ask for your hand and you'll be made a permanent ward of the High King."
"I want to win my place," I tell her.
The thrall pauses, a silver hairpin between her fingers. "Don't be foolish."
There's no point in arguing. There are two ways for mortals to become permanent subjects of the Court: being turned—which is a death sentence for most—or becoming so indispensable as a strategist or a warrior that they cannot afford to lose you. I'm not interested in the first. I have to hope I can be talented enough for the second.
She finishes braiding my hair into an elaborate, crown-like style. She dresses me in midnight-blue silk. None of it disguises what I am: human.
"I put in three knots for luck," the woman says.
I rise from my dressing table and sprawl facedown on my bed. I am used to having servants attend to me. Ghouls and thralls, half-turned shadows and mindless blood-servants. I have been in Nocturne for ten years. None of it seems that strange anymore. Here, I am the strange one, with my loud heartbeat, my warm skin, and my mayfly life.
Ten years is a long time for a human.
After Valerius stole us from the living world, he brought us to his estate, The Spire of Thorns, where the High King keeps his most loyal generals. There, Valerius raised us—me, Ivy, and Hestia—out of an obligation of honor. Even though Hestia and I are evidence of our mother's betrayal, by the customs of the Nocturne, we are his wife's children, so we are his problem.
As the High King's General, Valerius was away often, fighting at the borders. We were well cared for nonetheless. We slept on silk sheets stuffed with raven feathers. Valerius personally instructed us in the art of the rapier and the dagger. He let us sit on his knees and eat off his plate while he recounted tales of ancient wars.
Many nights I drifted off to sleep to his rumbling voice reading from a book of battle strategy. And despite myself, despite what he'd done and what he was, I came to love him. I do love him.
It's just not a comfortable kind of love.
"Nice braids," Hestia says, rushing into my room. She's dressed in crimson velvet, her chestnut curls flying behind her like a cape. She hops onto the bed beside me, disarranging my small pile of relics—a plastic koala, a yellowed polaroid, and a toy cat—all beloved things from my seven-year-old self. I cannot bear to throw them out.
"I like them," I say, sitting up.
"I'm having a premonition," Hestia says, grinning. "We're going to have fun tonight."
"Fun?" I'd been imagining myself scowling at the crowd from our usual bolt-hole and worrying over whether I'd do well enough in the training circles to impress the royal family. Just thinking about it makes me fidget. My thumb brushes over the hilt of the small knife hidden in my sleeve.
"Hey! Ow!" I scoot out of range as she pokes me. "What exactly does this plan entail? Mostly, when we go to court, we hide ourselves away."
She throws up her hands. "It's fun!"
I laugh nervously. "Let's go see if you have a gift for prophecy."
We are getting older and things are changing. We are changing. And as eager as I am for it, I am also afraid.
The interior of Valerius's house is stone and massive, lit by floating candles that cast a flickering, ghostly glow. As Hestia and I go down the spiral stairs, I spot Ivy hiding in a little balcony, scowling over a tattered comic book stolen from the living world years ago.
Ivy grins at us. She's in leather trousers and a billowy shirt—obviously not intending to go to the revel. Being Valerius's legitimate daughter, she feels no pressure to please him. She does what she likes.
"Heading somewhere?" she asks softly from the shadows.
Ivy knows perfectly well where we're heading. When we first came here, the three of us would huddle in Ivy's big bed and talk about what we remembered from home. We'd talk about the meals Mom burned and the way the house smelled. Now, there's no more huddling. All our new memories are of blood and shadow.
Ivy vowed to hate Valerius, and she stuck to her vow. She screamed and raged and pinched us when we were content. Eventually, she stopped all of it, but I believe there is a part of her that hates us for adapting. For making this our home.
"You should come," I told her. "Hestia's in a weird mood."
Ivy gives her a speculative look and then shakes her head. "I've got other plans."
Either way, if it annoys Valerius, it pleases Ivy.
He's waiting for us in the hall with his second wife, Oriana. Her skin is the bluish color of skim milk, and her hair is white as snow. She is beautiful but unnerving to look at. Tonight she is wearing emerald and gold, her eyes standing out like cold jewels. Valerius is dressed in black and silver. The sword at his hip is no ornament.
Outside, a carriage waits, held by a ghoul with grey skin. I look at the silver bridles of the undead horses and wonder if my own courage is as hollow as their chests.
"You both look well," Valerius says to Hestia and me, the warmth in his tone making the words a rare compliment. His gaze goes to the stairs. "Is your sister on her way?"
"I don't know where Ivy is," I lied. Lying is so easy here. I can do it all day long and never be caught.
Oriana looks us over carefully. "Be careful tonight," she says. "Promise me you will neither eat nor drink nor dance."
"We've been to court before," I remind her.
"You may think iron is sufficient protection, but you children are forgetful," Oriana warns. "As for dancing, once begun, you mortals will dance yourselves to death if we don't prevent it."
I look at my feet and say nothing. We children are not forgetful.
Valerius married her seven years ago, and shortly after, she gave him a child, a sickly boy named Newt. It has always been clear that Oriana puts up with Hestia and me only for Valerius's sake. She seems to think of us as her husband's favored hounds: poorly trained and likely to turn on our master at any moment.
Newt thinks of us as sisters, which I can tell makes Oriana nervous.
"You are under Valerius's protection," Oriana says. "I will not see him made to look foolish because of your mistakes."
With that, she walks out toward the carriage. One of the horses snorts, a sound like dry leaves rattling.
Hestia and I share a look and then follow her. Valerius is already seated, looking every bit the warlord. I swing up into the carriage, my hand going automatically to the knife strapped to my thigh. Hestia kicks her heels against the floorboards, and we take off like a shot, plunging into the eternal night of the Nocturne.