The echo of Alistair Thornewood's warning—"Try not to get lost"—still hummed in Evelyn's bones when a skeleton looking servant materialized at her elbow.
"His Lordship requests your presence in the Black Library, Miss Shaw."
The man's voice was dust on stone. His eyes, glassy and depthless, held no reflection of the gaslight.
Evelyn followed, pulse hammering against the emerald choker. He knows. He's known all along. The Black Library lay deep within Thornhaven's shadowed core—a vaulted chamber smelling of aged leather, iron-gall ink, and the faint, perpetual chill of the grave. Alistair stood before a stained-glass window depicting a thorned crown dripping rubies. Moonlight, fractured by the crimson glass, painted bloody streaks across his alabaster face.
"Dr. Evelyn Harcourt," he stated, the title dropping into the silence like a stone into a still pond. No pretense. No 'Miss Shaw'. The game was utterly laid bare. His voice, that deep, resonant vibration, held no warmth, only a chilling precision. "The Order of the Silver Dagger sends its hunters with increasingly transparent disguises. Barbados? A touch unimaginative."
Evelyn forced her spine straight, meeting his gaze despite the icy dread pooling in her stomach. "You knew. From the moment I walked in."
A ghost of that unsettling smile touched his lips. "I knew the moment your dossier landed on my desk three weeks ago. Evelyn Harcourt. Disgraced physician. Orphaned sister seeking vengeance for her brother, Arthur. Recruited by the Silver Daggers after the night of tragedy, demonstrated a rather… unique resilience to vampiric compulsion." He took a slow step forward, the click of his polished boots unnaturally loud in the vast space. "Resilience born, perhaps, from prior exposure? A graveyard. Moonlight. A terrified child spared?"
The memory – Arthur's pale face, the wet grass, those eyes – slammed into her with physical force. Grief and rage, her oldest companions, flared white-hot. "You remember," she breathed, the words scraped raw. "You killed him. You left me alive. Why?" Her hand tightened on the hidden lancet.
Thornewood stopped a mere arm's length away. The cold radiating from him was palpable, a living wall of winter. He didn't flinch from the accusation in her eyes. "Moro Lycouras killed your brother and left you for dead," he stated flatly. "His sire, Silas. A creature devoid of restraint or conscience. He revels in the terror, the despair. Saving you that day… that was my weakness. A moment of… misplaced pity." The word 'pity' sounded alien, almost distasteful, on his lips. "A moment that may cost me dearly."
"Cost you?" Evelyn scoffed, the sound brittle in the heavy air. "My brother is dead! Because of your kind!"
"Because of Silas," Thornewood corrected, his voice hardening, the amber in his eyes swirling like trapped fire. "The same creature who is currently carving a path of butchered women through Whitechapel. Framing me." He gestured sharply towards a folded newspaper lying on a nearby ebony table. The headline screamed: 'BUTCHER STRIKES AGAIN! EARL'S CREST FOUND AT SCENE!'
Evelyn's breath caught. She hadn't seen the latest edition. Framing him? It was audacious. Insane. Yet… the meticulousness, the taunting nature of the Whitechapel killings… it fit a pattern far more elaborate than simple feeding. "Why?" she demanded, her hunter's mind clicking into gear despite her fear. "Why frame you?"
"Because Silas enjoys chaos," Thornewood said, a flicker of something akin to weary disgust crossing his aristocratic features. "Because he seeks to take my bloodline, the last vestige of royal vampires. Because he knows the Order will come for me." His gaze locked onto hers, intense, compelling. "And they have. They sent you."
Before Evelyn could respond, a scream ripped through the halls.
Shatter!
Roar!
The sound came from the Grand Ballroom—massive windows imploding, screams tearing through the air, a guttural bellow that shook the very foundations of Thornhaven. Not human. Not animal. Ferals.
Once humans, now emanciated vampires with gray skin and black tendrils running along their body. Their pitch black eyes deadened from bloodlust.
Thornewood's head snapped towards the sound. Every trace of detached civility vanished. His features seemed to sharpen, the planes of his face becoming harder, more feral. His eyes blazed with pure, incandescent amber light. A low growl, primal and terrifying, rumbled in his chest.
Evelyn reacted on pure instinct. The lancet was in her hand, glinting wickedly in the dim light, her body coiled for defense. But Thornewood wasn't looking at her. He was a blur of motion.
He moved with lethal grace, intercepting the feral vampire mid-lunge. One hand closed around its neck, the other gripped its shoulder. There was a sickening, wet crack of bone and tendon. The creature howled, a sound of pure agony and fury, thrashing in Thornewood's iron grip. Amber eyes, burning with cold fury, met the feral's black pits.
"You trespass," Thornewood snarled, his voice thick with power and disdain. "You violate my domain. You spill blood without sanction."
He wrenched. The feral vampire's head tore free from its shoulders with a grotesque, ripping sound. Blackish blood fountained, spraying the expensive wallpaper. The headless body convulsed once, then collapsed, twitching, onto the carpet beside the dead maid. Thornewood held the severed head for a moment, his expression one of utter contempt, before dropping it with a wet thud. Black blood dripped from his pale, elegant hands.
Evelyn watched him for a moment—unnatural speed, brutal precision. He wasn't just fighting. He was cleansing. A part of her wanted to follow him, to ask questions. But screams from the humans called her back.
She moved, cutting through the panic, guiding terrified humans out through the servant halls. Her blade found one feral that had broken away from the crowd; she buried steel into its heart without hesitation. She had no time to think—only act.
But one found her.
Fangs bared. Bloodstained. Fast.
Too fast.
She turned, a breath too late.
Then it was gone. A flash of shadow. A spray of black blood.
Alister stood in its place. His eyes met hers.
"Focus," he said, and turned away.
From the shadows, five figures converged with terrifying speed and precision.
Marlowe; The ancient butler, moving with the weight of a landslide, seized a feral by the skull and crushed it against a marble column.
Lenore; A flicker of darkness near the ceiling, dropping onto a feral's back, his claws finding its spine.
Harlan; Scattering pungent powder that made ferals shriek and claw at their eyes.
Vesper; A silent hurricane of violence, dismembering foes with brutal efficiency.
Corvinus; Using a fallen iron candelabra as a club, guarding a cluster of fleeing humans.
High on the ledge of a tower a few meters from the mansion, half-hidden by swirling fog, a figure watched. Silas Lycouras. Tall, gaunt, draped in shadows. His face was scared across, a wound that refused to heal given by Alister himself. His eyes pits of cold, intelligent malice. A cruel smile touched his lipless mouth as he watched Alistair defend the human girl. He dips into a bow, hat on his chest in a mocking salute. Then he melted backwards into the night, his purpose served, chaos sown, the Thorn's weakness exposed.
When it was over, the marble was painted with crimson and smoke. Ash drifted through the air like snowfall.
The remaining vampires silently withdrew, disappearing one by one into the night, cloaked in whispers and blood.
He stood over the body of the last feral, Marlowe at his side, wiping black blood from his hands with a ruined handkerchief. The gashes on his arm and shoulder were already knitting closed, pale skin smoothing over as if the wounds had never been. His royal blood, healing him.
He turned. His amber eyes, still glowing faintly, met hers. Exhaustion warred with that ancient, watchful power. He looked less like a lord now, and more like a warrior-king standing on a ravaged battlefield.
"Still think all vampires are mindless beasts, Doctor?" he asked, his voice back to its smooth, dangerous cadence, then leaves.
She stood amidst the ruin, her silk gown spattered with black feral blood and crimson human gore. Adrenaline faded, leaving the sickening pull of the carnage's scent in her heightened senses.
She found Alister near the ruined balcony, staring into the fog. His back to her. The firelight caught the edge of his blade, still dripping.
"Why did you protect me?" she asked, voice low."Back then and now, what exactly is your game Thornwood?"
Alistair looked at her—the hunter he'd marked, the woman carrying his cursed salvation, the spark of defiance standing amidst his ruined kingdom. The High Lord of a dying bloodline, his royal mantle stained with feral gore, finally spoke, his voice a low thrum that resonated in the marrow of her bones.
"There is no game, you're not ready to die yet."
He walked away.
No answers.
Only silence remained, and the soft crumble of ash beneath her feet.