When Henry finally calms and the room is quiet again, Iverson turns to me.
“Your turn, my dear.”
“My turn for what?” I ask as the attention of everyone in the room shifts to me. I don’t like it. My default is to stay hidden, unnoticed. Tonight is the most time I’ve spent in the company of people besides my mother for as long as…well forever. I can’t stop trembling, my body belatedly exhibiting the telltale signs of shock. This is all too much. How do I keep standing here in this room with these people when my friend is dead on the beach and Nicholas is out there hurt somewhere and the monsters responsible are sitting right in front of me? It doesn’t matter if Henry and his brother were turned against their will. They killed people. Any pity I feel quickly disappears in the face of that truth.
“We must find out what family of familiars you belong to.”
Valentine approaches me, needle in hand. “I’ll be quick,” he promises. His hands are shaking almost as much as I am as he takes hold of my arm. Maybe tonight’s been a lot for him too. The thought makes him less scary somehow. His gaze meets mine and he smiles in a comforting way as he takes my blood.*
But then he also helped cover up what happened on the beach, I remind myself. Keep your wits, Seraphina!
Henry and Leo are watching me closely. I ignore them, concentrate on the blood filling the vial in Valentine’s hand instead.
When he’s taken what he needs, I press a bandage to the crook of my elbow to staunch the blood. “Go on then,” I say gruffly. “Do your spell.” Weirdly, I feel like I might cry. What if the spell works? What if I am blood-related to familiars? Then everything they’ve said will be true.
Iverson produces a large leather-bound book and opens it on the table beside her. The pages are filled with columns of names. At the top of each is a surname: Hendrickson, Murray, Golding. There are more, but these are the ones I can read comfortably from where I stand. Iverson walks over to a nearby bird cage where a raven is perched and yanks out one of its tail feathers. The bird squawks, its wings fluttering frantically for a few seconds as it absorbs the sudden assault. Iverson takes the tip of the feather and dips it into the vial of my blood. Then she utters some words I don’t know—Latin again maybe. The feather levitates from her hands and over the book, the tip mere millimeters above the page. It hovers over the names, row by row, page after page.
Iverson leans against the table, only the whites of her eyes showing, her hands in tight fists so the skin across her knuckles turns white. She’s still muttering gibberish to herself, her lips moving fast, spittle collecting at the sides of her mouth. Her skin is drawn, her cheeks suddenly gaunt as if all the spells she’s done are starting to take a toll.
When the feather reaches the final page, it drops like a stone to the desk, the sharpened tip lodging itself in the wood. Leo, the younger vampire cries out in surprise.
“Damn it,” Iverson half-whispers to herself, her intense gaze flicking from the book to me.
“I don’t like this,” Aria says, eyeing me with suspicion. “It can’t be coincidence that her spell isn’t working either. All of it ties in together. It must.” She gets closer, looming over me. “Why is it you just happened to be on that beach when these two showed up?” She jerks her head at Henry and Leo. “And with a Van Helsing no less.”
“A Van Helsing?” I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“The one with the injured leg. The one you keep worrying over.” She frowns. “You didn’t know?”
I shake my head. “I was on that beach to meet someone I liked, okay? That’s it. I was hoping to get my first kiss, not mixed up with all of you.”
Henry is staring at me so intently I start to squirm. “Until tonight I didn’t know vampires existed or familiars or that I might be one.”
“That makes two of us,” Henry mutters under his breath, just loud enough to be heard. His eyes flit to mine and the electrical current I felt earlier zaps me again. I hate that even in the midst of all this mess, my body is responding to how good looking he is. If Nicholas is all golden sand and sun, Henry is moonlit waves, depthless and dark. And part of me is undeniably intrigued. Is it the evil in me that’s responding? The evil my mom’s so sure exists? Maybe I am as bad as she’s feared. Maybe that part of me, dormant all this time is finally waking up.
I ignore him and keep on blathering. “I didn’t know about this school. Or any of you. I’ve never even been in these woods. And I don’t care about any of it. I just want to go home. And I want to find Nicholas. Please, please can’t you just let me go home?” Tears brim in my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. I won’t cry in front of these people.
Aria narrows her eyes. “Are we supposed to believe her?”
“Stop it, Aria,” Valentine says. “The girl’s been through a lot.”
Roman throws Valentine a murderous look. “No familiar tells my wife what to do.”
Iverson briskly claps her hands. “Enough! The last thing we need to do is turn on each other.”
Roman swallows hard, his chest all puffed up, his eyes glowing red. It’s an obvious effort for him not to attack Valentine which is odd. What is the beef between these two?
Aria steps between them. “Lillian’s right. We need to keep clear heads if we’re going to figure out how to make sense of this mess.”
Iverson closes the book and puts it back on the shelf. “I believe our next step will be to question the girl’s mother. See what information she can provide.”
“You leave her out of this,” I say, lacing my voice with as much menace as I can manage. Judging by the amused looks on Valentine’s and Iverson’s faces, it’s not much.
Henry tenses in his seat and starts struggling against his restraints again. “Let us go,” he demands. Smoke rises from every point of contact between his skin and the silver restraints. It surrounds the boy’s head like a shroud.
His brother follows his lead and starts struggling too. The room fills with the acrid scent of burning flesh all over again.
Aria orders them to stop. Of course, they don’t listen.
Iverson produces a vial with a strange purplish liquid inside. She opens it and begins sprinkling the liquid all over the boys. “Slumber,” she orders. Unlike the other spells she’s done, this one is just one word, but somehow with the help of that liquid just as powerful. Both boys fall instantly unconscious.
“Take them to the vampire dorms,” Iverson tells Aria and Roman before turning to Valentine. “And you take her to the familiar dorm. I need time to think.”
“But wait,” I say, dodging Valentine’s attempt to guide me out of the room. “Can’t you just let me go home? I promise not to say anything about any of this. Ever. Just let me go.”
Iverson looks at me like I’ve gone soft in the head. “You aren’t leaving. Not now. And depending on why we can’t place who you are and how you can be a familiar with no genealogical ties to any existing familiar family, maybe not ever.” Gone is the kind, soft, pitying voice she used with me earlier. Now she is all cold-eyed business. “Now go.”
I open my mouth to argue, but she’s already turned her back on me and Valentine’s got my upper arm in a choke hold. He drags me from the room.