She schools her features too late.

She knows I’m lying, and even if I hadn’t glimpsed it on her face, I would have sensed it, scented it in the fear coursing through her blood.

“I’d like that.” A smile lines her lips that might have been convincing to anyone else, anyone who couldn’t smell her dread. “The way the dye takes to it; it’s stunning. I had no idea you wove.”

“It’s more of a dabbling,” I say, rising to my feet.

Asha’s throat bobs. “Well, I just thought I’d…” But she can’t seem to find the words. Either that, or she’s decided perhaps I can’t be trusted with the plans. “…check on you.”

“Right. Keep me updated about Piper.”

Asha nods her head, then makes to slip out of the tent.

She doesn’t make it.

Asha’s blood tastes of anguish and Fate itself on my tongue. Any other time, I might have found the taste too intoxicating to stop, but I’m not biting her to feed.

The venom coursing through the tips of my fangs and into her bloodstream leaves a strange bile-like taste to her blood, I suppose because I made a mental note to inject more than I would normally.

Her scream stills in her throat as soon as the venom kicks in, but it’s not my only safeguard. I know from the first time Nox attacked me, the night Gunter died, that my venom’s effects are psychosomatic; Asha can break through her immobility if she can remind her body the paralysis isn’t real.

“You’re not going to scream,” I whisper through blood-soaked lips. She opens her mouth, but I cut her off, the compulsion heady and soothing in my voice. “You’re not going to speak either, or alert anyone that anything is out of the ordinary. Do you understand?”

She nods, though it appears taxing. I worry I was too aggressive in biting her. Blood oozes down her neck and onto my tunic at a rate I wasn’t expecting, but I can’t think of that now. Not when my venom will soon heal the wound without a trace of damage, anyway.

It takes more effort than it should to rip one of my tunics and roll it into a ball. I shove it into her mouth and wince when she gags and doesn’t fight me, but I tie another swatch of cloth around her mouth all the same. Az warned me repeatedly of what Asha can do with her words, especially when she’s near the Rip, and I’m not willing to risk her coming out of my compulsion and summoning some otherworldly beast to sic on me.

“Asha, I’m so sorry,” I whisper, even as she passes out, her weight slumping against me.

It’s a lie, though; I know that as soon as it leaves my tongue.

I’m not sorry. Not if Asha is the price I have to pay for outrunning the Fate woven into Nox’s tapestry.

PART III

MOTHER

CHAPTER 29

NOX

It takes me all of a moment to recognize death as a friend, a warm solace that frees me of my curse and allows me to feel the sunlight painting my skin one last time before I fade to nothing.

It just so happens that death is about the time the questions start.

For instance, where am I going now?

I don’t mean the question as an esoteric one—though I think it’s worthy of consideration—but as more of a practical one.

Is this death the end for me? Will I fade into nothingness, my consciousness untethered from my body? Will I open my eyes any moment now and find that I’ve beaten Farin in a footrace back to Alondria?

I decide to open my eyes and find out.

Nothing happens.

Sunlight bleeds across my exposed forearms, tickling the back of my neck, but other than that—nothing.

“So…does this mean you were lying to me about the sunlight, or about everything?” Zora asks from the pit ledge.

I crane my neck to look at her, and though that suspicion is back on her raised brow, her shoulders have slackened now that I haven’t burst into flames.

My eyes sting, partly with relief at avoiding what very well could have been a permanent death, partly because it’s been a long, long time since I’ve stood in the sun.

“Well, now that is interesting, isn’t it?”

The voice is the one I least want to hear.

Footsteps shuffle, and Zora instinctively takes a step away from the rim as Farin approaches and peers over it.

“Yep. Seems like my vampirism didn’t make it through the Fabric,” I say, like the Fabric separating the realms is some sort of cheesecloth and my vampirism is coffee grounds that can’t quite make it through the filter.

“Well, knowing that would have made things a tad easier.”

“Yes, we could have traveled in the daylight, I know,” I say, glad for an excuse to employ a dry sense of humor rather than tear up in front of Farin as I’m suddenly tempted to do.

“That, and I wouldn’t have had to watch you feed on all those hares. It was revolting, you know. I’m afraid I’ll never rinse my memory of the sound.” Farin shivers, which I find a tad hypocritical, since he was the one who led me to kill so often when we inhabited the same body.

No wonder the hare’s blood tasted like iron. No wonder I haven’t had an overwhelming craving for Zora’s blood.

I feel as though a flood of relief is about to break over me at any moment, but there’s a well-crafted dam of skepticism holding it back.

I’ll need to work through what this means. If it applies to my body back home. But first I need out of this pit.

“Some assistance would be nice,” I yell up at both my sister and my nemesis.

Farin just stares at me, cocking his head to the side as he’s prone to doing. “It is strange that your vampirism doesn’t affect you here. I would have thought the curse would have clung to your very soul.”

Impatience rattles within me, and I tap my foot. “Yes, well, I suppose this curse doesn’t have a flair for the intangible. I’m sure it will assault me just the same once I’m back in Alondria.”

Farin looks pensive. “So you think it no longer affects you because you’re in a different body?”

“That does seem to be the most obvious conclusion,” I spit back. “Now, if you could kindly hand me a vine.”

Farin stares at me a moment, like he wants to suggest something. Instead he says, more deliberately than usual, “I’d be happy to help you.”

One side of Zora’s nose lifts upward, like Farin is an unfamiliar scent that she can’t quite place. She and I exchange a knowing look before she draws away from the edge to look for something to help me climb up.

“You know, it’s strange hearing you say that. That you’re glad to help me, I mean,” I say, calling up to Farin. “I might get the impression you’re warming up to me.”