Kalon offered a bitter smile. “My cousin Luna. She was only nineteen when the Darklings murdered her,” he said. “We don’t know why. Well, actually we do now… She was supposed to be a sacrifice for the Black Fever, I guess… Anyway, she wasn’t their only victim, but she mattered to us. To Trev, in particular. They were in love.”

“Whoa,” I managed. “Is… Is that allowed?”

“It’s not against the law, but it’s socially frowned upon,” Kalon replied. “Point is, they never got a chance at a life together.”

“And no one avenged her death,” Trev continued. “Five years gone, and her killers are still free. It’s been my sole motivation to get out of bed in the morning. The thought that I will get them eventually.”

“How do you plan on doing that, exactly?” I asked.

“The Red Threads have connections to the Darklings. Connections that not even that guy you two captured knows about,” Trev said. “It’s known only in the leadership circle. They exchange intel, occasionally. They don’t work together, as factions, and they pretend to be against each other, but really, they’re not.”

“I’m confused,” I mumbled. “The dude we captured said they were anti-Darklings.”

“He knows what the leaders told him,” Trev said. “In the end, the Red Threads are perfectly happy with Darklings dropping Aeternae bodies. A little bit of anarchy never hurt a rebellion, did it?”

“Holy crap…”

Kalon chuckled softly. “Right there with you.”

“I’m in touch with one of the Red Thread leaders. I told him I want to switch over to the Darklings after I’m turned. He said he can introduce me to the right people,” Trev said. “That’s been my strategy from the very beginning. I spent months in the Rimian taverns, eavesdropping on the right conversations, until I realized that my best shot as a Rimian at entering the Darkling circle was via the Blood Arena and the Red Threads. It’s the only reason why I joined these so-called revolutionaries.”

I noticed the contempt in his voice. “You don’t seem to like the Red Threads much.”

“They traffic in Rimians and Naloreans, much like the Darklings,” Trev replied.

Kalon didn’t seem surprised by this.

“What do you mean?” I asked, increasingly overwhelmed by this sudden dump of crucial information. My blood ran cold, as part of me already understood what Trev had meant.

“They abduct Rimians and Naloreans from the poorer neighborhoods. In some cases, they pay flying-ship pirates to smuggle them in from Rimia or Nalore, directly, by the hundreds,” he explained. “They tag them and sell them to rich Aeternae. It’s Visio’s best-kept secret, in case you didn’t know. The upper echelon and the government know about this, and even though outright slavery is illegal, they don’t enforce the law on these hounds because they’re direct beneficiaries. Almost every Aeternae household worth over a hundred thousand gold coins has at least one Rimian or Nalorean locked in a room, somewhere, on whom they feed.”

My stomach turned. I was close to retching, instinctively covering my mouth. Kalon, on the other hand, was perfectly calm, his gaze fixed on the ground as he listened.

“You know about this?!” I croaked. “Do you have Rimian or Nalorean blood slaves at home?”

He looked at me with ice-cold shock. “Never! I would never do this to anyone! I would never hold someone against their will.”

“But you know about the practice.”

“He knows, Esme. But there isn’t much he can do about it,” Trev said. “He’s tried, more than once, for as long as I can remember. They always shut him down.”

“How do they shut you down?” I asked Kalon.

His brow furrowed as he avoided my gaze. “You don’t want to know. Trust me.”

“I’d like to trust you, but you seem to be holding back a lot of information!” I said. “You could’ve told me about this sooner!”

“It’s none of your concern, Esme!” Kalon replied, his tone clipped. “It’s got nothing to do with Nethissis’s murder, or your day-walking protein. I’m still an Aeternae, remember? I cannot turn against my people. Once you leave, I’ll have to answer for a lot of things. Stirring up this blood slavery is just one thing I’m not itching to put back on my naughty list.”

“This is insane,” I whispered, suddenly disappointed in all of them. Valaine probably knew about it, as well. As much as I hated to admit it, though, Kalon was right. It wasn’t my business. I wasn’t supposed to get involved in their internal policies. But still, dammit… it made me so angry!

“The best way to take both organizations down is from the inside,” Trev said, after a long pause. “The members you caught today? Low-level grunts. They wouldn’t be able to give you good intel even if they had it.”

“And this is where you come in, right?” Kalon replied, staring at his friend. His gaze was cold and impassive, but I caught the occasional glimmer of guilt in there. I knew he had a conscience, but there was a small rift between us now, and I had to find a way to get over it. The mere thought of distancing myself from Kalon made me feel bad. There had to be a middle path… maybe Trev was it.

“I’ll give you the Red Thread leadership, every name I’ve got, as soon as I enter the Darklings,” the Rimian said. “I’ll have no use for them, then.”

“And you’ll follow up with the Darklings, too?” I replied.

He nodded. “Absolutely. I just need to get to the ringleader. Once I know who that is, I can cut the head off the beast. But my only way in is if I become an Aeternae,” Trev said, and gave Kalon a meaningful gander. “It’s time, old friend.”

Kalon thought about it for a moment. “You’re getting yourself in danger. Are you sure about this? If they find out you’re lying, they will cut your head off, and it will all have been for nothing.”

“I’ll go down swinging,” Trev said. “Turn me, Kalon. It’s my prize. I’ve earned it.”

“It’s irreversible. You can never go back.”

“Just turn me, Kalon!” Trev snapped. “We’re wasting precious time here!”

From where I stood, Kalon came across as hesitant. He didn’t really want to turn his friend into an Aeternae, but honor compelled him. Trev had, indeed, earned this opportunity upon winning the Blood Arena tournament. It was time for Kalon to come through for him. In the end, Trev becoming an Aeternae worked to everyone’s advantage, because he was more than eager to infiltrate the Darklings.

And if we brought those SOBs down, I could consider Nethissis’s death properly avenged. If he pointed out her killers… well, that was one heckuva bonus.

Kalon breathed out. “Come to the palace with us. I’ll have a small room set up for you, where we can go ahead with this.”

“You need privacy,” I murmured.

“I have to drain him of most of his blood, then give him some of mine,” Kalon said. “It’s not something we do willy-nilly, in the middle of the street.”

I remembered about the whole process being quite similar to humans turning. Transitioning into an Aeternae was a deeply private and personal affair, as Trev would have to deal with a sudden and powerful thirst for blood. He needed a controlled environment in order to overcome the first few days of the process. Kalon would be by his side at all times.

Once that was done and over with, Trev would then be introduced to the Darklings. Finally, I had something more concrete to help solve Nethissis’s murder. I wasn’t going to leave this place until I got the truth.

Tristan

Even with some of the Red Thread faction in prison, it didn’t feel like much of a win for us. We were no closer to discovering who’d killed Nethissis, and most of the Aeternae we dealt with—mainly the upper echelon, with the fortunate exception of Valaine and Kalon—didn’t even believe that Nethissis had been murdered. It felt like an uphill push, but it was only the first day.

I was nowhere near ready to let go of it.

Everything was connected. That baffled me and scared me the most. One way or another, everything was connected. The Red Threads, the Darklings, the Black Fever, Nethissis’s death. Whether the links were mere coincidence or the result of years of thought-out conspiracies, I wasn’t sure, but I had learned long ago that coincidences weren’t always just that.

Esme and I agreed to keep digging. Kalon and Valaine were still on our side and were equally invested. Valaine had every reason to get to the Darklings, since they had tried to kill her repeatedly. Kalon, her friend, seemed willing to do whatever it took to protect her.

Upon our return from the city, the four of us had sat down in my room, going over the details and assumptions we’d made so far. Kalon and Esme had said they might have something in the pipeline, but they didn’t go into details. I, of course, had demanded more information, but they’d both insisted they would tell us when the time was right. Valaine had convinced me to trust Kalon on this. “If he says he’s got something, he’s got it. Give him time,” she’d urged me.

I’d relayed everything back to Derek, Sofia, and Amal. The three had said the same thing. “Give it time. You’ll get to the truth, eventually.” I wanted to believe that with all my heart, but I worried there were elements working against us. My inner voice told me that we were in for a world of trouble, and we didn’t even see it yet.

Now, dinner in the palace was more awkward than ever. Valaine and Corbin had joined us, along with Kalon and his mother, Petra. To our surprise, Prince Thayen, the only son of Acheron and Danika, had been allowed to dine with us, since it was a restricted circle. Not even Zoltan was present—that didn’t really bother me, if I were to be honest. There was something about the chief councilor that irked me beyond belief. Maybe it had to do with his persistence with regards to Nethissis’s cause of death, his insistence that it had been a fox. Then again, Corbin had droned on the same, not to mention the Lord and Lady Supreme, and even Petra. But no one annoyed me more than Zoltan whenever he spoke about Nethissis.