I tried to move, but I felt like spikes were pinning me to the soft mattress. I didn’t want anyone to call my mom. She was busy getting better. If she knew I was sick, she’d leave rehab. And if I didn’t get better, she might slide back into her addictions. I didn’t want that. I struggled again but nothing happened.

“I was supposed to take care of her,” Uncle Stuart said roughly. “Damn it, Liam!”

“I know,” Liam murmured. “So were we.” He sounded like he was pacing.

“I’m not a violent man, Liam,” my uncle said. His tone said something else entirely.

Liam nodded. I could actually hear his head move, his hair brush against his collar, his lips tighten. Was that normal? I couldn’t remember.

“Helena’s counting swords even as we speak.”

“Is my niece going to turn into one of those things? And how the hell am I going to explain that to her mother?”

“Christabel won’t be Hel-Blar,” Liam assured him. “But she will turn, Stuart. We can’t stop it. If we try to, she’ll die.”

Uncle Stuart swore and wiped my forehead with a cold, wet cloth. It hurt. I practically felt the sizzle of the water hitting my hot skin and evaporating. I whimpered in my head. No sound came out.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t call a doctor? She’s burning up. And her veins are so blue.”

“Geoffrey’s been here,” Liam reminded him. “He’s seen this sort of thing before. And Connor told him everything he knew about Aidan. He’s her sire now. We’ll have to deal with the implications of that later.”

“You did this eight times?” Uncle Stuart must have buried his face in his hands because his voice was muffled. Or my hearing was blurry. Could hearing go blurry?

“Yes,” Liam said grimly. “It’s a little different in our family, but essentially yes.”

I wanted to cringe away from the hot sunlight falling across my pillow, nearly stabbing me. I felt it there, as threatening as the fire that tore through the maze.

Is the night chilly and dark? The night is chilly, but not dark.…

I tried to say it out loud, but I couldn’t. Still, the rhythm of a poem I knew so well was soothing. I could only remember snippets, though. The stanzas didn’t make sense out of order. He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon; And out o’ the tawny sunset, before the rise o’ the moon, When the road was a gypsy’s ribbon, looping the purple moor, A red-coat troop came marching—Marching—marching—

That wasn’t even Coleridge. It was someone else and not the poem with my name. But who? Why couldn’t I remember?

“She’s got Aidan’s blood in her veins,” Liam said. “All we can do now is wait.”

I floated in and out of consciousness, as if I were being tossed about on a dark ocean. It was all poetry and fatigue and blood. Bram Stoker was there again, but Saga ran him through with a cutlass and buried his head in a wooden chest on a sandy beach. It was confusing.

Just when I felt so feverish I might burn up like a human candle, the sun set. I could feel it, between the parched dreams. I sighed with relief, barely.

“Did you hear that?” It was Connor. “She made a sound.”

I tried to lift my eyelids and managed only a small slit, not enough really to see. Everything was washed out in red.

“She’s weak,” Geoffrey said sometime later. “Her veins are so prominent that she looks as blue as any Hel-Blar I’ve ever seen.”

“She’ll be fine,” Connor protested fiercely. “She can do this. Christabel,” he whispered to me. “You have to fight.”

Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; Ever and aye, by shine and shower, Sixteen short howls, not over loud; Some say, she sees my lady’s shroud.

I didn’t realize I was muttering aloud until Uncle Stuart spoke. “What’s she saying? What does that mean?”

Connor answered, because I couldn’t. “I think it’s a poem. She does that.” He sounded close. I thought I might be able to feel his hand holding mine. Only it wasn’t as cold as before. Or maybe I was cold now, too?

“Coleridge,” I answered. My lips moved, I was sure of it. There was barely any sound, but Connor had vampire hearing.

“Coleridge?” he repeated. “You’re quoting Coleridge now?”

I tried to smile. I must have faded away again because the next person I heard was Liam.

“She’s past the worst of it,” he said. “Stuart, you can put the phone down.”

“She’ll want to know.”

“She won’t believe you over the phone. Best to let Christabel tell her. After.”

I felt a glass vial at my lips. I recognized the smell, coppery and strange.

“Drink it, Christa.” Connor was holding the vial. I recognized his smell right away, all licorice and soap. Blood trickled between my lips. I could barely swallow. He angled my head back so that my throat opened. The blood was vile tasting and it tingled as it traveled throughout my body.

I didn’t have a heartbeat. I thumped my chest, panicking. It didn’t help.

“It’s okay,” Connor said as I thrashed in the bed, dislodging pillows and blankets. A glass of water on the table fell to the floor and shattered. The sound elongated and scratched along my nerves. I wasn’t breathing. I wasn’t breathing.

“She needs more blood,” Geoffrey said, and suddenly there was a bottle where the vial had been. Unrelenting rivulets of thick blood filled my mouth. I gagged. It was like chewing pennies. It coated my teeth and tongue.