All she saw was a way to be with Tristan.

Gwyneth frowned at her. “Are you ill?” she asked over the howling of the unnatural winds.

“I’m sorry,” Viola whispered, before unhooking the small dagger hanging from her belt. Ladies always carried them, mostly for embroidery floss, eating supper, or gathering herbs from the garden.

Viola had nothing ladylike in mind.

She grabbed Gwyneth by the hair, curling her fingers tightly into the tangles. She’d felt sluggish and weak before, but a sudden burst of manic energy had her jabbing up with the dagger. The blade stuck into Gwyneth’s neck. She gurgled, blood welling almost instantly out of her mouth. The moon went dark. The winds died abruptly but the faint, ghostly howling remained. Viola jerked the knife across Gwyneth’s throat, the witch’s blood pouring out of the wound, soaking into her dress and dripping over the carved pendant of Tristan kissing Viola.

Gwyneth’s body collapsed in the salt and flowers. Viola slumped over her, half-unconscious. She felt as if there were ice inside her bones, as if fire seared under her skin, as she was completely filled with power and utterly devoid of it, all at the same time. She didn’t even have the energy to lift her head when she realized there was blood trickling down the side of Gwyneth’s neck and over her own mouth. It tasted sharp, metallic.

Good.

She swallowed despite herself, gingerly at first, with her eyes squeezed tightly shut and then greedily as she felt indescribable vigor and strength coursing through her. She was unstoppable. Magic fueled her. “Tristan,” she murmured, wiping blood off her face with her sleeve.

Sated, she stood slowly, unfurling like a pale deadly flower.

She tossed Gwyneth’s drained body over the side of the tower and turned away, back to the sleeping inhabitants of Bornebow Hall.

Chapter 16

Lucy

Wednesday night

The next night, I went straight to the Drake farm.

“You’re smiling weirdly,” Kieran said, shooting me a sidelong glance as we drove away from the school. “What’s up, Hamilton?”

“Nicholas is okay,” I replied happily. “Well, mostly. And I’m finally allowed back at the farm.”

“Yeah, to get stabbed with needles. Is that any reason to look so deranged?”

I grinned, propping my feet up on the dash of his truck. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “We’ll save Solange soon and then you can be as deranged as me.”

He snorted. “I don’t think anyone can be as deranged as you.”

“Ha ha. It’ll work, Kieran. Don’t worry.”

“You can’t know that.”

I chose to ignore him and went back to skimming the book open across my knees. “What about the Sanguines?”

“Sisters of the Sanguine Heart?” he asked. “Twelfth-century vampire-hunter nuns? I can’t see what they’d have to do with anything.”

“I guess.” I flipped the page. “And after all this research, what do you want to bet none of it’s any use for the twenty-seven essays I still have to write for Tyson? Maybe my thesis sentence should be ‘I was chained to a post because of some ass-backward twelfth-century custom.’ ” My cell phone interrupted me, vibrating in my bag. I answered but didn’t even have a chance to say hello before my mom yelled in my ear.

“Lucky Hamilton, you’re skipping school.”

“Um.” How did she know that? I looked at the display, half expecting her face to be staring back at me. I added a wary glance out the window to the rapidly blurring trees.

“I got a call from your headmistress,” she added.

“Oh,” I said, covering a sigh of relief with a cough. “Right. That. Sorry.”

“You snuck off campus? Now? With everything that’s been going on?”

“Sorry, Mom.” I winced. Kieran winced back silently in solidarity. “But it’s not as bad as it sounds. I was still technically on campus.” She didn’t need to know I’d spent last night roaming through the forest and chained to a post at the Blood Moon camp.

“Are you actively trying to give your father a heart attack?”

“No, Mom. Sorry, Mom.” Kieran smirked. I punched his shoulder. “Yes, Mom. I know. I know. I won’t get out of the car until I’m surrounded by Drake brothers. And Helena. I promise. I love you too. Bye.” I didn’t even look at Kieran. “Shut up.”

“I thought your mom was all peace and love.”

“Don’t let that fool you,” I said. “She can still hand you your ass, just like Helena, only she’ll make you feel really guilty about it. And then she’ll feed you tofu.” He grimaced in response. “Exactly. Any wonder why watching my friends drink a cup of blood doesn’t faze me?” I skimmed a few more pages, then paused at a drawing of a castle painted red. “What’s the Bornebow massacre?”

Kieran shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road. “Wasn’t on the exam so I don’t remember.”

“Some hotshot agent you are.”

He just shook his head. “I didn’t memorize medieval massacres, sorry.”

I frowned. “Castle full of dead bodies drained of blood. Doesn’t that scream vampire to you?”

“Sure.”

“Do you know anything about the Vale family? Like maybe they liked to chain people to posts or something?”

“No, why?”