About how members of the Synod were now holed up in some stronghold in Norway, where they were holding my mother hostage. Charlotte was going to find them—not to rescue my mother, but so she could have the pleasure of killing her in front of me.
I told him. And then silence.
“Carden?” He wasn’t jumping into action the way I’d hoped he would. Charlotte had implied he was the one lying. But surely he hadn’t known
this
. “Did you know that about my mom? You didn’t, right?”
I tried to catch his eye to gauge what was going on in his head, but he was too busy staring at my tray. “You going to eat that…that disc?”
“This?” I speared said disc onto my fork. “Yeah, Salisbury steak.” I bit off a chunk, eager to eat and run. Speaking as I chewed, I detailed the plan. “I spoke with Tom, and he said he can get us on a boat to the Shetlands.”
“Us?” Carden was eyeing me like I’d begun speaking Greek. “Tom?”
“The Draug Keeper. That Tom.” As I cut my meat into smaller chunks, I elaborated, “From the Shetlands, we’ll catch a floatplane to Reykjavik. Then onto a cargo ship to Hammerfest, Norway. Fun fact: Nazis took over Hammerfest during World War II. I guess there must’ve been some vamps among them, because they didn’t want to leave once the war was over. Those crazy-ass Synod vampires—you know, like Jacob and the ones who held you hostage? Apparently there’s a whole nest of his crew nearby.” I paused to catch Carden’s eye. Was this all news to him? I still couldn’t tell. “Just stop me if you know all this already. Anyway, the vampires all live on an industrial island off the coast—it’s called Melkøya. Did you know that was such a thing? Industrial islands, I mean? The place is just one big factory. Apparently, it’s the endpoint of an undersea gas pipeline.”
Did he know this? For all I knew, he’d been to Melkøya before. For all I knew, he’d already seen my mother there.
I took another angry bite of my steak, even though my appetite had fled. The blank look he was giving me made my belly twist. “Do you like the plan?”
“This is no plan. There
is
no plan. Because you’re not leaving.”
“Of course I’m leaving.” I let out a little nervous laugh. My heart was beating double-time now. What was his problem? We were always on the same page about things. What was going on? “I assumed you’d go with me. I mean, hello? My mother is alive and being held prisoner?”
He leaned back from the table, kicking his feet out. “It’s too dangerous. It’ll be the time of The Rising for those fools.”
Hearing his calm statement made my world flip over on itself. “So you…you knew? You know about this island, about everything?”
“Be at ease, lass. I don’t know everything. All I know is the Synod holds some fool summit at the advent of every polar night. That’s what they’ll be about. Travel there is impossible. The reward isn’t worth the risk.”
“Excuse me? The reward? This isn’t some prize—”
His hand whipped out, grabbed my own, and held it almost too tightly. “Do you know why they have your mother? Why they keep her? She is of an ancient and powerful bloodline. Have you ever wondered at your own appeal to the vampires? At your own strength?” I opened my mouth to reply, and he cut me off. “No, it is not because of your innate talents,” he scoffed, “much as you’d like to think it.”
“No need to be mean,” I grumbled.
“This is no time to be peevish, Annelise. There are many talented people on this earth. But your mother, you…you hail from some very powerful ancestors. And to feed from your blood—”
I sat upright, said blood chilling in my veins. “
You
feed from this blood.”
Uncertainty scratched at the very recesses of my soul.
His features hardened. “Do you doubt my affections? Don’t forget—you fed me first.” He softened. “But aye, what you say is true. Your blood holds power, just as
mine
holds power for
you
. And would you say that’s the only reason you choose to be with me?”
Would I still choose him without the bond we shared? If there were no blood fever?
Thoughts like that were unproductive. Carden was here, now, with me. I deflated, feeling silly at my momentary spurt of doubt. Now was not the time to go crazy girlfriend on him. “No, you’re right. That’s not why I’m with you.”
“And so you see? You can’t go. You’d be in too much danger. Your mother is a prisoner, yes, but she is not in mortal danger. She is too valuable to them alive. As you would be. They would only want to imprison you, too. And your heart is younger than hers. Think what would happen were they to use you to do more than merely feed vampires, but to create them?”
Despair washed over me.
But…my mom.
What was she doing now? Would she recognize me if she saw me? Would we resemble each other? I had to see her. I couldn’t bear this. I needed to rescue her from what surely was a fate worse than death.
A handful of Guidons swanned into the dining hall, and I canted my head to the side to avoid being struck by a wayward tray.
“Listen,” I told him with renewed intensity, “with you helping me, I’d have a shot, right? You and I could totally save her. Or need I remind you how good I am at rescuing people from Jacob’s dungeons?” I nudged him, a reminder that I’d saved
him
from exactly that.
He sat back again, arms crossed with finality. “I cannot allow you to go. Trust me when I say that now is not the right time. I forbid it.”
“You forbid it?” I put my fork down and stared at him. I’d had to raise my voice to be heard over the rising din. “Last I checked, I was in charge of my own self, thank you very much.”
“Not so long as we’re bonded—”
Bonded, bonded, bonded.
Wasn’t that supposed to make me stronger?
I leaned forward, and my whispered words came out a frustrated hiss. “You said yourself the bond was a partnership. A thing that deepened our relationship. Not something that hobbled me. This isn’t the eighteenth century, Carden. I haven’t gone off to some man’s home never to return to my own. I’m shocked family doesn’t mean more to you.”
His features hardened in an instant. “Shocked? I’m shocked you’d think yourself capable of so ridiculous a plan. Shocked you’d be so foolish to have faced Dagursson and Charlotte alone in the first place.”
“I lived, didn’t I?” I was tired of trying to prove I was stronger than what he took me for.
“Aye, and lucky you were indeed. Why didn’t you ask me for help? What would I have done if something had happened to you? You, a child, facing two of my kind alone—”
Now he was just making me feel dumb. “I’m not that stupid,” I snapped.
The moment the words were out, I knew I’d made a mistake.
He put words to his realization, slowly and coldly. “You weren’t alone.”
I gave the barest shrug and braced myself.
“Because you were with Ronan,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.
I was shaking my head before he finished speaking. “I can explain. Dagursson was going to kill Ronan. I was right there, outside his office. There wasn’t time to find you. It all just…happened.” I needed to explain this just right, but it was hard to concentrate. The noise from the next table had gotten loud enough to draw my eye away from him. “Can’t these people chill for two minutes?”
I scooted around in my chair to see what was going on. My eyes went straight to Regina, despite the fact she was the smallest person in the room. She was like a little black cloud, if clouds were comprised of scowls and nerves. I’d have sworn she had a neon
kick me
sign hanging over her head.
Is that how I looked? Because, yet again, there was something about her that resonated with me. Maybe it was the height thing, her being short like me. Why else had I gone to her defense in the first place? More than that, I’d come to consider her a bit of a protégé. We’d developed a rapport, bolstered in large part by the fact that she was the one who’d come to find me when Ronan was in the process of being slowly killed by the torture-happy Dagursson.
And now the Guidons had descended on Regina and were messing with her in the usual dining hall bullying ways. Sprinkling bread crumbs into her hair. Pulling her tray away again and again, just at the last minute. Slowly drizzling her drink onto her plate, her shoulders.
“I am so sick of this,” I murmured. I’d been unable to save Emma or cure Yasuo. And I couldn’t rescue my mom right this minute. But I could help Regina. I scooted my chair back and shifted my weight forward, sliding my feet into place. I didn’t care what gaffe the poor girl had inadvertently perpetrated, she did not deserve this treatment. “I’m over it.”
The weight of Carden’s hand on my forearm held me back. “You’ve done enough to call attention to yourself. Every move you make tempts fate. Now please, love, stop being contrary.”
I froze. I was done taking orders.
But then he spoke again, his voice low and cold. “This is not the way to save your mother.”
I glanced back at Regina, at the glop of cream soup that’d made a swath of her curls hang flat and beige. “But—”
His fingers tightened into a grip. “You cannot.”
My shoulders fell. I was trapped. Trapped in this dining hall. And, as long as I was bonded to a vampire, I was trapped on this island. Trapped in this strange, sadistic world until someone more powerful than me decided otherwise. I forced my muscles to go lax.
This was one time I wouldn’t be able to help poor Regina. She was on her own. We all were.
Defeat and anger warred inside me. But I needed to keep my priorities in mind, and right now my only priority was my mother. I dropped back into my seat, mumbling. “What’s the saying? Lie back and think of England?”
Carden’s expression warmed, a smile curling the edges of his hard mouth. “Never that, lass. She’s not
my
queen.”
With a heavy sigh, I stole one last glance at the hazing going on at the other table.
I was so sick of these people. Sick of getting hassled. Of watching other kids get hassled. Or worse, seeing how fear turned them into feral and sadistic little tyrants. All in the name of survival of the fittest. “Darwin would’ve loved this place, I swear.”
He chuckled.
The reassuring sound made me turn back around in my seat. I supposed Carden was right. I needed to lie low, which meant I shouldn’t get involved.
I pushed the steak around on my plate. Picked up my fork. Put it down again.
“You need nourishment.” Carden gently took my hand and wrapped it back around the utensil. “Now tell me why you insist on being so defiant. I have told you your mother is in no immediate danger. We will find her and save her in good time. What put this fool notion into your head, that you might just leave and reunite with her as though you were a normal woman and not what you are?”
What I am?
Suddenly my throat was too tight to speak. I wasn’t the one knee-deep in half-truths, and yet he spoke to me like I was the troublesome one.
“How can you be so certain about this island dungeon? Ye wee loon, thinking to go off half-cocked.”
He was being his casual Carden self, but the dismissive tone made me anxious to explain myself. “Charlotte gave me a list—”
“She wrote you a
list
?” He made it sound like she and I were planning our grocery shopping or something.
“Not like that,” I said, on the defensive. “It was a list of numbers.”
“Numbers,” he repeated.
“Geographic coordinates,” I explained. I hadn’t given up hope—I still wanted to convince Carden I was in earnest. Because with or without his help, I
would
go forward with my plan. As it was, I was still disheartened I’d been unable to help Regina. I needed to assert some agency in my life—especially when it came to this, my mother, the most important thing. “She said it’s the exact location of where my mother is being held. I mean, she might be lying, but—”
Carden’s voice hardened. “Have no doubts. When one such as Charlotte wants to trip you up, she will have no trouble doing so.”
“Whose side are you on?” I shrugged a shoulder, imagining the cynical sentiment rolling off my back. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Carden. Seriously, I didn’t realize you were such a Charlotte fan.” I had to speak loudly to be heard. The noise from the other table was getting louder.
“Ignore them,” he said, reading my thoughts.
“Yeah, I’m trying, but—” The sound of hooting boys had joined the din. I flinched from Carden and threw my fork down. Something inside me had cracked for good. “I’m sorry. I can’t. She’s my friend.” I realized the words were true as I spoke them.
I turned, and something crystallized in me, seeing the leggy Guidon who stood behind Regina. Her name was Paige—she’d been a friend of Masha’s—and she currently had a fistful of Regina’s hair. Paige’s weapon was some fancy butterfly knife, and she had mad skills. The blades flicked open and shut, dancing over her knuckles, getting closer and closer to Regina’s throat.
I found my feet. Began to stand.
Carden’s grip reached me again, and this time it was a vice of steel around my forearm. “I said no. That child needs to find her own way.”
Anger boiled up in me—at this place, those girls, my helplessness, and yes, at Carden, too. I shot him a look, letting the full strength of so many pent-up emotions burst through. “Let me guess. I need to lie low?” An image of Yasuo—the old Yas—slammed into my mind with the force of a blow. I should’ve fought his transition. I should’ve fought for Emma, too. I should’ve fought Charlotte when I had the chance.
Would’ve. Should’ve.
“What good is lying low when it keeps getting my friends killed?”
“Softly now, Ann. I’m sorry for your friends, truly I am. But
you
are the only human who concerns me.” His eyes held mine, and I felt a strange fog wash over me, like a fuzzy calm suffusing my brain.
Fuzzy and calm. Basically, something
not
me.
I pulled away like I’d been burned. “What was that?” I put a hand to my temple, rubbing where the sensation had been the most acute. “You didn’t tell me the bond could do that.”
But Carden’s gaze had moved from me, aimed at a point over my shoulder. His lips thinned. “Fool. What is he thinking coming here?”