“Because there is no fake.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Nope.” He grinned, closing the box again.

I looked back at Arthur. “That cheeky devil.”

Jase just nodded. “He’s pretty clever. I did wonder how he had time to forge a fake.”

“It wouldn't have surprised me either way.”

“Well—” He tucked the box under his arm. “Best we get this somewhere safe.”

“Any ideas?”

“In plain sight.”

“Where in plain sight?”

“The weapons room.”

I nodded. “Good idea.”

It was still dark down this end of the island, the sun hidden behind the tops of the trees, leaving the shelves, the rows of swords in stands, and the shields lined up around the space all shadowed and grey. The guard on duty had fallen asleep at his post before we even got here, so sneaking in hadn’t been tricky at all. Knowing where to put the dagger, however, wasn’t as easy.

“So much heartache over such an ordinary blade,” I said absently, running my fingers along the jewelled handle.

Jase reached down from the towering shelf he was climbing. “Pass it up.”

As I went to close the lid, though, a small corner of yellowing paper caught my eye. “Wait.”

“Ara, I’m hanging on with one finger right now.”

“Well, just . . . hang on for longer,” I said playfully and put the box down again, ignoring Jase’s sigh as I dug the frayed parchment out from under the velvet lining.

“What is it, Ara?”

“I—” I read it for a second. “Oh, it’s just the page describing how to use the dagger.”

“Wait.” He showed a flat palm. “Don’t put it back in. I wanna see it.”

“Okay.” I tucked the page into my jeans pocket and closed the box, tossing it all the way up to Jase.

He caught it awkwardly between his chest and the side of his forearm, then reached both hands up to the very top of the shelf, shifting and shoving things aside until he dropped back to the ground with a graceful bend of knees, dusting his hands off on his jeans. “All done.”

“Great. And no one will know it’s up there?”

“Not unless they take inventory.”

“Good.” I grinned.

“Show me the page.”

“Oh. Um—” I pulled it from my pocket and handed it to Jase.

He scanned the symbols slowly, his lips closing, eyes getting smaller and smaller. “I need light.”

“Jase?” I whispered in a kind of loud voice. “What are you doing? We need to get out of here.”

“I can’t see properly, but—” He laid the page on the table and waved his phone over it, lighting the up the small space around us. “This isn’t right.”

“What’s not?”

“This ink. It doesn’t match the date on the parchment.”

“What do you mean?” I spun the page around so I could see.

“Look.” He pointed to a weirdly shaped letter. “To the average vampire, this is just an ordinary document, but to my expert eye, this symbol, which indicates the text was written at some point in the fifteen-hundreds, doesn’t match the age of the ink. This ink—” He licked his thumb and rubbed the corner of the page a few times. “It’s less than ten years old.”

“How do you know that? Wait—” I put both hands up. “Don’t tell me. I probably don’t want the lengthy explanation.”

He touched my arm softly. “Let’s just say it has a lot to do with pigment.”

“So, what does that mean—if this document is a forgery?”

He stood straight again slowly. “I’m not sure.”

“Do you think maybe the dagger isn’t what we think it is?”

“Anything could be possible.”

“But, wouldn’t Arthur have known the document was forged?”

“No.” He laughed and folded the page up, handing it back to me. “It’s just not his area of expertise.”

I smirked, catching the swagger in his tone. “Oh, big-noting yourself, huh?”

“Big-noting?”

“Urm, yeah, it means . . . like, to boastfully exaggerate your own worth.”

His lips turned down with thought. “Well, I am pretty darn clever.”

I wrapped my arm around his waist and we wandered out of the weapons room. “Yeah, even I have to admit that.”

***

Quaid walked me all the way down to the secret garden, giving tips on how to swing my sword and position my feet, stating that I didn’t really need to practice privately because I was a better ‘swordsmen’—his words—than any of the men in the Core. And I knew that, but the ‘private’ practice was merely a clever cover.

I farewelled him, asking him to wait outside in case I ‘cut’ myself, and pushed the heavy door to the Garden of Lilith open, holding my breath the whole time.

The door closed with an eerie echo, sealing me in, and a dark figure showed itself, his familiar black cloak brushing the ground as he stood and cast his gaze upon me. I stopped to take him in: his short dark hair, set in thick, wavy locks around his face; his pale skin, so youthful it was almost painful to look at, and then there was his eyes: the cobblestone path under me led the way in pale blues and creams to his feet, the grey bark of leafy green trees behind him creating a backdrop of nature’s pleasantries, all lit warmly by the golden rays of the midday sun, making the water in the fountain beside him sparkle—but none of it compared to the brilliant blue of his eyes, how they drew me into him without need for footsteps, leading us face to face, as if our eyes had locked but an inch away.

“Amara,” he said, bowing his head.

I snapped back into myself then, noticing the sudden distance that lay between us. “Hello, Drake.”

“Please—” He turned and offered the small white garden table behind him. “Take a seat.”

“Of course.” I nodded to wake myself up, readjusting Nhym in her belt as I walked. Brown boots over shadow over cobblestones, I took the two steps leading up to the garden and offered my uncle a smile.

He smiled back, drawing a chair from under the table for me. “You look lovely in yellow,” he said. “Just like my little sister.”

I sat down, turning my sword belt so Nhym aimed at the ground, not my knee. “Yellow’s my favourite colour.”

“Is that so?” He sat down, his brows moving up in surprise. “It was Lili’s too.”

“Well, we were related.” I leaned an elbow on the table, removing it quickly so I didn’t seem ill-mannered.

“Yes, you were, weren’t you?” He considered me for a second. “And I must say that, of all her descendants, Amara, you are by far the prettiest. I can only pray my child will be just like her mother.”

“Your child?”

“Yes,” he said, motioning to my belly. “We’ve waited such a long time for this miracle. In fact, I brought a gift for her.”

I sat back a bit, preparing myself mentally as he reached into a small leather bag on the side of his belt. Clearly he and I were in for a bit of an argument today since he’d already claimed my baby as his own.

“This belonged to my beloved wife when she was alive.” He laid something on the table, keeping his long, youthful fingers over it for a second. “I thought you should have it. Wear it while she grows inside you.”

“Whoa. Hold on.” I put my hand up and, at that moment, Drake drew his away, revealing a giant oval, almost gaudy-looking emerald stone, set into a fine weave of golden chain. “That’s beautiful, Drake, but . . . did you just say your wife is—”

“Growing inside you,” he stated factually, his eyes moving then to my belly as if he looked upon her for the first time in centuries—his beloved Anandene.

“Okay.” I blocked his view, crossing two hands over my midsection. “Let’s get one thing straight here. This is not, nor will it ever be, that witch!”

“Witch!” He shot up out of his chair and stood over me, darkening the sun with the mere presence of anger. “You will do well to remember that I loved that witch, and have gone to great lengths to see her reborn, Amara-Rose. Speak ill of her again and I will knock you unconscious. Do I make myself clear?”

I could only nod a few times, both arms wrapping my baby, sheltering her from the raw emotion emanating off that vampire.

He sat back down, and the sun came out again, the birds in the trees making merry little songs around us once more, while the leaves on the trees danced in the wind. “You have heard many stories about this contract, I am sure. But only one is true.”

“And which one is that?” I asked spitefully, still sitting to attention.

“My sister Lilith gave her soul to see Anandene reborn, and I have waited many centuries for all the pieces to finally come together. You carry inside you the blood of my sister, mixed with oldest, most pure blood of nobles known to mankind, but she will bare the soul of my long-dead wife.”

“No.” I looked around as if there was something I could say or do to weaken the meaning in his words. “She can’t. I won’t let that happe—”

“It already has. The moment she was conceived, you broke the curse you carried to bear only females, and you opened a portal for Anandene’s soul to cross over—carried along the path all souls travel when a new child is conceived.”

“So that’s just it? She’s already Anandene? You don’t need to do a ritual or—”

“No.” He laughed. “There are many ways to reinsert a soul, but this is the only way that ensures permanent success. If I simply reinserted her into a body that shared the blood of her lineage, she could not have been immortal. She would still be a witch, but would not live forever. And it is that desire that got her killed in the first place.”

“How so?”

“She attempted a spell, using the Stone—”

“And Lilith had to kill her to undo the curse she invoked?” I nodded when Drake did. “So, you what? You devised this plan over centuries just so you could have forever together?”

He smiled simply. “You’re in love, are you not?”

“Yeah, but—”

“What lengths would you go to?”

I leaned back, exhaling. “And this is why the contract promises you the baby?”

“It promises the baby will be born, yes, and in exchange I will give back what I took. But it does not promise me possession of the child. She will come for me when her memories return.”

“Memories?”

“One day, everything she was in her past life will come back to her, and she will look for me.”