Page 38 of Bought for Blood

“The operation’s exposure grows every week I’m inside,” I say. “Vasile is spreading my name around as we speak. The longer this runs, the more of the trade knows my face. That’s a risk.”

“A risk you undertook,” Crowe says. “You. The man who told a table of sixteen elders he doesn’t file itineraries.” He stands and comes around the desk, unhurried, then leans against the front of it with his arms folded.

“Here’s what I’ve watched instead. Eighteen months you were a rumor: no Court, no auctions, no tables, wouldn’t cross your own study for anyone’s business, including mine. Then one evening inside that house, and now you’re back, louder thanever. The whole Court thinks the Seigneur got bored of being bored.” He tips his head, reading me. “I don’t. Corpses don’t sit up on their own. Something woke you, and I’m guessing that it’s inside that building.”

“You’re guessing.”

“I’m assessing. It’s my trade.” He unfolds his arms. “All the time in the world, and suddenly you’re in a hurry. What’s her name?”

The yard, the radio, the engine. I keep my face where I put it.

“There’s no her.”

“Mm.” He doesn’t move. “The house holds one asset they wouldn’t sell you. Rare classification, kept off the open list. Vasile’s been whispering it to the right rooms for weeks; that’s how good the cover is.”

“Vasile’s playing the game we want him to.”

“Is he? Magic-blood does exactly this. You’ve watched it happen. Marchetti fed on his own supply and lost his holdings inside a year.”

“That’s not what this is.”

“You told me the lesson wasdon’t get caught. I told you it wasdon’t be stupid.” A pause. “Witch-blood, wolf-blood, whatever this one carries, it’s addictive. First you feed. Then you’re standing in a fixer’s office at midnight trying to move a Court operation, because the operation is standing between you and what you want.” He says it without heat. “You’re fixated, Bastien. You’re slipping.”

“I don’t slip.” It comes out too flat. “I’m an ancient,” I say, quieter. “I was crossing this continent before your Guild had a name. Mortal blood doesn’t hold me. Nothing mortal holds me. That isn’t pride, Crowe. It’s fact. I have faced far worse, and I have walked away from everything, every single time.”

“You have,” Crowe says. “Every time.” He goes back around the desk, sits, and pulls the ledger toward himself. “So walk awayfrom this one for a month. The arrangement’s paid for either way; you made sure of that. One month, then come back here and tell me about acceleration, and I’ll listen with both ears.”

The floodlight in the yard snaps off. The kid’s done. A door rolls down on its track. The radio dies mid-chorus. The office goes quiet between us.

“How I handle this isn’t up to you,” I say.

“That’s a no, then.”

“It’s the way I work.”

“Right,” says Crowe, and writes a line in the ledger. I can’t see what it says from here. For the first time since I’ve known him, I want to.

I take my coat from the hook. He doesn’t look up.

“Val-Serein.” His pen keeps moving. “The Court can survive you bored. It survived you bored for a decade. What it can’t survive is you interesting. Interesting ancients end up as case studies.” Now he looks up. “It can’t be rushed. Whatever you’re thinking of doing instead—and you’re thinking of something, you were thinking of it before you reached my stairs—think carefully.”

“Good night, Crowe.”

The street outside is wet and empty. Yves is waiting at the car.

“I’ll walk.”

He doesn’t ask why. Of course he doesn’t. “Bien entendu, mon seigneur.” He closes the door. The car pulls away, taillights doubling on the wet road. I shove my hands in my coat pockets and walk.

Crowe is wrong. He watches money and appetite move through this city, and in his trade every strong current is an addiction. It’s the world he lives in.

He has never been what I am.

Everything he knows about appetite, he’s learned from mortals and the newly Turned. What I do in that stinking place makes no difference to me except to ease my boredom.

I could stop tomorrow.

I notice the sentence after I’ve said it to myself. Every addict I’ve ever known said it in exactly those words.