Miriam shoved it at him without hesitation and exhaled loudly in relief.
To Wynn's surprise, il'Sänke stepped past the pair of couriers to the empty entryway. Beyond anyone's reach, he opened the leather flap and pulled out the short stack of pages. The domin scanned their contents once, and then placed them back inside.
Wynn would've given anything to peek over his shoulder.
In that instant il'Sänke glanced at her.
Without a word he strode silently past Miriam and her companion—and Wynn. The cluster of gathered initiates and apprentices scattered to the passage walls to let him through. Wynn quickly followed him back into the common hall, but Domin il'Sänke never paused. He headed straight for the narrow side archway. Wynn sneaked after him, all the way to the turn, and watched him head straight for the door to the north tower—and Domin High-Tower's study.
What had he seen in those pages?
'Come have supper,' Nikolas said softly.
Wynn had forgotten about him standing right behind her.
'Put your things away later,' he added. 'Just come and eat.'
She simply nodded and followed him back to the table in the common hall. But Wynn's thoughts were locked on the folio, and the frustration of watching il'Sänke scan those pages right in front of her.
Chane was seething as he stalked back toward the Graylands Empire. He had come so close and then lost the folio through clumsiness. And he was hungry, as if anger made his need that much worse.
In the past, the beast within him had reveled in the hunt, in the smell of fear in his prey, and relished their attempts to fight back. He had fed indiscriminately, taking whoever pleased him in the moment.
Some things had changed since he had last spoken with Wynn.
His choices had become more particular, and the beast within whimpered in suppression or howled in rage at his self-denial. Chane struggled with his longing for the euphoria of a true hunt and a kill.
He had been in Calm Seatt for just over a moon, but he had learned its districts quite well. When he needed—rather than wanted—to feed, he headed into the southern reaches of the Graylands Empire. Tonight he walked shabby and dim byways, listening and watching. Most people here were squalid and wretched, but those were not the criteria of his choices.
An old woman with no teeth shuffled by, muttering to herself, but he ignored her. Finally he passed a shack set between a faded tavern and what might be a candle shop on the corner. Muffled shouting escaped one shutterless window, and Chane slipped into the shadow of the candle shop's awnings.
'You put that back!' a woman shouted. 'That's for milk and bread. Wager your boots at dice, if that's all you care about!'
A loud crash followed, and the sound of a woman weeping. The shack's front door burst open as a large man stepped halfway out. He had not shaved in days.
'Leave me be!' he snarled back through the doorway. 'I'm going to the Blue Boar to ask about… to find some work. I'll get the milk and bread myself, so stop sniveling!'
So obsessed was he with maintaining control, Chane was startled by a familiar, uncomfortable tickle at the back of his mind. And the beast within rumbled in warning, bringing him to awareness.
The man was lying. He turned down the street, leaving the door wide-open.
Chane slipped out to follow. This worthless creature was an acceptable choice—a liar, a wastrel, and a waste of human flesh. He was no loss to this world, just another head in the cattle of humanity. Three streets down, Chane halted short of the next alley's mouth.
'Sir,' he rasped in Numanese, knowing that both his voice and his accent might cause suspicion. 'I could not help overhearing a mention of dice.'
The filthy man stopped and turned, eyes squinting.
For this part of the city, Chane was well dressed in hard boots and a dark wool cloak hiding all but the hilt of a longsword.
The man blinked in indecision. 'You lookin' for a game?'
Chane took a step and pulled out his pouch, allowing the coins to clink.
'Depends on the price to get in.'
He stepped only as far as the alley mouth's other side, and noted that the closest passerby was two cross streets to the west. The large man's eyes fixed on the pouch, and he smiled, perhaps seeing some witless foreigner to take in among his regular companions. He strolled back toward Chane.
'Isn't no fee to enter,' the man said. 'And we bet what we please—no holds barred.'
The instant he reached the alley's mouth, Chane dropped the pouch.
The man's gaze flicked downward in reflex.
Chane's hand shot out and latched across his mouth and jaw. Spinning, he wrenched the man into the alley's deeper darkness. The man was as strong as he looked and struggled like a bull, and he suddenly rammed an elbow into Chane's ribs.
Chane didn't even flinch. He slammed his victim against the wall and drove his distended fangs into the man's stubble-coated throat. The smell of stale ale and sweat filled his nose, but the beast trapped inside of Chane lunged against its bonds.
Once, he would have played with his victim until fear permeated the air. He loved that sweet, musky smell —or was it the beast within who savored it more?
He bit deeper, gulping like a glutton. Salt warmth flowed into his mouth, and the beast inside grew wild with joy. He drank so fast that the man went into convulsions. The would-be gambler's blood slowed to a trickle before his heart could even stop.
Death was a blink away.
Chane wrenched his head back and released his grip on the man's jaw. He stepped away and watched the body slide down the alley wall, until the corpse sat propped up with throat torn and eyes still wide.
It was over so quickly—too quickly. Even the rush of life making Chane's head swim and his cold flesh tingle with heat brought no pleasure. And the beast inside him whimpered like a dog pulled back before finishing its meal.
Chane had seen his own maker, Toret, and then Welstiel, raise new minions from selected victims. Not all rose from death, which was why careful selection was necessary. But there was still a slim chance that a victim taken too quickly might rise the following night. Toret had believed that for a Noble Dead to make one of its own, it had to feed a victim its own fluids. That was another superstition.
All it took was devouring a life—suddenly, quickly, all at once—and the close contact of a Noble Dead in the instant between life's end and death's coming. Chane had been lucky in the past not to have any of his prey rise.
Or had they? In recollection, aside from his time in Bela with Toret, he had always been on the move with Welstiel. He had never stayed long enough in one place to be certain.
Chane wanted no minions. And certainly not this side of beef sitting limp in the alley. The last trickles of blood ran down the corpse's neck, staining his filthy shirt like black ink in the alley's darkness.
Chane closed his eyes and saw Wynn's pained face staring back at him in accusation.
He opened his eyes, pulled out a fish knife stolen off the docks, and cut the man's throat deeply. When the corpse was found, his death would seem a common murder by some desperate cutpurse. Kneeling down, he searched the man and took every coin he found for his own needs.
Chane stepped from the alley and retrieved his own pouch, adding new coins to old. He began walking «home» toward the inn and never looked back.
Chapter 8
Wynn spent the next day in the catacombs with two terms stuck in her head—
She searched deep through the archives, even trying to find possible variations on the term “vampire.” But
