Valentina took a deep breath and walked forward. The wall to her left opened up to a sitting room decorated in dark reds and golds, just like the outside of the house. Red velvet curtains had been pulled back from the window, letting the light in, illuminating the strange collection of things scattered around the room. A gramophone with a big faded gold bell sat just to the side of the window, while three different clocks adorned the walls, each with a different time, and a large tufted settee took up one side of the room. There were candles and bowls of fruit, flowers, and sweets all over the various surfaces. A mirror sat above a fireplace, and as they walked into the room, the smell of the burning wood finally reached her, along with the scent of pipe tobacco and old books.

A throat cleared from a doorway she hadn’t seen until it drew her attention. Victor stood in all his mage glory as though he were awaiting a tribute from them. His long silver hair shone in the light from the window, making it look almost white, while his silver eyes locked onto her.

“Alpha,” he said as he entered the room, his robes flowing around him in an unseen wind. The purple and silver were accented with a pale turquoise sash. It was the most color she had ever seen him wear, and it somehow humanized him a little more. The material was still starkly contrasted. The deep amethyst color was adorned with an intricate pattern, while the pale silver and turquoise were without any embellishment. Instead of the long flowing sleeves she had seen him in before, this time his sleeves were bound to his wrists by pale gold cuffs, preventing the billowy material from going anywhere, and also making him look like he was considering going to the Renaissance fair.

“Victor, it’s good to see you again.” She smiled at him.

His blood-red lips parted as he smiled back, and she had to stiffen her spine to prevent a shiver from making her shake in front of him. “And who did you bring me?”

“This is Elijah Berridge. He was recently turned, and we are trying to learn the course of events that led to such an occurrence.”

“Please, have a seat.” Victor gestured to the overstuffed settee.

Valentina smoothed out her skirt and sat. Elijah followed suit, sitting a little closer than she would have liked. The mage sat opposite them in an armchair she didn’t remember noticing before.

“So, you need to figure out where this young man was within a certain area, yes?”

She nodded.

A large, as in unnaturally large, Siamese cat walked in, carrying a golden bowl between its teeth. A turquoise sash adorned its neck like a collar, but more decorative than functional. Victor took the bowl, and the cat sat next to his chair, curling up as though they weren’t even there.

“I will need some blood.” He smiled again, and she thought he might have been trying to put them at ease, when in fact, it had the opposite effect.

Elijah nodded, and the mage stood, bringing the bowl over with him and kneeling next to the panther’s side. Victor reached into his robe and pulled out a dagger that was viciously curved and so sharp, the edge looked like it vanished into nothingness. “Your hand, please?” he asked as he held out his own in expectation while setting the golden bowl on the floor underneath.

Valentina’s heart was in her throat as Elijah extended a hand to the mage. When Victor clasped it, the difference between their skin tones was much more obvious. The mage was so pale, he was almost translucent, while the panther looked so tan, she would have thought he had been on vacation for a week. She could see Victor’s white-knuckled grip on Elijah’s hand from where she was sitting. What she didn’t see was that he had repositioned the dagger so that when he whipped his right arm over their two hands, it sliced into both Elijah’s and Victor’s hands.

The metallic tang of blood filled the air, making her jaguar nervous. A bright-red stream flowed from Elijah’s hand into the bowl, while a few drops of dark silver dropped from Victor’s hand. As the cut kept bleeding, her nerves turned into concern. It should have clotted and begun healing by now.

After a few tense moments, Victor ran the flat side of the dagger’s blade over Elijah’s skin, and when the wound was visible again, Valentina could see it closing. Relief flooded her. The bowl was almost full of blood, and it sloshed as the mage stood and walked over to the small table by the fireplace.

“Have you ever seen a mage summon his power before, Valentina?” Victor asked, his voice oddly distant.

“No,” she breathed, and knew she sounded nervous.

“There is nothing to worry about so long as you don’t disturb me. Now, the map, if you please?”

From her purse, she withdrew the map they had marked and handed it over. Even connecting with him through paper made her feel as though the world was shifting underneath her feet, as if she was standing on sand and the tide was pulling it out from under her. When she released the paper, everything went back to normal. The ground felt solid under her once more.

He opened the map so it only showed the section they had marked and a few miles all around it, almost up to Woodhaven. The silver of the dagger flashed in his hand while his other hand held the golden bowl. Something shifted in the room, and suddenly, the air smelled of ozone. Victor’s hair was blowing in an invisible wind that had his robes flapping around his legs. The cat, who had seemingly been asleep up until that point, got up and moved to sit by Valentina. The three of them watched as the mage’s head rolled back and he rose off the ground.

Victor hung suspended in the air for a while before his head snapped up. The silver of his eyes was gone, replaced by a red glow that made it look like the light was coming from within him. As the energy in the room increased, Victor’s pale skin began to show intricate markings all over his face and down his neck, finally appearing on his hands and fingertips. The bright white lines on his skin dulled to a silver as his attention focused on the bowl and blade in front of him.

For a moment, she wasn’t sure what was happening, but then the lines flared again as though he was drawing some kind of power into himself. When the glow of the lines remained steady and was more white than silver, he tipped the contents of the bowl over the dagger. The ruby liquid hung suspended in the air just below the blade, which was also coated in the blood. He smeared the viscous liquid all over the silver before bringing it to his hand and slicing into his palm in a similar way he had done to Elijah, and then he sliced into the other hand. Finally, he brought the blade to his lips. He kissed the blood-soaked metal and let it fall.

It hung in the air the same as the blood, which he reached out to. Valentina could swear she saw the blood going in the cuts in his hands as he reached toward it. She had seen him bleed before when he’d cut his hand at the same time as Elijah’s, and she knew his blood was silver. It wasn’t something she had expected; she’d heard the rumors as she was growing up, but had always dismissed them as just that, rumors. So, if he bled silver, why were the cuts on his hands red?

Victor grasped the knife again in his bloodied hands and began speaking to it in a language she didn’t recognize. It was melodic but full of hissing sounds and elongated vowels. In a way, it was beautiful, but it was also the kind of language that haunted dreams.

She wasn’t sure how long exactly it went on for since the whole performance was hypnotic, but when his voice fell silent and he flipped his hold on the dagger, she could tell it was coming to an end. It didn’t hurt that the energy in the room had reached what felt like a fever pitch, making her skin itch and the jaguar growl within her. Suddenly, Victor was laser-focused on Elijah. He said what she thought were a few more words in that strange language and then threw the dagger at him.

Her heart stopped as the silver blade sailed through the air, end over end, until it bounced off a wall and landed on the map. The tip of the blade embedded in the paper and the table underneath.

By the time she looked back up at Victor, he was back on the ground. The glowing lines on his face had faded, and the blood-red sheen to his eyes was gone, leaving just the gleaming silver in its place.

“That is where he was for longer than a few minutes,” the mage said, sounding tired, not completely exhausted, but as though he’d gone for a good run.

Valentina leaned in to look at the blade and the blood now draining off it onto the map itself. “Can I wipe the blood away?”

“If it offends you, yes. The hole is where he was; the blood, if left, will eventually highlight the path he took.” Victor sat on the chair opposite them once more, and the cat returned to his side and began licking his hands.

She wanted to ask if that was sanitary, but then looking at the cat once more, she had no doubt that it was a familiar or something similar. No Siamese house cat was that big, and they certainly wouldn’t stand guard or bring golden bowls to their owners’ feet. Her curiosity got the better of her, so she sat back and waited. While it wasn’t particularly clear, she could see where certain areas of the map were getting darker, especially along the roads.

As she thought back to the route Anthony had showed them on his laptop, she knew that it was accurate. The darker red lines followed the roads he had pointed out, and shortly after he stopped being able to track them, the dagger was embedded in the map.

What she hadn’t expected was seeing the lines appear coming out of the section where the tip of the dagger was embedded. It made sense, of course; she just hadn’t thought of it. The route on the other side of the dagger wasn’t straight, though. Hell, it wasn’t even crooked. It looked more like a child learning to write than anything else, but as her eyes traveled along the path, she could see that it cut through forest preserves, community parks, anywhere with significant tree cover.

She could tell that, even though there were more loops than a roller coaster on the path, the general direction he had been heading was north, and although the path wavered from left to right, Valentina knew that if she unfolded the map and drew a straight line north, it would either run close to or go directly to Woodhaven.

The idea of him being drawn there sent a shiver down her spine. Elijah had frozen next to her, and when she looked up at his face, she could see that his eyes were the pale jade green of his panther, while his fingernails were turning the dark black of his claws.

If he didn’t get out of there soon, she could have an interspecies incident on her hands. Just the thought of a shifter killing, or just injuring, a mage was enough to make her blood run cold. The mage clans would retaliate without mercy, and she sure as shit wasn’t going to be the one who caused that to happen.

She summoned all her alpha power to her, searching within herself for a direct connection with her jaguar, and said, “Elijah, go wait on the porch. I’ll be right out.” The power in her voice reverberated between the two of them, and he sat there longer than anyone else in her pack would have. When he looked at her with those jade eyes, she thought he might stand his ground, try to out alpha her, but then he was on his feet and moving toward the door.

“He couldn’t have hurt me,” Victor said in a sure voice.

“Not worth the risk. Would you mind removing your dagger from the map?” A hand as pale as the moon itself reached out from the folds of his robe and plucked the silver dagger from the paper. “Thank you for your assistance, Victor. Now, is there anything else I need to do, or can I take the map and get us out of your hair?”

“The map is all yours, but the favor you owe is all mine, and a mage doesn’t forget a debt.” He smiled at her, but it was close lipped, smug, and made her very bones feel cold.