A group of women walked down the path, arm in arm. They were laughing and had clearly been out enjoying themselves that afternoon, based on their rollicking steps and the number of shopping bags they carried.

Phoebe sniffed the air.

“No, Phoebe,” Jason said. “Those women are not suitable. They haven’t been paid, for a start. You can’t just—”

“Phoebe?” Stella stared at Phoebe in astonishment.

“Stella!” Phoebe whipped off her dark glasses, blinking in the dark light as though it were midday and the sun were shining. She hopped down to greet her sister, but was stopped by Jason.

“Too fast. Too soon,” Jason whispered.

Freyja cautioned her day in and day out to slow down. But this was her sister, and Phoebe hadn’t seen or talked to her for almost two months.

“I hardly recognized you.” Stella took a step back as she approached. “You look—”

“Fantastic!” one of Stella’s friends chirped. “Is that a Seraphin jacket?”

Phoebe looked down at the leather coat she’d borrowed from Freyja. She shrugged. “I don’t know. It belongs to a friend.”

“Your voice—” Stella remembered they were not alone, and stopped herself.

“How are Mum and Dad?” Phoebe was starved for news of the family. She missed their casual weekend suppers, and the exchange of stories about all that had happened the previous week.

“Dad’s been tired, and Mum’s worried that he’s not sleeping. But how could he since—you know . . .” Stella drifted off into silence.

“Who’s your friend?” one of the women asked, casting a seductive glance at Jason, who was standing a few feet away.

“Oh, that’s my stepbrother. Jason.” Phoebe beckoned him over. Jason strolled in their direction with an affable smile.

“You didn’t tell us you had a brother,” the other woman murmured to Stella, “never mind one who looked like that.”

“He’s not—I mean he’s more of a close family friend,” Stella said brightly. She glared at Phoebe.

Normally, that look of outrage and blame would have had Phoebe scrambling to apologize and make amends. Phoebe was the good girl in the family, the one who could be relied upon to give in, give up, and give way to keep the peace.

But Phoebe was a vampire now, and far less worried about her sister’s feelings than she had been before Miriam’s blood entered her veins. Her lips curled and her eyebrows rose. She returned Stella’s glare, matching her in outrage and replacing the blame with scorn.

Not my problem, Phoebe said silently.

Based on Stella’s dumfounded expression, she got the message. It was not like Phoebe to challenge her. But Stella, unaccustomed to conceding so quickly, fought back.

“What happened to Marcus?” Stella asked. “Does he know you’re out with another man?”

Phoebe reacted as though she’d been bitten by a poisonous snake. She recoiled, horrified at the suggestion that she was being unfaithful.

“Let’s go, Phoebe.” Jason took her arm.

“Oh, I see.” Stella’s look was triumphant. “Couldn’t bear the time apart, so you thought you’d have a little fun on the side?”

Stella’s friends laughed, a bit nervously.

“He calls Mum and Dad every few days, you know,” Stella reported. “Asks after them, after you. Even after me. I’ll let him know that you’re doing just fine—without him.”

“Don’t you dare.” Phoebe was inches away from Stella, with no memory of how she’d gotten there. That wasn’t good. It meant that she’d forgotten to move like a warmblood.

“What are you going to do?” Stella asked softly. “Bite me?”

Phoebe wanted to. She also wanted to wipe that superior expression from her sister’s face and scare the piss out of her friends.

“You’re not my type,” Phoebe replied.

Stella’s eyes widened.

“Don’t fuck with me, Stella,” Phoebe warned her sister, dropping her voice. “As you can see, I’m not the same good girl I used to be.”

Phoebe turned her back on Stella. It felt freeing, as though she were saying farewell to the ways of the past in favor of a new, shiny future.

She walked away, the sky-high heels of her boots clicking on the pavement. Jason caught up with her and slowed her walk to what felt like a crawl.

“Easy there, Phoebe,” Jason said.

They walked in silence for hours, until the moon had fully risen and the lights of Paris came on full blast, forcing Phoebe to put her sunglasses back on.

“Tonight didn’t go very well, did it?” Phoebe asked Jason.

“You were supposed to hunt and feed from a live human,” Jason said. “Instead, you fought with your warmblooded sister in full view of her friends. On balance, I’d say it was mildly disastrous.”

“Miriam is going to be furious.”

“She is,” Jason agreed.

Phoebe caught her lip in her teeth, anxious. “And I’m still hungry.”

“You should have had Margot while you had the chance,” Jason commented.

A middle-aged white woman strolled by, texting madly on her phone. She stopped, and dug in her purse.

“Do either of you have a light?” she asked, barely looking up from the screen.

“Sure,” Jason replied, tossing his lighter to Phoebe with a smile.

29

Their Portion of Freedom

1 JULY

I began to unravel a few days after Matthew’s birthday party. As with most crises, I didn’t notice the warning signs. It was not until the first of July that I knew I was in trouble.

The day began well enough.

“Good morning, team!” I said brightly to Matthew when I finished showering and dressing. I slipped my feet into my waiting sneakers. “Time to rise and shine!”

Matthew glowered and then pulled me back into bed.

Our latest family project—managing two Bright Born children entering the terrible twos slightly ahead of schedule, one with a griffin and one who liked to bite—had proved far more difficult than finding Ashmole 782 and its missing pages, or facing down the Congregation and its ancient prejudices. Both of us were utterly exhausted.

After an energizing tussle under the canopy, Matthew and I went to the nursery to rouse the twins. Though the sun had barely risen, the rest of Team Bishop-Clairmont was awake and ready for action.

“Hungry.” Becca’s lower lip trembled.

“Sleeping.” Philip pointed to Apollo. “Shh.”

The griffin had abandoned the fireplace and somehow managed to climb into Philip’s cradle. His weight caused it to list alarmingly, his long tail spilling out over the side. The cradle swayed gently in time to his snores.

“I think we should consider making the switch from cradle to cot,” Matthew said, lifting Philip free of his blanket and the griffin’s wings.

Apollo opened one eye. He stretched and then sprang into the air. Just when I thought he might hit the ground with a thud, he spread his wings and gently glided the remaining distance to the floor. Apollo pecked at his chest feathers and shook his wings into better order. His long tongue lapped around his eyes and mouth as if he were washing the sleepy dust away.

“Oh, Apollo,” I said, unable to stifle a laugh at the griffin equivalent of the twins’ morning routine: hair smoothing, pajama straightening, face washing.

Apollo bleated out a plaintive sound and hopped toward the stairs. He was ready for act two—breakfast.

Becca was chattering amiably to her spoon while pushing blueberries into her mouth with her fingers when Philip began to fuss.

“No. Down.” He was twisting and thrashing in his booster seat while Matthew tried to clip him securely into place.

“If you would stay put while you eat, we wouldn’t have to tie you to your chair,” Matthew said.

With those words, something inside me snapped.

It had been well hidden, twisted tight in a dark part of my soul that I chose not to notice.

The pottery bowl containing my breakfast of cereal and fruit fell from my hands. It shattered when it hit the hard flagstone floor, sending ceramic shards and berries flying.