“Don’t the witches do that?”
“Yes, but different types of spells. The witches will sell you spells to take on your way. Useful things, but often not quite as powerful or dangerous as what the sorcerers sell.” I slanted her a look. “That’s not to say the witches aren’t as powerful as the sorcerers. They’re more so, but they don’t share their strongest magic.”
“Untrusting?”
“Very. Each guild has a motto. Theirs is, ‘We are the daughters of
the witches you could not burn.’”
“They got caught up in the witch burnings?”
I nodded. “And they haven’t forgotten.”
“So then, if you want something powerful, you come to the sorcerers, and they sell it to you?”
“Exactly. But they insist on performing the spell, too. Unlike the witches, they don’t sell spells to go.”
“No magical takeaway from these guys, huh?”
I felt a smile crack my face and forced it back. “No.”
“What’s their motto?”
“‘Our own, first. Always.’”
“It sounds like they wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire.”
“That’s accurate.” I stopped in front of the stone wall. There was nothing here—no door or window or light fixture. At least, not that the eye could see. Quickly, I located the stone that I wanted and tapped twice.
Pale magic sparked in the air, and faint wisps of light swirled in front of the stone.
“What are you doing?” Carrow asked.
“Secret entrance. Most of the sorcerers . . . don’t like me.”
“But you do have a contact inside?”
“I do, and this door was built especially for my use.”
“This is who you are, then? Someone who has secret power all over the city, lurking around like a giant bat?”
A rare grin cracked my face, and I almost felt a laugh rise to the surface. Almost. I looked down at her. “A giant bat?”
“You’re the one who made the flying joke.” She grinned up at me, so beautiful in the moonlight that it hurt to look at her. The glow of the moon seemed to give her a bit of extra color that my turned eyes couldn’t normally pick up.
My gaze lingered on the smooth skin of her throat, and I swallowed hard. There was something about her—about her energy and her spirit, as strange as it sounded—that called to me. I couldn’t compel her, and I liked that. But it was more than that. Strange to feel so much for someone I’d known so little . . . and bloody uncomfortable.
“You know, because you’re a vampire,” she clarified.
I’d been staring at her in silence for too long, and she’d taken it for confusion. “I understand,” I said.
“Are you really hundreds of years old?” She searched my face, avoiding my eyes. “Really Vlad the Impaler?”
Guilt streaked through me, so visceral and real that I almost twitched. Those memories were long buried—for my own sanity. I’d done things I wasn’t proud of, and in terrible moments, I wondered if I’d wanted to do them.
I had.
It had been more than the blood lust and insanity of a newly turned vampire.