Alexis Tomar's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Six nights until Dracula's next feast. Alexis had a plan and hated it. She needed one life to feed the binding that held Tyler. Not her own. Not his. A stranger's. But the court watched every death in Walachia. A missing noble drew questions. A missing servant drew questions too. She needed a life the court would not count. So she went to find the one person who knew what going uncounted felt like. Tyler crouched in his side chamber of the great library castle, sorting rats into a wooden bowl by size. His mohawk hung limp over pale, welted skin. He did not look up. "You found someone to kill." "I'm trying," Alexis said. "Every name I know has a keeper. A guard, a wife, a king who'd notice." She sat on the cold stone. "I need a life nobody misses." Tyler dropped a rat in the bowl. "You're describing me." "No." "I'm not on any list. Dracula counts his wine, not his cupbearer." His red eyes met hers. "Feed me to the binding. You go free. I go free." "That's not free. That's you dead." Her voice cracked. "I did all of this to save your life, not spend it." "You saved a life like this." He held up his thin, welted arm. "I eat spiders. I'll never sit at our table again. I'll never marry. Do you remember what we were before he watched her turn me? I'd have courted some aristocrat's daughter. Had children. A house with a fire." He set the arm down. "He took all of it. You keep trying to give me back a life I don't have anymore." Alexis said nothing. The candle flame bent in a draft. "You want a name off your own list," Tyler said. "I have one. A man you plant beside. A minor minister you turned. No family. No title anyone guards. He signs papers and drinks alone. If he vanishes, his king will hire another by morning." Alexis knew the man at once. She had spent two years making him useful. He trusted her. "He's mine," she said. "He tells me everything." "Then he's the one. Nobody counts him but you." Tyler almost smiled. "You spent your life reading people. You already knew." She had. She had been circling the answer for two nights, afraid to look at it. A man she had befriended. A man who thought she was his ally. That was the life the world would not miss. "I'll do it," Alexis said. She stood. Her hands were steady, which frightened her more than shaking would have. "Six nights. I bring him to Walachia. I feed the binding. You walk out of here." Tyler picked up another rat. "You'll hate yourself." "I already do." She left him with his bowl. She had a target now. She also had the face of a friend she was going to kill.