Blair Nightshade had searched Terror Woods for three nights, and the throne beneath it still refused to show her its door. The vampire court ruled the dark under these trees. Her blood said it belonged to her. But a crown meant nothing if she could not find the stairs down. She pressed her palm against the cold dirt and felt nothing. No seam. No hidden latch. Only roots and worms. She followed a smell of rot to a broken grey ruin. Cracked stone leaned at every angle. Pale lilies grew through the gaps, and dark green ooze dripped down the walls. This was the old keep where the court's last living servant had worked. If anyone had written down the way in, they had done it here. Blair climbed through a split in the wall. Inside, she found a stone shelf and a rotted iron box. She tore the lid free. A single page lay inside, stained but readable. It named a marker: a bush of black lilies and dying roses, and beneath its bleeding roots, the door. "You found it before me." Blair spun. A small zombie stood in the doorway, pink hair bright against green skin. Patches of bone showed through her torn white dress. Her shoes were split at the toes. Blair knew her. Ella had been hunting the same door for weeks, always one step ahead, always smiling that small smile. A rival, not a friend. "The throne is mine," Blair said. "Not yours." Ella tilted her head. "I don't want the throne. I want to go home." She pointed a grey finger at the page. "Read the last line." Blair looked. The ink was faint. *The door is guarded by what burrows from below.* They left the ruin together, because neither trusted the other alone. Outside, under grey grass, grew the bush from the page. Black lilies and red roses dripped like wet wounds. Blair knelt and clawed at the roots. Stone showed beneath. A flat slab. A handle of rusted iron. She pulled. The slab swung up. Cold air rushed out, old and sour. Stairs fell away into black. The door to the court, at last. Something hissed in the dark below. A shape slid up the top step. Black and grey scales. Gold spikes down its spine. Its fangs dripped blood, and its eyes caught the moonlight. The snake that fed on corpses in the court's own tunnels now blocked the only way down. Ella stepped back fast. "That's what the line meant." Blair did not move. She had found the door. The door was open. But the thing guarding it was between her and every stair that led to her crown. She bared her fangs at the snake. The snake bared its own.

The serpent struck. Blair twisted aside, but a fang raked her shoulder. She hit the dirt beside the open stone door. The snake coiled for another lunge. It was faster than her. One more strike and it would pin her to the ground. She needed something to stop it, and she had nothing but her hands. Ella stood frozen at the edge of the pit. The small zombie had not run, though she easily could have. Her black eyes fixed on the snake, not the door. "It eats the dead," she said. "That's what feeds it down there. Corpses." Blair rolled clear of another bite. "Then give it one!" Ella did not move toward the snake. Instead she turned and dug both hands into the grey grass near the bush of black lilies. Blair had thought it only roots and dirt. But Ella hauled up a torn arm, then a shoulder, then a whole body. An old corpse, long dead, its clothes shredded. Deep bite marks scarred its chest and legs. Snake wounds. Something had tried to climb down before. "Help me," Ella grunted. She could not lift it alone. Blair understood. She grabbed the corpse's legs. The snake swung toward her, jaws wide. Together they heaved the dead body up and flung it into the gaping mouth. The serpent clamped down on reflex. It swallowed the shoulder, the ribs, the whole ravaged shape, dragging it backward into the dark stairwell. For a moment the snake thrashed, choking on its meal. Blair did not wait. She dove past its writhing coils and down the first three steps. Her feet found stone. The throat of the court opened below her, cold and black. She looked back up. Ella stood at the lip of the door, framed by the bleeding roses. The snake was already turning from its meal, blocking the stairs again. It cut Ella off above. "Come down," Blair said. "Before it finishes." Ella shook her head. "I told you. I don't want the throne." She stepped back from the edge. "But you owe me now, vampire. Remember that when you wear your crown." The serpent lunged for the open door. Its body slammed across the stairs, sealing the way behind Blair. She pressed flat against the cold wall as scales slid past her face. When they passed, the top of the stairs was gone. Only the snake's huge coiled bulk, and beyond it, the faint grey of the night she had left. Blair stood alone on the stairs. She had crossed the guardian. The door was behind her now, shut by the very creature she had fed. There was no climbing back past those fangs. Her shoulder bled where the tooth had torn it. Below her waited the court and its throne. The only way left was down.