Maria Tepes II wanted to bend the guard's blood until his heart stopped. She raised one hand. His pulse jerked under her will. Then her own blood turned to fire in her veins. She dropped to one knee on the training floor, gasping, while the guard fled the ring. Every time she reached for real power, this happened. Her body burned itself out before the working was done. The Scarlet Princess of Walachia meant to become the strongest witch alive. Instead she collapsed like a fainting girl in a red gown three miles of veil could not hide. Her mother watched from the doorway. The Mother, Ioana, Queen of the Strigoi Vii, said nothing at first. Her own veil pooled behind her across the stone. Maria hated being seen this weak by the woman whose magic hid the whole kingdom. "I nearly had him," Maria said. She wiped blood from her lip. "You had nothing," the Mother said. "You spend your power the moment you draw it. A witch who cannot store cannot last." Maria stood. "Then teach me to store it." The Mother crossed the floor. She took Maria's chin and turned her face toward the high window, where the moon showed pale through clouds. "We draw from the moon now. Hecate left us nothing else. But moonlight can be poured into a thing and kept. Silver. Gold. Something worn close to the skin, over years." She let go. "You have no such thing." Maria thought of her father. She found Dracula in his study, bent over an old spellbook. His gold dragon medallion hung on his chest, the metal dark with age. She had seen it there her whole life. "That," Maria said, pointing. "How long have you worn it?" Dracula did not look up. "Since before this city stood. Since before you drew breath." "Then it holds centuries of moonlight," Maria said. "Every night you have worn it. I need it." Now he looked at her. "This was hers. Maria's. The first one." He closed the book. "You would drain a thing I have carried through death itself." "I would use it," Maria said. "You keep it to remember a woman in Hades. I would make it the reason your daughter does not die on a training floor." For a long moment he said nothing. Then he lifted the chain over his head and set the medallion in her palm. It was warm. It hummed against her skin like a held breath. "Take care," Dracula said. "A reservoir this old will not warn you before it empties." Maria closed her fingers around the dragon. Back in the ring, she reached for the stored light instead of her own blood. Power flowed cold and steady into her hands. She held a working far longer than ever before, and her veins stayed quiet. Then, on the fourth breath, the medallion went cold. The old moonlight was already thinning. She had a reservoir now. She did not yet know how fast she could burn through a thing built over five hundred years.