Yvette pressed the gang member further. The man revealed that his boss—along with several rivals, including one they’d once stabbed—had sworn loyalty to a mysterious woman a month earlier. At first, disgruntled members cursed her as a sorceress, but even the loudest critics soon became devotees. The boss’s right hand, crippled decades ago when his former leader clubbed him for skimming loot, had been magically restored by this woman.

Once satisfied no more clues remained, Yvette beat the thugs again. Guards, primed by Artois, “arrested” her and faked a lockdown—a ruse to let her escape undetected.

Back home, Yvette relayed the details to Randall. The vampire, now in casual clothes, was polishing a syringe.

“It’s Aurora,” Randall concluded. “Timing matches, and healing old injuries aligns with embracement.”

“To Woolworth Street tonight?”

“Yes, but…” He hesitated uncharacteristically. “My… nourishment requires a volunteer. Your maid—”

“You didn’t touch Alison.”

“Never without consent and compensation,” Randall said firmly.

Montague’s household rotated daily donors. After 24 hours, hunger must gnaw at him.

“Alison’s nursing. Find someone else.”

“You’d have me hunt gutter trash? Filthy, disease-ridden—”

“Relax.” Yvette snatched the syringe. “Sterilized?”

“Alcohol.” Randall raised an eyebrow.

Vampires had long known bloodborne plagues. Medieval lords used syringes or occult cleansings to protect their herds—secrets they couldn’t share without exposing themselves.

Alcohol’s not enough. Yvette superheated the needle with stolen candle-flame, then cooled it.

Squeezing her arm, she jabbed the vein—and missed.

“…You punctured through,” Randall said flatly.

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“Expertise needed.” She thrust her arm at him.

After adjustments, blood filled the vial.

“That’s half a cup!” Yvette protested when he stopped at 130ml.

“I’m fasting.”

“For what? You’re already rail-thin.”

“Aesthetic priorities.” His jaw tightened.

Randall waved her out. “I don’t dine with an audience.”

High-maintenance bloodsuckers, she thought, leaving.

Alone, Randall grimaced at the cup. Her blood smelled divine—a cruelty. Montague’s guilt made sense now. Drinking a comrade’s blood felt cannibalistic.

He drained it. The purity sickened him.

The slum felt wrong. No beggars hawking matches. No pickpockets. Just eerie order.

“Catch any scents?” Yvette whispered.

“My nose isn’t a hound’s. They’d need to be breathing down my neck.”

“Won’t they sniff you out?”

“We’re shadows. Even feral pups can’t scent us.”

The district welcomed visitors with buildings steeped in coal dust, their walls charred and windows gaping holes. Night draped its cloak, yet lamplight remained scarce. Shadows slithered like oily phantoms in sewage-clogged alleys—stray beasts or skulking men, all fleeing the gloom.

Amidst this desolation, a jaundiced glow seeped from a structure labeled Glasgow. The promised den of vice throbbed with life, its cacophony spilling into the street.

“Storming in seems… theatrical,” Yvette muttered, vetoing Randall’s brawn-over-brain approach. Better to flush rats from their nest.

Jingling a near-empty purse, she slipped inside.

The casino reeked of desperation—dice clattered, cards slapped tables, and drunks toasted to ever-full codpieces. Ignored as another youth chasing fortune, Yvette joined a dice game.

Oddly, tonight the seasoned croupier fumbled. Coins piled before her. Sensing enforcers’ stares, she exited stage left, bait trailing.

Predators pounced at the first corner: blade ahead, boots behind.

“Lesson time, whelp—”

Randall’s shadow-swipe cut the threat short. Yvette disarmed her attacker, unimpressed. Prisoner boasts had promised elite guards, not these thugs who’d struggle against a tavern brawl.

The interrogation hit dead ends until Randall’s bloody intervention. Crimson drops transformed snarling curs into groveling sycophants.

Master! they fawned.

Their dead-end boss? A woman, whispered the thralls. A shadow puppeteer. Vagrants vanishing? Monsters, claimed knackery gossip.

Randall snapped their necks after—mercy, he claimed. Their addiction to vampiric vitae meant slow, maddened deaths otherwise. Yvette’s protests died unspoken. Species differed; so did ethics.

Butter became her next gambit. At derelict mills, she bartered golden pats for truth. A haunted woman spat warnings: Stay inside when darkness falls.

In starving lanes where laundry moldered unlit, even bread required Salvation Army charity. Yet the destitute had fled—or been taken. By what?

Randall lingered, an unspoken question between them. Yvette walked faster. Blood bonds troubled her. If loyalty could be dripped down throats like laudanum, what of Ada’s “choice” to feed the Marquis?

Some puzzles lacked clean solutions. Tonight’s required only this: follow the crumbs, butter-smeared though they were.