Yvette froze at her doorstep. Golden light still spilled from the windows—Allison waiting up again?

She sighed, turning the key. Hadn’t she warned they’d return at dawn? The housekeeper’s fretting knew no bounds.

"Young Master! Your—oh merciful heavens." Allison gagged as the door swung open. Yvette’s trousers were mud-spattered, her tutor Randall reeking like a sewage wraith, clutching a bedraggled noblewoman.

"Sewer mishap," Yvette blurted. "We overlooked an open drain."

"Praise the Saints you’re safe! But Sir Ulysses—"

"Uncle’s here?!" Yvette’s gut lurched. She gestured frantically at Randall to bolt.

"A poor escape plan, Ives." Her uncle’s voice cascaded down the stairs. Ulysses leaned against the bannerman, immaculate as ever. "Do enlighten me about tonight’s... adventures."

Randall stiffened. His healed eyes narrowed at the stranger. There was a nagging familiarity here—an old portrait? A court audience? The scent was wrong for a vampire, yet...

"Mr. Randall, my tutor," Yvette interjected. "He’ll clean up first—"

"Stay." Ulysses’ gloved hand halted the vampire. "Let’s confer as colleagues."

In the parlor, Ulysses dispensed with formalities: "The Kindred want you policing their bastards?"

Yvette’s rehearsed lies evaporated. How did he know?

Randall answered with funereal dignity: "We sought Mr. Fisher’s expertise. The apostate caused the attacks. My negligence endangered her—"

Ulysses snorted, eyeing Randall’s filthy coat as proof of effort. "Leave London. Next hunters won’t play nice." He tossed Yvette a velvet case. "Your gadget."

"Brilliant!" Her hand darted out—only for Ulysses to trap her wrist.

The bite mark glared crimson.

"Sunrise cures insolence." Steel entered Ulysses’ voice.

Wait!" Yvette blocked him. "Randall hadn’t fed! His thrall aura triggered the mob. He took my blood so we escaped!"

"Charity whores exist."

"His bloodline rejects impurities—"

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"Montague’s whelp?" Ulysses cut in.

As Randall braced for combat, Ulysses instead produced black tablets—nutritional sludge for vampires. The chemist had stripped blood of all flavor, retaining only faint traces of his own essence.

Weeks later at Warwick, Randall stared at the loathed medicine. A servant coughed: "The portrait, my Prince."

Beneath dust-laden drapes, the massive canvas revealed Ulysses’ doppelgänger—Cardinal Pontian, Primate of Albion, haloed by doves. The inscription dated to Wolsey’s era.

Young Randall had stumbled upon it decades ago during games. Back then, the austere prelate bore no resemblance to the "Parisian dandy". Yet their blood signatures aligned.

If Pontian was Ulysses’ ancestor... how did her uncle share a 400-year-dead vampire’s essence? The portrait’s fawning dedication, the medicine’s molecular echo—pieces of a mosaic too blasphemous to complete.

Randall swiftly buried the incident. Aurora’s flight demanded meticulous cleanup.

Sir Ulysses had begrudgingly altered his report—scrubbing mentions of the vampire princess and substituting himself for Randall as Yvette’s accomplice. While this placated mortal authorities, clan elders required appeasement.

Tradition dictated a public censure. Randall spent days petitioning crypt-dwelling ancients, guided by the Prince’s wisdom.

“Your Highness, does this roster suffice?” He presented the invitation list to the Marquess of Montagu—Albion’s vampiric sovereign.

The Prince amended names with a raven-feather quill. “Summon these. The rest languish in Byzantium or the Colonies—let them rot. Inform Miss Fischer. She’s earned our audience.”

His vow of “clan friendship” now demanded fulfillment. Should Yvette attend, introductions would spare her future treks to Warwickshire.

“Understood.”

“Speak your mind.” The Prince detected his hesitation.

“We unearthed a portrait—‘To Pontian, His Holiness.’ Odd decorum, given our papal frost. Do you know this cardinal?”

“No.” The Prince’s gaze lingered on candle shadows. “Saints sell piety. Mortals see art, not monsters. Immortality grows tedious, Randall. Cultivate an eye for beauty.”

“As you say.” Randall fled before the lecture deepened.

Alone, the Prince ignited centuries-old letters. Flames devoured flawless Latin script:

Montagu—

Delay pardoned. For mortal guises: never linger. Let cities forget. Return as your heir. Fracture your soul into roles—play each briefly. Mannerisms shift with the mask.

Find me in Constantinople.—Pontian

Yvette combed gutter press for hysteria. The Suicide Club’s “angel” glared from her locket—its malice bound by golden filigree.

Bureau sluggards now chased vanished beggars, but rumor milled fables of sewer phantoms. Stamp taxes kept respectable papers costly, spawning penny dreadfuls that sprouted like mold.

Once, heresy laws stifled dissent. Now coal pits spat dinosaur bones, eroding scripture.

Sir Ulysses sneered at his paperwork: “If apes birthed us, ascension’s less traumatic.”

“Roaches outlived dinosaurs,” Yvette noted. “Fossils prove it.”

“Then statecraft survives doomsday.” He eyed his watch. “Tea o’clock.”

In the Iris Café, ink-stained hacks huddled nearby.

“Dawdler.” Yvette piled broadsheets onto his knee.

“Fetch Winslow. Why should the butler nap?”

“Tyrant.” She filed annotated clippings. “Done by dusk.”

“Bureau praised your sewage purge. We share laurels—my acting that gutter-blooded wretch.” Ulysses slid her a dossier. “Holiday booked. Volcanoes pulse post-Season—salamander hunting.”

“What?”

“Your apothecary’s poison requires magma blood. No eruptions here.”

The Flame Mantle elixir’s aura magnified her gifts exponentially—three vials halved by past battles. Deprived of it, she’d revert to flimsy mortality.

“Recklessness demands insurance.” Ulysses tapped the file. “Pack for geysers after the Season dies.”