A procession of people entered the room and I took them in chronologically.

At the front was a tall skinny guy wearing black tactical gear and a full-face red Japanese Oni mask. He had a gun on one hip, a Glock it looked like, and an ornate hand axe on the other. His gait suggested he wasn’t a ghoul. I'd have bet good money that he had some kind of experience in the military. Something about the surety in his steps coupled with an indefinable feline grace.

Behind him walked a diminutive man without a mask. He had a pudgy face and slicked-back dark hair with a white stripe down the middle that made it look like a skunk had died on his head and he'd just decided to let it stay there. Coupled with his unhealthy pale complexion it made him look kind of comical.

The lines around his eyes conveyed a disdainful expression and his nose was quite literally upturned like he was trying to look down at the world. His irises were completely black and instead of white, his sclera was crimson. I had to admit, it complemented the red tie he wore as an accessory to his immaculate suit pretty well. Looking closer, I spotted a familiar silver band around his left thumb. The bastard was wearing my ring.

Outrage poured across me when I realised Imara’s craftsmanship had been confiscated by what I assumed was high society Vdélla but I managed to stomp it down and took in the rest of them instead of lingering on it.

He was flanked by two people who wore the same equipment as the four guards posted inside the room and their masks looked familiar. They were the ones who'd been with the doctor when she'd come to visit me. Two drudges, I assumed, based on the one's ability to think and correct her when she'd forgotten to take my necklace and ring.

Behind the snobby man walked the doctor, her face set in an unreadable expression. I noticed that her complexion had changed as well, and I figured she’d dropped her veil on purpose because she was in the company of her superior.

Lastly, three of the bland-looking demon-masked individuals with similar stiff movements made up the tail end of their entourage, walking with stun rods in hand. Those were definitely the ghouls. I recognised their masks from our confrontation in the bar. Which meant that the four guards posted in the room had to be drudges as well. I didn't think the vamps were content to leave mindless thugs to watch over a group of Holders.

If the tall guy in front was a vamp as well, that meant we were dealing with three Vdélla, six drudges and three ghouls. I didn't like our odds.

The gathering walked towards us and stopped when they were a dozen or so feet away.

“Rejoice, kine. You have the honour of being in the presence of his Lordship Earl Augustus Volare, of the Volare family. You may bow,” the tall Oni-masked one said, his voice betraying the fact that he was the one who had received us when we’d been let out of the car earlier.

He waited, but when none of us got up and bowed, he took a step toward us with balled-up fists, pausing when the head honcho held up a hand to stop him.

“Desist, Martín, it is fine,” he piped up in a high-pitched voice that made him sound like a walking accordion.

He half-smiled ironically, displaying four elongated fangs. With his eyes, it made for a sinister showing, but his voice, coupled with his self-satisfied expression and his hair, almost made me burst out laughing.

What's wrong with you? Don't laugh, don't laugh. Don't. Laugh.

I gave myself a mental pat on the back when I managed to hold it in.

“I am not petty,” he continued, “and I do not expect cattle to show proper decorum, especially when they are captives, even if they are in the presence of their betters.”

His eyes sparkled with amusement and I decided that his squeaky voice was less funny and more annoying. Perhaps the way he talked about us like we were livestock made me a little biased.

“I would like to know which ones of you witnessed the submission of my second cousin and demise of our herd of bonded,” he stated, narrowing his eyes at us.

Again, nobody did anything. I gave the others a mental high-five.

Augustus tutted at us like a parent who was disappointed in their children.

“You will tell us one way or another. I have decided to exercise restraint, but if you need motivation I will provide it. Martín cut off that man’s other hand,” he commanded casually and gestured at Mateo.

We all looked at Mateo and his already pale complexion turned whiter still.

“Gladly, my Lord,” Martín obliged gleefully and started undoing the axe from his belt.

“Wait wait wait,” Rob said placatingly and raised his hands in submission. “It was us. Raise your hands people.”

Dink, Mateo, and I raised our hands in unison.

Again, the Vdélla halted his subordinate by cutting a hand through the air. He considered us critically for a moment, before nodding, satisfied.

“Very well. Losing so many of our bonded was a blow, but ultimately inconsequential now that you're all here. But while Marie was brash and not the brightest of our numbers, she was family. Tell me, how did you manage to overpower her?”

Rob explained our encounter in detail, including Colson’s role, though he didn’t specify what powers we used.

Augustus listened attentively, without betraying his emotions. He didn’t twitch or move, content to listen in eerie silence, and I couldn’t get a read on his thoughts at all.

“And how did she die?” he asked when Rob finished explaining how Colson had left her alive and captured her.

“Tanner cut off her head while we were freeing the prisoners from the basement, to cover his tracks,” Dink told him.

The Earl blinked a couple of times in surprise. He hadn’t expected that answer.

“Interesting,” he mused out loud. “I thank you for your honesty. I am nothing if not magnanimous. Your retelling of events is dissimilar to that of your former colleague in this regard. The way he tells it, you brought Marie down into the basement with you and this ‘Colson’, cut off her head in a fit of rage when he saw the mundanes.”

“That’s a lie!” I blurted out, and Augustus turned to look at me.

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” he said. “I am inclined to believe him and not you, however, as he was heavily incentivised to work with us and has been doing so for a long time. Perhaps it is time we reevaluate our relationship. Martín, where is Tanner now?"

"We do not know, my Lord. He has not deigned to check in after he delivered his prisoners," Martín rumbled.

Augustus held his quiet for a moment before speaking, his eyes flashing crimson, "When we are done here, find him, and bring him to me. Remind him of what is at stake."

Martín bowed, "Your will, my Lord."

It grated on me how Tanner was trying to pin the death of the vampire on us, but the way they talked about him made it sound like he'd upped and left. Maybe he'd had a change of heart. Why he’d killed Marie was a mystery to me now that I thought about it. He could just as well have brought her along in the car when he’d fled the scene.

“Nevertheless," Augustus interrupted my musings and I returned to the present, "seeing as this Colson is not here, I will not punish you overly in his stead. When I heard she was dead I wanted to flog you all, but such barbarism only invokes stupidity in detainees. Instead, you will receive no more succour until our purpose here is complete and you will be bled tonight, as our stores are running low. Alas, I will have to find this Colson myself and punish him when we are done here."

I silently wished him good luck with that and almost snorted. Almost.

"No food? But I like food," Rob protested in a tone that suggested he was trying to be funny.

Augustus turned to look at him for a couple of seconds, "Or I can provide you with food and instead have Martín cut off your fingers?"

"I changed my mind. No food sounds like a good time. I love fasting."

A tiny smile tugged on the doctor's lips briefly.

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“You mentioned your purpose here. What is that exactly?” Mateo asked with trepidation.

Augustus narrowed his eyes and considered him for a moment.

"I believe you have been somewhat honest with me, so I will be honest with you in return,” Augustus told us and nodded amicably. “When I awoke my magical abilities, fate saw to it that I was granted a weak foundation. Many of my kind would not care, as our strength rises as we age, but it is something I seek to remedy. We,” — he gestured around the room — “have been hard at work for some years to modify a ritual that will forcefully let me add another outline to it.”

“Bullshit,” Ralph intoned in disbelief, “everyone knows it can’t be done. If it could, someone would have figured out how a long time ago.”

The others muttered their assent to his statement and they all stood up. Martín undid his axe and put his other hand on the grip of his gun. Augustus's eyes gleamed and he smiled like a Cheshire chat.

“On the contrary,” his voice took on a note of reverence and his eyes unfocused.

Staring at something in his mind's eye he continued, “I have in my possession a tome that explains how it can be done. It has taken us a long time to properly translate it. Initially, we believed that any creature would suffice. It took us many attempts of trial and error—several of my subordinates forfeiting their lives—before we realised that the sacrifices have to possess a certain strength for it to succeed. Regular humans are not enough and neither are ghouls or drudges. Add to that how eleven is the upper limit on how many can be included at the same time, and we were at an impasse. We had to find a sweet spot of magic users we could overpower, but who were not too weak, and it has taken us months to gather you all. We were lucky that Tanner brought more aether users than expected after his failure, or we would have had to wait even longer.”

Well, how about that? There were eleven of us, what a happy coincidence. That was one hell of a monologue as well, but we'd all been enraptured while he spoke, and nobody thought to interrupt.

His eyes regained their focus and he looked at us, his gaze flinty.

“That is why you are here. I will rip the foundations from your Marks and add them to my own,” he finished in an icy tone.

A shudder ran through me and the hair on my arms stood up. This narcissistic asshole was planning to use us as fodder to gain strength because some book he’d found told him it was possible.

“How many people have you killed to perfect this ritual of yours?” Ralph asked in disgust.

“I do not know,” he sounded surprised and raised his eyebrows, turning to address the doctor. “Camilla?” he asked.

“Two hundred and four, my Lord, not including the animals we used for our first two attempts,” she answered, her voice flat.

“And there you have it,” he told us and looked at us like that number didn’t matter in the slightest.

“More than two- the Board won’t stand for this,” June intoned in disbelief.

Viggo decided to weigh in, “Yeah, once they figure out what you’ve done to us, your days are numbered."

Augustus laughed.

“They have no idea what we have been doing. Your precious ‘Board’,” — he emphasized the word with disdain — “are not as omnipotent as you all seem to think. When we are done, we will scour this location from the map and none will be the wiser,” he told us smugly.

“When?” Jack spoke up for the first time and asked.

“Two nights hence, on the new moon. Enjoy your last days on this plane and be grateful that I have decided to only withhold your food. Ah, well, I forgot to mention that the ritual is excruciatingly painful if our previous attempts are to be believed. That will also be part of your punishment,” his demeanour turned gleeful, and he smiled at us with sadistic satisfaction.

Oh, great, can’t wait.

While he'd decided to avoid torture because it was seemingly barbaric, he wasn't above "vindictive retribution".

"You will be kept separate until I require you. Say your goodbyes," Augustus told us.

Without another word, he turned on his heels and walked towards the door taking everyone but the guards with him.

"We'll be back to escort you to your rooms soon," Camilla called over her shoulder.

“Phew, glad we avoided getting flogged. That would've been painful if they used vampire strength,” Rob said.

“I dunno Rob, I have a feeling you'd be into it,” Dink joked.

"Oh fuck off.”

I was also glad they'd decided to forego corporal punishment. I'd had enough of that during my training sessions at school and had no particular desire to relive those moments. Dink's attempt at humour felt a little forced, but it still managed to bring a few smiles to light.

Then Viggo spoke, “What do we do? Where the hell did they get access to a ritual that allows you to do that? It shouldn't be possible. Everyone knows it has to happen naturally or not at all."

I didn't want to waste what precious time we had talking about whether it could be done or not so I tried to steer the conversation in another direction.

“That's not important. Are we sure they’re not listening in?” I asked them hurriedly.

“Positive,” Mateo told me, “You heard Ralph, and you saw what he was like. Vampire pride," — he scoffed — "I’ve never heard of a Volare family, but it’s textbook behaviour. They believe they’ve got us by the short and curlies. Which they do, by the looks of it, so they leave us alone. Even if the drudges can think for themselves they're unlikely to act on anything except open rebellion. Fear can be a powerful tool, but it's a double-edged sword. They're probably afraid of angering Augustus.”

It was a lot of ifs and maybes, but we'd die in two days regardless so I'd take a calculated risk.

“Good… good,” I mused.

I noticed Ralph looking at me and he spoke, “You got something you wanna share with the rest of the class, son?”

I didn't want to get their hopes up for nothing, so I asked the first question that was on my mind, "First things first, do the manacles work like the collars do?"

If they were going to put those things on me and they locked down my Sigil, we were screwed either way.

"No," Royce told me, "They're Board-certified standard fare and work like regular handcuffs. Almost impossible to remove with strength alone, but they have a locking mechanism. The tall one has a disc that you slide into a hole in the middle."

“Okay. Good. Then I have something to tell you, yeah. I finished tracing my Sigil.”

“You what?” Mateo questioned in an exaggerated whisper, “How? You just started it last week. Wait, that doesn’t matter. Free us, free us right now!”

His eyes were frantic. The guy had been through the wringer emotionally and I didn't believe he was thinking clearly.

“No, wait. Ethan, do you have any aether stored?” Adam asked, looking at me intently.

“Only a tiny amount, I only just finished it before the doc game to get me. I wasn’t sure if I risked any damage if I was all battered up and tired.”

Mateo deflated.

“You shouldn’t. When the foundation’s done, you only put yourself in danger if you try to absorb more than you can hold, and that’s hard to do,” Rob told me.

“Alright, so I can fill it up when I get back, that’s good to know. How do I go about using it to release your collars?”

“You pull aether from your Sigil and circulate it into your body. If it helps you can direct it to your hand specifically, which might be better considering you’re a rookie. The aether wants to be used, it’s not going to be fighting you like it maybe did when you traced your foundation, but you need to find out how yours works. You'll need to practice absorbing the refined aether into your body— "

"Wait, aether gets refined?" I interrupted Ralph's explanation.

It wasn't overly important but the question asked itself. Colson hadn't mentioned anything about that.

"Of course," Adam said, "You can't use pure aether to fuel your abilities. It has to be keyed to your Sigil first, which is what happens when you store it. Kind of like your personal aether signature, I guess. Otherwise, we'd be able to just direct ambient aether to do what we want. I bet your mentor was going to teach you that after you got done tracing yours out."

"Probably," I agreed with a nod, "Sorry, Ralph, you were saying?"

"We're betting a lot on you, son. Don't make me regret it. I was explaining how I learned to pull aether from my Sigil into my body. When I had to get a hang of it I ended up imagining it being pushed out of my foundation. Like water being pushed through a creek,” Ralph explained.

"I did it by imagining my foundation was a dam and the aether was water. Then I simply opened the sluices and it worked," June said.

"Mine was by thinking of aether like electricity and my body was the conduit," Adam provided.

"Wait," I said and held up a hand," How long did it take you to do the first time?"

"'Bout three weeks," Ralph said.

June looked at him in admiration before replying, "Really? That was fast, Ralph, I took two months."

"I think I managed it in ten days," Adam told us and everyone looked at him like he'd sprouted horns.

"And I need to manage it in two days?" I asked.

My stomach turned in knots. This was going to make my plan so much harder.

"You need to find your niche, Ethan," Rob said, trying to assuage me. "Fill your Sigil and find the way of directing aether that works for you. Try everything. Push, pull, guide, demand, and attach different properties to it. Nothing else matters. Don't try to figure out what your affinities are or how you augment your strength. Just focus on drawing it into your body. You can do it."

I didn't particularly appreciate that my plan hinged on me being able to learn to draw aether in two days, but it was that or die horribly. Trying to distract myself from what seemed like an insurmountable task, I asked a different question. We were running out of time.

“How much aether have you got stored up?”

Mateo spoke first, “I’ve got about half left, I think.”

“Little less than half, I’d say,” Rob provided.

June spoke next, “I’m filled, I was tranquilised before I had a chance to fight back.”

“Me too.”

“Same,” said Jack, and Ralph respectively.

“Dink, you’re empty right?”

“Yeah,” he told us sullenly.

“I went down in the middle of a fight, but I’ve got a bit left,” Annie said.

Adam, Viggo and Royce nodded in a way that signified they were on her level.

Considering the limited capacity of aether we had, I came to a decision.

“We'll have to wait,” I told them and waited for an explosion.

Sure enough, Mateo was gearing up for an argument when Ralph held up a hand to prevent him from potentially exposing us, considering me critically. It seemed his seniority made people listen to him, which I was grateful for.

“Explain.”

“How strong do you think Augustus is? Not to mention Martín and the doc? Do you think we’d be able to take them all even if I managed to free everyone without having to fend off the guards? I think they're drudges, but they could be vamps too for all we know.”

“He's undergone physical changes. You saw his eyes right? That doesn't happen until a noble vampire crosses a certain threshold. I don't think he's an elder yet, but if the Lordling is half as old as I think he is, we wouldn’t stand a chance in a straight fight unless we had weapons and all our Sigils were full. Maybe not even then,” Adam said.

That's what I was afraid of, but I thought I had a workaround.

“Exactly. But I think I have an idea,” I said.

Then I told them my plan. Predatory grins spread on their faces but were quickly hidden away as I laid it out, even Mateo looking pleased with my suggestion. While I explained what I'd planned, they offered various pointers and adjustments.

Annie wanted to make sure that we were all on the same page when it came to being bled and told us that under no circumstances should we say they were allowed to take our blood. That way, if they did it despite our protests, at least it couldn't be used against us ritualistically. Colson's explanation on voluntary surrender of blood, when I got my pin, had circulated in my mind since we were captured but I appreciated the reminder and muttered "thanks" to her anyway.

When the doctor and Martín came to take us back to our cells in pairs a little while later, we put on our hoods and followed along meekly.

Now I just needed to learn to direct aether and draw on my Sigil. In two days. No pressure.