I woke up to a silence so heavy it felt like a physical weight.
The room was dim, the heavy velvet curtains and wooden shutters blocking out the New Orleans sun. A few slivers of light managed to cut through the cracks, dancing with dust motes. My heart was still thumping, but the frantic, jagged rhythm from last night had slowed into something deep and powerful.
I was alone.
I knew why. In this world, the sun was a command. Somewhere else on this floor, behind a locked door in a room designed for darkness, Louis and Lestat were effectively dead. They wouldn't be in the cellar; they were close, tucked away in the shadows of the second floor until the sun dropped below the horizon.
I sat up, my head spinning. The "fever" in my blood hadn't gone away, but it had cooled into a dull, restless ache. I felt… strong. When I gripped the edge of the mattress to steady myself, I heard the fabric groan. I looked down and saw my fingers had left deep indentations in the heavy material.
I stood up, my legs feeling strangely light, and walked over to the washstand in the corner. There was a cracked mirror hanging above the porcelain bowl.
I stopped.
The girl in the mirror was me, but the edges were sharpened. My skin was pale, but it didn't look sickly. It looked polished. My hair was a brown mess, tangled and wild, but it was my eyes that made me reach out to steady myself against the wall.
They weren't brown anymore. They were a dark, honeyed amber, shifting in the low light.
They looked like the eyes of something that lived in the woods.
I touched my face, my breath hitching. My skin felt different—denser. I touched the amulet. It was quiet now, just a warm weight against my skin. It wasn't zapping anyone. It felt satisfied, as if it had done its job of keeping me alive through the night.
I looked around the room. This was the Rue Royale townhouse. I recognized the fine furniture and the stack of books on the nightstand, but beneath that, there was the smell of the house itself. I could smell the damp rot in the walls, the horse manure from the street outside, and something else—a heavy, metallic scent that made my stomach growl.
Blood. Not fresh, but the lingering ghost of it.
The hunger hit me like a physical blow. It wasn't a normal hunger; it was a hollow, clawing ache.
My mouth watered, and I felt a sharp ache in my gums.
I stumbled back from the washstand, my heart starting to race. I wasn't just a witch. The amulet wasn't just protecting me. Whatever was in my blood was waking up, and it was hungry.
I looked at the door. It was heavy oak. I was a prisoner in a house of sleeping monsters, and I was starting to realize that by the time the sun went down, I might be just as dangerous as the men in the other room.
I needed to see if I could even stand the sunlight. If I was a vampire, the light through those shutters should be burning me. But I felt nothing but the heat of my own skin.
I walked toward the window, my hand trembling as I reached for the heavy velvet curtain.