Chapter 161: Adding Fuel

Chapter 161: Chapter 161: Adding Fuel

Chapter 161: Adding Fuel

The moment Vera Sable returned home, she let her human disguise fall away.

Her dark hair faded into ash-gray, and gold returned to her eyes. Unfortunately, there was nobody around to appreciate how striking her Bloodborn appearance actually was.

Vera did not care.

She settled comfortably into a chair, closed her eyes, and turned her attention toward the memories she had taken from Cyrus Calder earlier that night.

The fragments came gradually.

Recent days were always easier to follow than distant years, especially with Cyrus. His unusually sharp memory and the diary he used to organize his life made the scattered images far more coherent than what Vera normally received from blood.

The first thing she searched for was Daphne Whitlock.

Vera had spent several lunches carefully guiding the teacher toward suspicion. She had even invented an entire cousin and childhood story just to place the right idea in Daphne’s head.

Then she found the result.

Very little had happened.

Vera’s smile faded slightly.

Daphne had entered Cyrus’s apartment, found his diary, read enough to realize he had been manipulating her guilt, and then...

She had chosen to wait.

"That is disappointing."

Vera opened one golden eye.

After all that preparation, Daphne had decided to become cautious instead of immediately confronting him.

How boring.

Then again, perhaps Vera simply had not added enough fuel.

A small flame could only burn so brightly.

If she wanted something interesting to happen, she might need to give Daphne another gentle push.

Vera’s smile slowly returned.

What kind of story should she invent next?

Something believable.

Something that would make Daphne question whether waiting was really the safest choice.

Vera was already considering several possibilities when another set of memories surfaced.

Red hair.

A police uniform.

A locked apartment.

Vera’s expression changed immediately.

Her amusement returned with twice the strength.

"So that is what happened."

Detective Rhea Maddox had been hiding something much larger than Vera expected.

A Firebird.

Vera had heard of the bloodline before, of course.

Almost every rare-blood family had.

True Firebirds were so uncommon that some people in the rare-blood circle questioned whether more than a handful still existed at any given time. They were one of those bloodlines discussed more often through old family records than personal experience.

Yet Cyrus had somehow met one.

Not only met one.

He had apparently managed to become entangled with her too.

Vera leaned back, thoroughly entertained.

Rhea’s interest in restraint had also changed direction in a way Vera found ridiculous.

The detective who had first wanted Cyrus to control her had discovered she enjoyed controlling him just as much.

Maybe more.

Vera sifted through the memories with open curiosity, though she deliberately avoided lingering on anything intimate. What interested her more was the absurd chain of decisions surrounding it.

Cyrus trying to talk his way out.

Rhea refusing to let him leave.

The Firebird heat forcing his Frostborn body into its vulnerable younger form.

Then Cyrus waking afterward and immediately trying to turn the entire disaster into another safeguard against the woman from his past.

Vera laughed quietly.

Of course he had.

That was the funniest part.

Even when something went completely wrong, Cyrus somehow ended up assessing whether the person responsible could still be useful later.

He really did collect dangerous women in the strangest ways.

Vera closed her eyes again.

There were far more entertaining stories around Cyrus than she originally expected.

She had known following him would be worthwhile.

The only annoying part was that most of the interesting things kept happening when she was not there.

Watching memories afterward was not the same.

It was like seeing a recording after everyone else had already experienced the event.

Vera wanted front-row seats.

She wanted something ridiculous to happen directly in front of her for once.

Another thought appeared.

There was also the matter of Cyrus’s blood.

She had tasted him again tonight.

That made the ordinary blood bags waiting in her refrigerator even less appealing.

Vera pressed her lips together.

This was becoming troublesome.

She had originally treated Cyrus as entertainment with an unusually good flavor attached.

Now his blood had become good enough that everything else tasted dull by comparison.

If Cyrus ever realized exactly how much leverage that gave him, Vera could imagine the problem immediately.

He was far too good at understanding what people wanted and quietly turning it into a bargaining chip.

If he discovered how strongly his blood affected her preferences, he would probably start calculating how to manage her too.

Absolutely not.

Vera preferred being the one holding information.

She had learned enough about Cyrus before he learned enough about her.

That advantage needed to remain.

Still, another opportunity was approaching.

Her family had been connected to medicine for generations. Bloodborn working in medical fields was hardly unusual, and Vera herself had access to more resources than Cyrus probably realized.

Perhaps she could find a new excuse to make him cooperate.

A legitimate one this time.

Something he would have trouble refusing.

Vera’s smile deepened.

If she handled it correctly, she might even get more than two small mouthfuls.

And with any luck, Cyrus would provide more entertainment before then.

Preferably something she could witness personally.

Later that night, Cyrus sat at his small table eating the dinner Daphne had brought over.

His diary lay open beside the food.

He compared the newest entries against his own memory one section at a time.

Lately, the situation had been surprisingly stable.

Some older memories were still missing, but the losses had slowed enough that he could almost pretend the problem was manageable.

If the ring continued stealing memories at this pace, it might never seriously affect the rest of his life.

Cyrus knew better than to trust that possibility.

The dangerous incidents had never happened gradually.

They came whenever something unusual occurred.

Forced unconsciousness.

The glamourkin ring.

Severe blood loss.

Those were the moments that had erased entire years.

As long as another accident could cost him a huge section of memory at once, he could not relax.

He finished another bite of dinner and wrote down the events of the day.

The routine itself was uneventful.

Cyrus liked that.

Before escaping, his life had been quiet in a very different way.

The isolated village had scenery.

Books.

Long stretches of silence.

That was about it.

Grayhaven offered school, food, work, phones, games, classmates, stores, transportation, and enough strange people to make ordinary life feel unpredictable.

Even the peaceful days here were more interesting.

Cyrus looked at the ring on his finger.

Vera had already given him a method for removing it.

Unfortunately, the solution still came back to the same problem.

The person who tied the knot was also the person needed to untie it.

Cyrus had no intention of returning to the village and presenting himself to Isolde just to test Vera’s instructions.

That would defeat the purpose of removing the ring in the first place.

His attention shifted toward his index finger.

The tiny wound from Vera’s bite had not completely disappeared yet.

Cyrus looked at it with mixed feelings.

He could only imagine what Vera’s life as a school nurse must feel like from her perspective.

A campus full of humans.

A medical office.

Students constantly coming in with small injuries.

To a Bloodborn, St. Alder probably looked less like a school and more like someone had handed her access to an enormous walking blood bank.

Cyrus felt a strange flicker of envy.

They were both rare-blooded.

Why did Vera get a biological trait she could turn into a comfortable career while his came with suppressants, memory problems, and people treating him like a valuable breeding resource?

Life had clearly distributed its advantages unevenly.

Cyrus finished eating.

Complaining would not change anything.

If he wanted his current peace to last, he needed to prepare more carefully for the possibility that his remaining memories disappeared.

That meant the safeguard plan still mattered.

Probably more than ever.

After recording the day, Cyrus washed up and climbed into his pleasantly cool bed.

He slept without dreams.

The next morning was Friday.

Cyrus arrived at St. Alder at his usual time.

The attention surrounding his appearance had not vanished completely, but the novelty was wearing off. People still talked, though nothing had grown into a serious problem.

Most importantly, the old rumors questioning why Audra Sloane spent time with the gloomy boy in the back corner had mostly disappeared.

That had been the point.

Class passed quickly.

By the break after second period, Cyrus pulled out the next comic Faye had lent him.

He had been careful lately about one thing.

Whenever students approached because of his appearance, he kept them from crowding around Faye’s desk.

Changing his image to reduce the trouble surrounding Audra would have been pointless if it simply transferred the attention onto Faye instead.

As a result, his conversations with Faye inside class had become even quieter.

Cyrus did not mind.

He understood wanting a peaceful school life.

He flipped another page.

Come to think of it, Faye had not invited him over again lately.

He had not played mobile games with Miles and Lena for a while either.

Cyrus found himself missing the two kids slightly.

Faye was probably worried that classmates might discover how close they were and start paying more attention to her.

That explanation made sense.

Cyrus had only read a few pages when someone tapped his shoulder.

He looked over.

Owen Keats was leaning toward him.

"Cyrus, do you have plans for Saturday?"

"Why are you asking?"

Cyrus shook his head slightly.

Malcolm had already told him to come to The Full Moon Lounge Saturday afternoon for the event.

Other than that, his day was free.

He had also figured out what the date meant.

October thirty-first.

Halloween.

Cyrus had never really celebrated it before, but apparently humans took the holiday seriously enough to build entire nights around costumes, candy, and parties.

Owen continued.

"Some people from class are going out tomorrow night for Halloween. I wanted to see if you felt like coming."

Cyrus considered it briefly.

"I already have work tomorrow evening, so I probably cannot."

Owen looked disappointed.

"Then I guess the timing does not work."

Their conversation carried forward easily enough for Faye to hear.

Her hand stopped over the book on her desk.

Owen noticed her too.

"What about you, Faye? Do you want to come with everyone tomorrow night?"

Faye answered immediately.

"I already have plans, so I cannot."

Owen leaned back.

Apparently both Cyrus and Faye had their own things going on.

He had originally hoped the outing might help them become a little closer to the rest of the class.

Everyone was going to graduate eventually.

It seemed a shame for two people to spend most of the year isolated in the back corner.

Then again, neither of them looked particularly unhappy.

Maybe Owen was worrying about something they did not consider a problem.

He returned to his seat.

Cyrus lowered his attention to the comic again.

A few seconds later, Faye turned slightly and tapped his desk.

Cyrus understood.

He waited a moment, then checked his phone.

A new message from Faye was waiting.

The two kids at home wanted me to ask whether you have time to come over tomorrow.