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The world shifted.
My eyes snapped open, revealing a darkness I knew better than I knew myself. A frigid stone pressed against my cheek, its chill spreading deep into my aching neck and shoulders. As I lay there—confused about why I was awake in the first place—I tracked the dust in the air that had broken free from my lashes.
Dust.
My gaze fell to where my hand lay beside my face. Atop my skin was a layer of dust one twenty-sixth of a centimeter high. That’s it? I swallowed, or at least I tried. There had to be moisture in your mouth to swallow.
I’d been asleep two months, six days, thirteen hours, and thirty-eight minutes.
With my senses coming back to life, venom trickled down the back of my throat, searing it raw. Agony shot through every knuckle as I forced my fingers to bend. I bit down on my tongue to keep from crying out as I heaved myself into a sitting position. Fire and writhing pain made my limbs shake as the little blood that remained in them flooded back through my veins.
Why? I’d hoped if I slept long enough, I’d turn to stone. That I’d crack, fall into ancient ruin, and never have to take another breath inside this foul, stagnant hell—my tomb.
I leaned my head against the wall, closing my eyes. Why am I awake?
This had been the ninth time I’d tried. The longest I’d lasted was two years. I shouldn’t be awake.
Again, the world shifted—I felt it in the air this time, a movement that violated the stillness of the catacombs. I stiffened as tremors moved through the stone ground, vibrating into my skin and my bones. I might have thought I’d imagined it if not for the second tremor, then a third, a fourth.
Footsteps.
Black spots swarmed the corners of my vision, making my heart lurch and stutter.
No, no, no, no. She wouldn’t be here, she couldn’t be here. Maybe she is. She hates me. She loves me. She forgot me. Why won’t she let me die?
No one else would come for him. Only Marceline—my Matriarch, my queen. The one who’d given me life.
I slid my knees to my chest before I raised my hand and snapped. A gentle warmth flooded my fingers, and my faelight sprung to life—burning in shades of gold and orange. Though it didn’t have eyes or a face, I swore it cocked its head at me. Sleeping again, Master?
“Go,” Hell, my voice sounded like the crunch of bone. “Search.”
It whizzed off, burning away streams of darkness as it went.
Darkness. I rubbed my face. I still had the darkness.
Shadows pooled around me, consuming me as I stood. My body disappeared behind a veil of night, and the walls around me wobbled, half here and there. The ground turned wispy and unstable, but I no longer felt the weight of gravity bearing down on my shoulders. 
Here, in the dark, I was safe. Even Marcy couldn’t touch me here. 
Unless she speaks. My throat felt drier than the skeletons shoved into the walls. If she sees me, if she commands me . . . 
My body locked up. I couldn’t move a step further, not without risking full-blown hysteria. 
Here. I’d wait here. 
I’d hallucinated before. My faelight would tell me the truth. It was the only one that ever did.
And so, I waited—growing so still that a passing ghost wouldn’t have noticed my presence. As the minutes ticked by, I broke into a cold sweat. If she was here . . . 
I would beg her. I wanted to die.
“Hello?”
I crumpled to my knees, fighting to breathe. I’d forgotten the sound of any voice but my own.
“Jayvin Dyre? I’m here to talk to you.”
A sob gurgled in my throat. I was hallucinating again. In all my worthless years of living, Marceline had only called me by my full name once, in the beginning when I’d woken in the rain, with her standing over me and no memories to tell me who or what she was. All I’d known was that I was hers. In this regard, I didn’t have a choice.
There’s no one here. Somehow, hearing my name made me feel better. It’s going to be okay. My legs began to move without my permission. I didn’t try to stop them. If my mind was splintering again, I might as well enjoy it while it lasted. There were times, as I sat in the dark, I’d hear the voices of my siblings, laughing at and mocking me. Sometimes, I saw a village sitting in a valley beneath a mountain. Mostly, I’d remember her hand around my throat, cutting off the air to my lungs. Only she could kill me.
There was a screech—more symptoms of imaginary terrors.
My faelight set the aisles of bone aglow as I rounded the corner—then reached for the wall to steady myself as I lost all feeling in my limbs.
An archangel stood by the circle of dancing skeletons I’d made—my little art project—a woman so radiant and breathtaking it made Marceline’s venom inside my blood recoil. It screamed—shrieking as it clawed at the edges of my mind, trying to escape.
This being was several inches taller than Marceline, with hair down to the small of her waist and the color of the sea beneath a summer sky. Her bronze skin so stark against the white of the bones as she brushed her fingers over the skeleton’s palm. She cocked her head, her full, cranberry lips parted, wide eyes the color of sunflowers. 
I finally broke. My tears were ice as they streamed down my cheeks. I’m broken. I’d turned over to insanity, and I wasn’t sure if I cared. If she was here—if my mind was gone—then she was mine. If I couldn’t serve Marcy, I’d serve her, for however brief her image lasted. The tombs couldn’t take her. Marcy wouldn’t have her. She was mine.
She shifted, filling the stale air with the scent of salt, freedom, and blood so rich that I’d die if I didn’t taste her.
Maybe you shouldn’t, then. I could let myself die. Be finally free of my prison, but I’d rather have her.
I formed behind her, and my beautiful hallucination’s back stiffened as I brushed my fingers down her arm. I sucked in a low gasp. “You feel real.”
She pulled away, her eyes scanning the space we’d been as if she could see me.
God, she can’t be real. I moved through the dark, lowering my face to her lovely neck, her pulse beating like a hummingbird’s wings. Captivating. Flawless.
“I can feel you fluttering.” I don’t know why I said the words out loud. It’s not as if she could hear me.
She straightened further, pressing her back against my chest. “Am I?”
She can hear me. I wanted to curl up and weep. To drag her into a corner and love her until either the world ended or I did. 
There is a God. I’d doubted so long, but now there was no doubt. There was a God, and he pitied me. I couldn’t have many days left if I’d been given one last gift, a final comfort, an end to the century of loneliness and pain. I was born to serve, and serve I would.
I fought against the tightness in my throat as I scraped my fangs against her throat. “Keep fluttering. I like it.”
Her head slammed back into my shoulder like she was trying to push me away.
Wait— I reached for her hair to tangle my fingers through it, but she ducked out of the way, moving deeper into the catacombs. 
I burst out laughing and faded back into shadow. She wanted to play—
Marceline had never liked games. She only liked to hurt.
I followed, her brilliant bronze skin illuminated in the glow of my faelight. She spouted some words I didn’t catch—something about a gift. Blood. Her blood.
I cupped her throat, backing her against the wall. Her fingers brushed against my hands. I tangled them in her hair and tugged her head back far enough to expose her flawless neck.
She was mine, and I would make her mine.
Her throat took my fangs like she’d been made for it—no tough hide, no resistance. Her blood wet my tongue, and it sang as it filled my mouth—tasting of the sun’s heat, worlds without walls, and life, life, life.
Her hands gripped my biceps, and I sighed into her, curling my arm around her waist. Mine. She was mine. My final gift, then it all would end. My heart grew hot as it spread fresh blood into my veins. My muscles and every nerve seemed to expand.
An image flooded my mind, so real I could smell the freshly cut grass. I opened my eyes, and I wasn’t in the tomb anymore.
I blinked. What the hell—
Across a well-manicured lawn sat a simple, two-story white house. Its paint was chipped and in need of a fresh coat, but it looked loved. An enormous red barn filled with livestock sat on the other side of the property. Soft mewing echoed across the meadow—a mama cat looking for her kittens.
I blinked and blinked again. I knew this place. In some chasm of my mind, I’d been here before. I grunted as fists beat against my chest. When I glanced down, two bronzed hands pushed me away. Though I couldn’t see her, the woman’s blood still filled my mouth.
“I’m trying to get you out!”
Inside me, Marceline’s venom screamed, screamed, and then finally cracked. 
Then, the world came to a screaming halt.
I took a breath—the first real breath I’d taken in centuries—and every sense, sensation, and reality slammed back into my body.
I was still in the catacombs. A real woman was squirming in my arms. She said something. She had said something, but I couldn’t remember, and found myself whispering, “Say that again.”
She gripped my arms again and said, “I-I’ll free you in exchange for your help. A favor for a favor.”
I looked at her face—at her lovely, lovely face. At her long, pointed ears, the gold—gold—freckles on her cheeks, and the shimmering pinks and blues on her collarbone. She said something about goats and people’s blood. 
“Liar,” My brows furrowed. I couldn’t think, but I knew she wasn’t just people. 
“I’m not lying. Listen . . . please?” She sounded desperate. “At worst, you’ll have to wait a few more minutes before draining me dry. Please?”
She thinks I’m going to kill her—
I lost my train of thought. A stream of vibrant blood trickled down her perfect throat, pooling in her glittering collarbone. Instincts had me licking up her throat like a damned dog. That part of me, the part that was always hungry—for blood, for death, to be owned—didn’t wait for my permission. 
She whimpered, but as her blood filled my mouth again, I realized what she tasted like—
I stepped back and smiled at her. “You taste like sunshine.”
She didn’t seem impressed. “Thank you?”
Is she real? I couldn’t tell. My head spun, and when I glanced over, there were canteens on the floor, filled with goat blood. The scent was gamey, dirty, and pungent. My instincts didn’t care.
She watched me tear the canteen lid and guzzle the contents. Sunshine. Because that was what she was. My Sunshine. The first I’d seen in over one hundred years. 
She continued to talk. I may have replied, but I wasn’t sure. It was too much, too fast. My body and mind couldn’t absorb it. A wrenching pain surged through my gut. I heaved, and every drop of blood I’d taken came back up, staining the walls red—even hers. 
I’d lost her blood.
The beginnings of panic clawed into my heart. I’d lost it. Why does it matter? Because she’s yours. She isn’t. Marceline was yours. She left you. She’ll come back.
No. She didn’t come back, and she wouldn’t. I’d always known it. 
Sunshine had come for me. Maybe she was real. Maybe she wasn’t. I didn’t care.
The next thing I knew, she was beside me, offering me a dirty bit of fabric. Instinct had me flying backward until my back hit the wall. Fear. I was afraid. She had to be real, or my body wouldn’t have reacted like that. 
As I watched my beautiful, shining Sunshine, I traced a series of circles on the floor—an anti-illusionary charm—and murmured, “Are you a ghost?”
A stupid question, but right now, nothing made sense.
“No, I’m Tetra.” Sunshine—Tetra—stood and straightened her blood-speckled shirt. “And I need your help.”