Arc 3: All That Glisters (Part 18)

I give a Canus tight smile before slipping away, ducking out the nearest exit before anyone else can think that I might be free for conversation.

The hallway is sparsely populated by thralls, who I ignore as I quicken my pace, drawing on my blood to attract the shadows around me in a shroud of near-invisibility. Chryseus didn’t leave that far ahead of me, but he’s out of both sight and hearing, so I have to rely on the trail of his scent.

There’s a noisome mix of vampiric scents all around, but his ozone and tobacco combination is familiar to me. The more I tune my senses to it, however, the more a small part of me wants to revolt. It’s a visceral reminder of that night everything went wrong, more so than anything else I’ve encountered so far—even sparring with Scintilla isn’t as much of a trigger for those unpleasant memories.

Chryseus doesn’t go far, ducking into a secluded room that I vaguely remember as a spacious parlour. He’s closed the door, however, so I can’t follow him ins