The metal steps rattled in their brackets as my feet thumped up their solid lengths. I ascended as quickly as I could with the cat pressed to my chest. Those I passed paused to watch my hasty climb, muttering to one another behind cupped hands. I didn't hear what was said, but that was probably for the best.

When I reached the landing adjoined to Peroth's office, I lowered the feline to the floor. It sat, flicking bored eyes in my direction as it stretched its sizable paws and proceeded to meow. I knocked upon the door, my knuckles rapping the section of wood just above the written inscription.

My eyes fell unbidden upon the solemn engraving, absorbing the myriads of messages and meanings such an ambiguous statement could mean. 

I knocked until my knuckles turning red from my effort. I didn't dare enter without permission, not after what I'd seen the last time I had done so. 

Breathless, I called out, "P-Peroth!"

After another moment of impatient knocking, the handle jerked and the door jumped aside. Expelling my thanks in a gusty breath, I went to tell the Sin he was needed in the library, that there was a vampire losing his mind amongst those utterly useless rows—but it wasn't Peroth glaring at me from the other side of the threshold. 

"What, by God's green kingdom," Amoroth drawled, standing with one of her small fists balanced upon her hip with the other leaned upon the door's oak frame. "Are you doing here?" 

The Sin of Lust was just as I remembered her, imperious and sharp-tongued with her glossed lips drawn into a well-satisfied smirk. She was dressed in a black suit, the jacket missing from her shoulders and the top buttons of the long-sleeved blouse undone far enough to show cleavage. Diamonds and platinum glittered upon her throat and fingers, dripping from her ears buried in the curls of her chestnut hair.

"You!" I accused, forgetting about the mad vampire and my rush to find Peroth. "You!"

In Verweald, I had thought the Sin of Lust and I had come to an uneasy alliance—but the woman had proven that belief false when she sold Darius and me out to Balthier. I hadn't seen her since, and I had been more than ready to never see Amoroth again.

Here she was, standing in Peroth's doorway with absolute nonchalance—not even wearing her shoes. What was she doing here?

I glowered until I felt the heat of my anger bathe my face and incite the shadow roving through my thoughts. Amoroth was the reason I had been forced from my home, the reason I had abandoned everything I owned in Verweald and was now hiding like a scared dog in the twisted house of a soul-eating demon.

I threw my fist at the woman's face. Amoroth's eyes grew wide just before it collided with her nose.

"Ow!" I hollered, hopping in place as I clutched my throbbing fist. "My God, your face is like concrete—!"

The Sin had gone still as stone, as unmoved by my attack as she was by my vitric stare. A bead of blood trickled from her left nostril, cresting the swell of her upper lip. Her tongue swept over the dark trail, painting the shined skin, staining the pearlescent perfection of her white teeth.

"You never disappoint, Gaspard," Amoroth intoned as the blood continued to well and flow from her nostril, dripping from her lip to her chin. The chill mounted, weaving its frost through my skin and veins. 

The scrape of my shoe moving upon the cold floor was loud in the sudden silence. Somewhere deeper in the room came the insouciant static of a blathering television.

"You never disappoint," she repeated, the cold now emanating from her voice as well as the room. "You always make the wrong decision." 

Color shot through her eyes like veins of lavender streaking through depthless black wells. Her arm shot forward and her fingers snared the collar of my blouse. She did not shove me back as I expected she would, but flung me past her into the office. I was airborne for all of two seconds before I crashed into the floor, skinning my palms and elbows as I slid on the rug.

I rolled and tried to rise to my feet—but the Sin was already there, her foot bearing down upon my throat, pinning me in place like a butterfly stuck to a board. She snarled as I struggled and lost my ability to breathe as her foot pressed down harder.

Again the shadow in my thought rose to attention, flaring its nefarious self in a diaphanous blanket across my mind until the world I could see through my squinting eyes was red-tinged and darkened. A growl worked its way from my lips.

The Sin of Sloth turned his head from the television to witness my soon-to-be murder play itself out. He inhaled through his nose then exhaled from his mouth as he gathered patience and eased up from the couch's cushions.

"Amor," Peroth chided—receiving a snarl for his efforts.

"Why is she here?" she demanded, pointing savagely as if I were little more than a wet dog on a priceless rug. "She and her idiot Sin will bring ruin upon us all, Cuxiel! Do not allow yourself to be tangled in the lunacy Darius is gripped by!"

I writhed under her foot, gasping soundlessly for air that would not come. The cat growled at Amoroth, but she either didn't see it or didn't care.

"Balthier will kill Darius, Cuxiel! He is hell-bent upon it. He will not stop until Pride is dead. Do not align yourself with Darius—get rid of her!" 

It occurred to me that I should be frightened, but despite my efforts to summon the emotion, it couldn't break through the anger I felt burning in my chest. Why was Amoroth here? What was Peroth doing with her? If Sloth was allied with her, then Darius had been correct; we couldn't trust him. I couldn't believe our very survival depended upon a man who spoke so calmly while Lust slowly choked the life from me.

"Amor," Peroth placated, his gold eyes resting upon her. "Let her up." 

Nothing happened. If anything, the pressure at my throat increased as Amoroth's eyes stared unflinching into my own. The muscles in her dainty throat and thin jaw leapt to attention as the set of her jaw became determined. Black spots danced in my vision as the first whispers of fear touched my mind.

"Amoroth—!"

She was gone in an instant, the absence of pressure followed by the crash of glass being shattered. I gasped for air and coughed at the force of it streaming into my lungs. Rolling to my knees, I collided with the Sin of Pride's leg. Darius stood over me, rancor seeming to drip from his very pores as he stared at Amoroth, who was busy extracting herself from a demolished hutch.

Without a word, Darius jerked into motion—but Peroth moved with unnerving speed, putting himself between Darius and a seething Amoroth. He stretched his arm and laid his hand upon Darius's chest. "Calm, my friend."

"I am not your bloody friend!" Darius shouted, sending spirals of ice outward from his position. He swiped at Peroth's arm, swinging his own hand up toward the other Sin's face. I noticed sparks spilled from his trembling fists. Peroth must have noticed too, as he took a small but definite step back. "You stood there and watched as she tried to kill my host!"

"Try, nothing," Amoroth spat, rising to her feet in the wreckage of Peroth's cabinet. The splintered glass cut her bare skin, leaving blotchy red footprints upon the floor. "I didn't try. If I wanted her dead, she would be dead!"

Darius tried to circumvent Peroth to get his hands on Amoroth, but the Sin of Sloth proved to be an effective barrier. Lust sneered behind his back, taunting Darius and the restraint on his fury.

"You sold us out!" Darius raged, putting space between himself and Peroth. He paced like an agitated animal, whipping back and forth with blinding speed. Each step he took sent shivers through the manor's bones, riling the unseen shapes sleeping within the crooked walls as embers dripped from his burnings hands. The embers caught fire on the antique rug. Peroth's old eyes flicked downward and his brow creased with obvious displeasure.

"I did no such thing!" Amoroth retorted as she picked shards of glass from her skin. She rolled back her sleeve, and in doing so revealed the tidy swathe of bandages wrapped about her wrist and forearm. What was that from?

"You did!" Darius roared. "You sold us out to that—that monster! You betrayed me!"

Peroth turned just enough to regard her, a frown marring his lips. "Amor?" 

The woman swore in a brutal, cutting language. "He had his goddamn hand at my throat!" she yelled, mimicking Envy's chokehold. Her accent was becoming decidedly more English. "He had me flat on my back with his hand above my heart, ready to rip it out! He was going to kill me—so yes, yes! I told him! I told him what he would have found out anyway! I did it to live!"

"Duplicitous coward," Darius sneered through teeth too sharp to be human. "You wouldn't be alive if not for me."

The Sin of Lust drew in upon herself, spine stiffening until she could peer down the length of her nose at both of the male Sins judging her. "Some life you've given me," she said with a voice as hard and emotionless as cool, polished marble.

"Amoroth," Peroth snapped, holding up a single finger in warning. "I will not tolerate that kind of ungraciousness."

"So what!" she yelled, smacking his hand away from her face. "So what, Peroth? I did what I had to. I wanted to survive. I did exactly what you, or Darius would have done!" She breathed deeply for a moment, appearing more frazzled and undone than I had ever seen the woman before. "I did what you taught me to do."

Darius stopped pacing. "I told you to keep your hands off of Sara."

"And I told you to kill her and be done with it. Looks like we're both ignoring what we say to each other."

"You ungrateful—!"

"Enough!" Peroth thundered as he lowered his arms. The lights waned as what energy there was inside the office was taken by the manor's eccentric owner and gathered beneath his flesh. His body glowed for an instant, and beneath the diffused light writhed the shadow of a beastly thing living inside the Sin's form. It peered from behind his animal eyes and wore his typically bemused face.

Darius saw it too and hesitated, easing from the Sin of Sloth until he was once more by my side, leaving almost two yards of space between himself and Peroth. Amoroth didn't react. I took this to mean she'd seen his monster before, or she at least knew of it. I again wondered why Peroth would trust the tricky woman.

The light dimmed and heat swiftly returned to the office, melting the ice that had formed in Darius's fit of pique. Silence hung between the three creatures. My stifled coughing was the only noise to break the quiet as I rubbed feeling back into my bruised throat. The cat butted against my arm and I shooed it away, glaring all the while at Amoroth.

"You didn't even warn us," Darius said, reaching to pull me up by the arm. He hesitated when he saw the cat lurking at my elbow.

Peroth's tarnished eyes flicked to Amoroth in a silent demand for explanation.

For the first time, the thinnest glimmer of contrition touched the Sin's angry eyes. Her bloody lips twitched. "I didn't think it would matter, honestly."

"Ah, and therein lies the heart of the beast; you didn't think, and didn't give a damn." Darius wrapped his hand around my arm and hoisted me upright, his fingers tightening until I muttered an oath and winced. "Four hundred and eleven years, Amoroth. You owe me four-hundred and eleven years and you have spit in my eye at every opportunity."

"Enough, Darius," Peroth snapped as he leaned against the back of his couch, his thumb and forefinger pressed together at the bridge of his nose. "Enough. King's breath, our enemies needn't have brain nor brawn to defeat us. They'd simply need to lock you two in a bloody room together. How are we to survive if you cannot be civil with one another?"

"How do you expect me to be civil with a woman who all but literally stabs me in the back, Cuxiel?" Darius demanded. Amoroth just snorted as she picked her way from the smashed cabinet toward the desk. A purse and black jacket lay upon its edge. "Tell me, how."

"I expect you both to realize what haunts our doorstep and to be rational," Peroth returned with bitterness lacing his words. He ran a hand through his dark hair, mussing the short strands as he tossed a look heavenward. "Sara, why did you come here?"

I jumped, certain they had forgotten me in their violent argument. "Roman," I blurted out as I shook Darius's hand from my person. "In the library. The vampire said he's ill."

Peroth's brow rose, but he didn't appear surprised or worried. A short, breathy laugh of disbelief escaped Amoroth as she slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder, tucking the jacket around her arm to hide the bandages. "Now she pals around with vampires. This is the woman you want to save? Right. Perhaps this idiocy is punishment enough for the both of you."

Peroth spoke before either Darius or I could. "Go home, Amor," he sighed. "You've caused enough trouble today."

The Sin of Lust sniffed, then pouted. Anger still lived in her vivid eyes, but the woman had better control over her temper than Darius ever did. "Oh? Am I nothing but trouble to you, now?" she asked as she feigned nonchalance and plucked more glass out of her cleavage. She flicked a particularly large chunk at Darius, whacking him soundly on the forehead.

"You are always trouble, my Amor." Peroth waved his hand. "Go now."

She went without further protest, which was for the best considering how close Darius looked to losing his control. His teeth were still too sharp, and though his body near my own was radiating heat like a furnace, my breath escaped my lips in a shivering haze of white.

I stared at the floor, at a loss for words as I touched the fresh bruises upon my skin and tried to pry Amoroth's words from my skull. "She and her idiot Sin will bring ruin upon us all...get rid of her!"

As much as I tried to deny her notions, as much as I wanted to blame the woman for being heartless and cruel, Amoroth had not lied. She was viciously pragmatic and invariably hardheaded—but the woman hadn't lied to us when she said Darius and me would bring ruin to Peroth. If Darius failed, if we fell to Balthier, Envy would look to Peroth as an accomplice and act to eliminate him as well.

My fingers ached as I curled them into a fist, swallowing my grief and guilt.

"Roman," I said again. "He kept saying his father was calling to him, telling him things. What's wrong with him?"

Peroth eased from the couch's back and shared a meaningful look with Darius. Pride grunted in acknowledgment, more interested in the precocious feline sniffing the cuff of his pant leg. The sparks thrown by his burnt hands had burnt small holes in the denim fabric.

"He doesn't mean his literal father, Sara," Peroth said as he slowly walked toward the door. In passing, he laid a hand on Darius's shoulder. "He means his Night Father. Take care of her, will you?"

Darius shrugged off his touch, lip curling. "Be off with you."

Peroth left, tossing a lazy salutation over his shoulder as he saw himself out of the room. Darius and I were left alone, the cat and crooning raven perched on the balcony notwithstanding. The Sin lifted his hand to roughly turn my head, exposing my abused throat to the light.

"It'll heal," he stated, thumb tracing the edge of my jaw to tilt my head the other way. He prodded a particularly large bruise, making me wince. "It'll heal, and perhaps you might learn something from this encounter."

I hissed at his rough touch, shaking free of him. I glared as I asked, "What did he mean by 'Night Father,' Darius?"

"It's not obvious?" he commented as his hand continued to linger on my person. His fingers lightly slid over my collarbone, pausing on my shoulder as he spoke. "The Night Father, the Creator of Vampires, their Patriarch."

"Do you mean Sethan? Sethan is talking to him?!"

"Mmm." Darius flicked my arm and I jumped. "I told you, Sethan exerts control over his wayward children through our bloodline. Seeing as Sethan is mad, however, his control is also...unbalanced. It doesn't sit well in the minds of those he tries to impress his influence upon."

A chill permeated my bones as I recalled Roman's pained words, words he forced from himself even as Sethan had warped his mind.

He does not hunt for you, but for the way to you. It's important, important—!

I held my arms against myself, far colder than I could have thought possible. "He said...he said Sethan was hunting the way to me, not for me. I don't know what that means."

Darius caught a stray strand of my hair and deftly tucked it behind my ear. "It matters little, girl. He cannot reach either of us in Crow's End."

"How can you be so sure?"

Darius didn't reply as he studied my face, his thoughts lost behind the hard, well-crafted visage of his mask. "I can't."

The Sin of Pride bent at the waist to lift the cat up by the scruff of its neck. He thrust it into my arms and I jumped to catch the poor thing before Darius could drop it. The cat yowled, kicking its furry paws, but settled once Darius had released it.

"Keep him with you." 

Without another of explanation, the Sin disappeared into the Realm, leaving me open-mouthed and coughing on the ashes. I blinked at the cat I had cradled to my chest. "What on earth did he mean by that?"

The cat purred. I swore he winked.