Sister Clarice drew the poison from Devorah’s neck and healed the wound in a matter of moments. Not even a scar remained, leaving the thin, white scars the High Cleric had given her unblemished.

“How long has it been since you were infected, Governor?”

Devorah shrugged. “A few minutes.”

Sister Clarice grew grim. “I've drawn the vhamp poison from victims whose wounds were several minutes old only to see them change the next night. Governor, you should...”

She trailed off, uncertain how to order Devorah to confine herself in the fort's dungeons until they knew whether or not she was turning into a vhamp. Devorah wasn't about to imprison herself, so she gave Sister Clarice her best sardonic look.

“I'm a necromancer, cleric. Or have you forgotten? If I was turning into an undead, I'd know it.” She turned to leave the healing ward.

“Prove it.”

Devorah spun and glared at the cleric.

“You feel cold, don't you? Except the bite feels faintly warm. But as the poison spreads through your body, you'll be violently ill, expelling the last traces of food in your body. Light will become painful to bear; you'll prefer cool, dim places.”

Devorah laughed. “You just described my childhood. I've been sick before. I’m fine.”

But Sister Clarice didn't relent. “When night falls, the change will complete itself and you'll be ravenous. You'll attack and drain the first warm body you come across.”

“You want me to prove it?” Devorah’s gaze flicked to the cleric’s golden medallion, the sunburst of God. She snatched it up in one hand. The gold was warm against her skin but no more than she should expect. She felt a moment of relief. Sister Clarice’s certitude had given her doubts, though she didn’t want to admit them.

“A vhamp’s skin burns at the touch of gold. Are you satisfied, cleric?”

Sister Clarice took hold of the leather cord that supported the amulet and jerked it from Devorah’s grasp. “No. You need to quarantine yourself.”

Devorah relented. Though Sister Clarice was a foolish believer in a deity who supposedly lived in the sun, she was not totally illogical. “If I am infected, I won’t be dangerous until the sun sets. I will allow you and Colonel Lambert to escort me to the dungeons before then. Will that satisfy?”

It didn’t, but Sister Clarice nodded anyway, a short curt nod. “I hope I’m wrong, Governor.”

• • •

Devorah made her way to Pinefort’s forge. The forge had expanded, incorporating as much equipment as Devorah had been able to buy from the local forges and foundries for the manufacturing of fire-arms and hand-held fire-arms. Devorah refused to call them demons. The ring of metal on metal drew her in though the ruddy light and heat were not particularly inviting.

The smith met her in the yard. “Governor. Care to inspect some firearms?”

There were three of them, great metal cylinders belled at one end, open at the other, reinforced with three equidistant rings. Devorah approached the first, closed her eyes, and ran her hands along the length of it. She could feel the the vent at the top of the belled end, the flare of the muzzle, the smooth bore of the cannon scored with grooves that would send the projectile spiraling, steadying its flight, her improvement upon the notes from the mindspace. But there was a weakness. Near the center on the bottom of the cylinder, the metal was weak. The weapon would not hold.

Devorah shook her head and moved on.

The second was worse than the first. A fine crack ran the length of the cylinder, webbing at the muzzle. Devorah spent only a trio of moments on it.

But the third was whole and smooth and perfect.

“This one,” she said.

She opened her eyes to look at the smith, to convey her approval, but deep within the forge, far at the corner of her eye, metal struck metal and a spark flew. A sudden clench in her gut made the edges of her vision sparkle and her knees stumble and her mind spend a moment in panic.

“Governor?” the smith’s concern drifted to her from as though down a long, dusty hallway.

Devorah closed her throat by force of will. She stumbled for the smithy yard. Bracing herself against the outside of the forge, she bent and emptied her stomach. The bile burned her nose, drawing tears to her eyes and provoking her stomach to heave again. She coughed and spat and stood upright, trying to ignore the attention of the men in the forge.

“Governor?”

“Put your men back to work,” Devorah snapped. “They need not concern themselves with me. I’m fine.”

But her stomach heaved again and, again, wrenched from her control and she stood helpless while her guts emptied themselves. The smith turned to shout at the men who worked metal under his direction, but concern still emanated from them in waves like heat from the very forges they worked.

Devorah spat and stumbled away before she could heave again. She made her way to the shade of tree, pulling at that shade until she could move through the shadow and into the water closet attached to her bedroom in the fort. There she heaved again, this time into the toilet. By the time her body was finished expelling everything she’d eaten in the last several hours, she drew a hot bath and let it ease the aches of the experience. She kept her treacherous thoughts firmly away from Sister Clarice’s warnings.

She went to her mindspace. There, she found something to distract her: a note.

Dear Black,

My name is Piety Churchstep, and I am an orphan.

In a neat script, Piety told her story. She told about her life at Sacred Heart church, an orphanage in a small town called Appledel in the Three Rivers area of Shannon Province. She wrote about the Mother Superior, a cruel women, but also about Cook, a kind woman. She wrote about her friend Temperance and her lack of faith. She wrote about her teachers: Father Vytal, Father Shane, Father Berek.

When she described Father Vytal’s death at the battle of Upton Port, Devorah closed her eyes, hands shaking. Though they had been at odds in the Taranaki Empire, Devorah had liked the old man.

Father Berek was a further surprise. The man, in the thrall of Frederick Vahramp, who had divulged the secret of the Twilight Intersect, was once the man who’d taught Piety how to explore and control her power? Devorah was jealous of the other girl’s formal training.

When Piety wrote of High Cleric Marcus Radden, Devorah found herself shaking again. She approved of her little sister’s reservations of the man and hoped the girl never found herself in his clutches.

She read Piety’s account of the war and her dreams of a purple-eyed woman who would save the world and of the undead unleashed on the world by a thoughtless, black-haired necromancer. And that’s where the story ended and a long, careless line of realization marred the page.

Black, are you Devorah Kempenny?

Devorah was sorely tempted to reply. Clearly Devorah had been incorrect in assuming Piety was the pawn of the High Cleric, but that didn’t mean Piety wouldn’t force a confrontation. Devorah sat in the comfortable chair in the room in her mind, wrapped in a blanket, considering, when sleep overtook her.

• • •

Frederick Vahramp sat in a plush chair, a goblet of wine in hand. He swirled the wine gently and inhaled. Though he could no longer eat without becoming violently ill, he still enjoyed the smell of red wine. The particulars of his undead status still baffled him. But considering the benefits, he couldn’t complain. The scent of the feeding in front of him was delicious in a far more visceral way.

The woman he’d rescued from the church, the woman who’d once been its Mother Superior, the woman who had fed him young girls with power-laced blood, was being reborn. Her name, he knew, was Willow, but he didn’t know whether she would remember when she emerged from her bloody meal. He’d never watched one of his children regain its personality, change from the starved husk he could so easily control. After his defeat, it had taken him months before he’d regained enough mental strength to summon his children to him. When they had come, he’d found those who had regained their personalities both useful and treacherous. He therefore had no illusions about this woman who had lorded her power over children. She would destroy him if she could and he would have to kill her first, but he was happy to use her knowledge of the coming Intersect in the meantime.

The change was immediate and noticeable. She grew from emaciated husk to full-bodied woman in a matter of moments. She was pretty in her way, too old for his tastes to be sure, but not unattractive.

• • •

Devorah jerked out of the vision when she heard them walking down the hall. She felt cold, only her neck warm, the spot where the vhamp had bitten her. Devorah felt her skin tingle, her breath quicken. Too-bright light edged her vision. She could feel the sharp blade parting her skin along well-worn lines.

Devorah slipped from bed and opened the door before Colonel Lambert could knock. He was glaring at Sister Clarice who glared back sternly. They looked up when she opened the door, apprehensive.

“Come in,” Devorah said. She turned and pulled a rope to summon a servant. Though her curtains were drawn, her room deep in shadow, she knew the sun was only minutes from setting.

They balked at entering too far into the room, dark as it was.

“Did we wake you?” Sister Clarice asked.

“No,” Devorah lied. “And you know I’ve always preferred the dark, so don’t take the drawn curtains as evidence for your concern.”

Sister Clarice fell silent.

Devorah turned to Colonel Lambert. “The good sister told you?”

“You were bitten. It’s not an unreasonable concern, Scamp.” Colonel Lambert was saddened by the possibility.

“You’re armed,” Devorah said, “and I’m not, so if she’s right, you’d better act fast.”

“I thought we were going to the dungeons,” Sister Clarice said.

Colonel Lambert shook his head. “A vhamp with her power over shadows and weapons would be a nightmare. If she begins to change, I want her within sword range.”

Devorah smiled, relived. “If Sister Clarice is right, you’re the only one I trust to take care of it.”

The servant arrived and Devorah set him to lighting lamps and bringing tea. She sat and her guests sat and no one said anything. Devorah bit her tongue on the edges of her panic. It was just the other side of her mind, ready to take her the moment she let her guard down.

And then the sun set.

For a moment, there was nothing and Devorah felt a surge of relief she didn’t show. Her heart hammered in her chest, but the other signs of panic faded. She unclenched her jaw and took a shaky breath.

Colonel Lambert was looking at her, his hand on his sword. “Scamp?”

“I’m fine.”

But in that moment, the pounding in her chest stopped, and she felt her body begin to die. Her necromantic power felt her own death as it had others. She could feel her body as its balance of Mind, Body, and Soul, shifted.

“Scamp?”

Her power over the undead—cool, dark, dusty—let her feel as her body shrank and desiccated, her nails and fangs elongated; as her mind fled from the rational edged with panic to a single-minded bloodlust; as her soul, her feeling, her passion drained away. Devorah pushed against the shift. But though her power let her feel the shift, it could not let her stop it, only slow it. The inexorable shift set her body afire, and stalling it only prolonged that fire, but giving in meant turning into a vhamp. She could feel the bloodlust, ready to take over.

Devorah did the last thing she could think of. She threw herself into the cosmos.

And there, in everything and nothing, she blinked and saw a sphere like a haze on the horizon, a ghostly sphere in the cosmos, and around it orbited three other spheres, solid and whole. It was a metaphor, of course, she was the ghostly sphere in the center, about to lose the other three: Mind, Soul, Body.

Devorah took a non-existent breath and firmed her grip on the spheres. They ceased their orbit, and the central sphere stopped fading—like strands of rope caught in a snarl. It would do for now.

“Scamp?”

His voiced called her from the cosmos, back to herself.

He pointed a sword at her, and she reacted without thinking. She moved faster than she’d ever moved before. She slapped the flat of the blade, knocking the sword from his grip. He shouted in surprise and backed up, reaching for another weapon. Sister Clarice screamed.

Devorah drew back holding her hands up.

“Scamp? Are you in there?”

“I’m fine,” she lied. “I… I’m not one of them.”

“I saw you change. You looked like a vhamp.”

“I was a vhamp,” she admitted. “But I was able to…” They didn’t believe her. Sister Clarice was certain she was about to die. Colonel Lambert was certain he was going to have to kill her.

She looked at Sister Clarice. “You were right. I’m sorry. But I’m a necromancer, and I’ve stopped the transformation.”

“The bloodlust?” Sister Clarice demanded.

The hollows below her eyes ached. Hunger filled her. She clenched her teeth, took a deep breath, and it was as though a window opened, just above the crown of her head, to the purple-tinged cosmos.

“In the space beyond the wall in the of the mindspace is everything.” Devorah knew she was babbling. “And nothing. Forever and never.”

“God’s Throne, she’s pierced the veil.”

“What does that mean?”

“It feeds me.” Devorah took another breath. She stared through Colonel Lambert and Sister Clarice into the light-speckled void, just at the edge, and each breath was enough. It did not sate the bloodlust, but it was enough.