Page 101 of Let Sleeping Vampires Lie

I smiled.

The first item was a grimoire. The host introduced it with a few enticing details, then allowed a masked assistant to carry the book along the front row so buyers could see the fading sigils etched into the cover.

Bidding started at a high number and climbed quickly.

I did not raise my hand.

Con’s attention never left the room. He watched entrances, exits, guards, potential threats. His focus moved like a searchlight.

The second item was a dark warlock bone fragment. The host spoke about its purported ability to amplify spellwork. A sorcerer three rows ahead of me snapped it up at a price that would have funded a small fortress.

I still did not bid.

My heart sat stubbornly in my throat, waiting for the only thing in this room that truly mattered.

Valerian’s presence pressed against my senses. Just out of reach. Just shy of sight. Like smoke coiled behind curtain fabric.

The fourth item was an Egyptian relic from some forsaken crypt. The host handled it with tongs. I paid attention only long enough to note the curses described. If I needed to burn the place down, I did not want any of that residue near me.

Before long he said the words I had waited for.

“Item Seven.”

The air seemed to thin.

An assistant stepped onto the stage with a small black box. It looked innocuous. No glow. No hum. No sense of power radiating from it. Just a rectangular case with reinforced corners and a subtle locking mechanism.

The host rested his hand lightly on it.

“Provenance uncertain,” he said. “Material unidentified. Composition beyond normal analysis. Energy signature… intriguing.”

He unclasped the lid and lifted it.

For a second, a slender metallic shard caught the light.

My breath stopped.

The fragment lay nestled on velvet. The edges were too clean, the surface marked with lines that almost resembled veins. It pulsed against my magic, a small, insistent tug that echoed everything I had felt from the other pieces.

The Pentacoris.

Before any of the buyers could truly study it, the host closed the lid with deliberate disinterest.

“Minor curiosity,” he said. “Potential for those with patience. Or for those who like puzzles.”

He made it sound like something half-forgotten in a back room.

That told me more than any flourish would have.

He wanted the attention elsewhere.

On the serum.

Fine.

Let them look past it.

I raised my hand.