I lift my hand—what remains of it, translucent and growing more so with each second. The gesture is instinctive, offering what would be a paw in my feline form. The soft pad between thumb and forefinger, where transformation happens, where human becomes cat and cat becomes human.
She understands immediately.
Her fangs extend with the particular grace of vampire transformation, and she takes my offered hand with gentleness that contrasts the urgency of our situation. When her teeth pierce the flesh, it doesn't hurt.
It burns, but with frost.
Like ice formed from starlight, like frost patterns on windows that look into other dimensions. The sensation spreads from the bite through my entire being—what remains of it—with speed that speaks of desperation rather than patience.
She drinks deeply, and I feel each pull not just in my hand but in my soul. This is different from normal feeding—she's not just taking blood but takingessence, the fundamental stuff that makes me me across all nine lives.
The blood that flows into her carries everything—every life, every death, every moment of existence across centuries of being guide and guardian. It's too much, too fast, too concentrated with magical potential accumulated across multiple incarnations.
Through our forming bond, I feel her reaction.
The blood hits her system like liquid lightning. Her own magic convulses, trying to process power that's fundamentally different from anything she's encountered. Dragon fire, Duskwalker shadow, vampire vitae—these are all singular powers, even if combined.
But feline blood, especially from one of my lineage, carries multiplicity itself.
We are not one thing but many things simultaneously.
We are alive and dead, here and there, now and then.
We exist in superposition until observed, and even then, we maintain uncertainty about which state we truly occupy.
All of that floods into Gwenievere with each swallow, and I watch her eyes dilate with more than hunger. This is overload, system shock, the particular danger of taking too much too fast.
"Stop," I try to say, but my voice is barely a whisper. "You need to stop before?—"
She doesn't stop.
If anything, she drinks deeper, desperation overriding caution. I understand why—I'm still fading, the translucency spreading despite the bond forming. She's trying to anchor me through sheer force of will, pulling me back from the edge through consumption.
It takes both Mortimer and Atticus to pull her away.
Even miniaturized, they manage it through combined effort—Mortimer's dragon strength and Atticus's vampire speed working together to break her grip on my hand. She fights them for a moment, fangs bared, eyes wild with hunger that's more than physical.
"What happened?" Cassius demands as I suddenly solidify.
The fading stops—no, reverses. My flesh becomes opaque again, details returning like picture coming into focus. The hollow space where my eighth life burned out fills with something different—not a new life but a shared one, connected to Gwenievere through blood that now runs through both our veins.
I sigh with relief that comes from every cell simultaneously.
"Feline blood is very potent with magic," I explain, watching Gwenievere carefully as she processes what she's consumed. "Especially from someone with high divination power like mine. It's... extremely addictive."
Her eyes are still dilated, but awareness is returning. The wild hunger is fading, replaced by confusion and something like awe.
"The blood could have been feeding off your magic while heightening it," I continue, needing her and the others to understand what just happened. "Creating a feedback loop that would have drained you while overwhelming your system."
"But…I'm okay?" she asks, voice slightly slurred but improving.
"You'll be okay," I assure her, and secretly reassure myself that I’m not only alive, but so is she.I won’t forget her."You just need to rest for a bit. Let your system process what you've taken in."
"That's nice," a new voice says, dry and unimpressed, "but we don't have time for that."
We all turn—those of us capable of turning—toward the source.
Gabriel stands in the doorway of what used to be my trial space. Not child-Gabriel but adult-Gabriel, arms crossed, dressed in leather that matches Gwenievere's uniform but styled differently. More masculine, more military, more designed for war than trials.
