“I see someone here has done his required reading. However, Leontus, you are not a first-year student.”

Silence again. Leon exhaled, a slight but definite snicker.

I liked him more and more.

“I’ve heard of that,” the blond in the front row finally said. “Scarabus. Thought he was a myth.”

The teacher cocked his head. “Oh, he was definitely not a myth. If we Kouroi are said to survive as a species today, it is due to him. His name is lost, but the wampyr called him Scarabus. He was ephialtes .” Beaufort’s face puckered up like he’d gotten a mouthful of sour candy against rotting teeth.

I wrote that down, spelling it as best I could. The teacher paused. “Anyone?”

“Greek name,” a redheaded djamphir off to my left supplied. “Right?”

“It means traitor. The term did not originate until hundreds of years after Scarabus, but it is accepted usage now. He was a djamphir who specialized in one thing: killing his own kind for his wampyr masters. Some few of our kind were allowed to live and hunt their brethren for sport, and also to keep us from banding together and taking on the fiends whose blood we bore.”

He’s getting really into it. Sometimes this guy got a little too into the history, talking about it as if he was there. I guess you never can tell among a bunch of djamphir. And to be honest, this was fascinating.

Beaufort rested a fingertip against his pursed lips. He turned in a complete circle, his blue eyes passing over us all and threads of darkness sliding through his hair. The aspect passed through him, his fangs sliding out and dimpling his lower lip. The fangs retreated, his hair returned to normal, and I let out a soft breath, notepaper crumpling under my left hand before I eased my fingers out of the fist.

I didn’t think I’d ever get used to the aspect passing through a djamphir. It’s the part we get from the suckers. The part that makes us stronger, faster . . .

. . . and thirsty for the red stuff in the vein.

You don’t get used to that. Not easily, and not soon.

“Many djamphir have been ephialtes in their time,” Beaufort said softly. “Even the best of us. Raised to hunt our own kind, we know nothing else. It is the original question of nature versus nurture.”

Christophe did that. Hunted other djamphir. A chill moved down my back. After all, he was Sergej’s son. They told me Augustine had brought him in, and my mother was the reason he stayed in the Order.

Except Christophe had told me something else.

If I need a reason now, Dru, it will have to be you.

Talk about an uncomfortable thought. The fang marks on my wrist throbbed a little, but I ignored the feeling. I was getting good at ignoring stuff. If there was an Olympics I’d probably qualify. I’d go for the gold.

“After a certain amount of time, every ephialtes will question why he is killing his brothers. And what will eventually happen to him once his masters tire of him, no matter how useful he is. Scarabus questioned, and he turned against them. Normally he would have been hunted down by every ephialtes and wampyr his masters could induce to do such a thing. But Scarabus had an advantage.”

Leon stirred restlessly behind me.

Beaufort finished his last slow turn, and his eyes settled on me. “He had a sister.”

A ripple went through the room. A few of the boys, unable to help themselves, actually glanced at me and away quickly.

Great. I sank back into the couch, wishing for some of Leon’s wallflower juice.

“Scarabus’s first act of disobedience was taking his infant sister and hiding her. Their human mother died in childbirth, and Scarabus must have told his master that the child had died as well. Such things being common in antiquity. Nothing more is known until fifteen years later, when the sister was on the verge of blooming. He could no longer keep her a secret, so he drank her dry.”

My stomach turned over hard. “He what?” It burst out of me.

Beaufort actually winced. “He, ahem, killed her. Drank past the point of bonding, past the point of the blood-dark, past the point of crippling. He absorbed his sister. And used the strength in her blood to become something the wampyr could not stand against. At least, something the taproot of their species could not stand against. Without that taproot—”

“Whoa. He ate his sister?” It was the guy in front of me. I was feeling kind of glad someone else was having the same reaction. Guess chivalry isn’t dead.

Beaufort sighed. It was a Dylan-class sigh, but without the shades of patient aggravation Dylan could have put into it. “Essentially, yes. He absorbed her essence and used the resulting aura-dark to strike at the Vampire King. Who was, incidentally, Scarabus’s master for most of his life.”

“Wait. The aura-dark.” I remembered that term faintly. “What is that?”

Nobody breathed or moved for a long few seconds. I was getting used to that, whenever I asked a really basic question. They took all these things for granted, since most of them had been raised djamphir . It kind of made me wonder what I’d be taking for granted if Mom was still alive.

Now there was an uncomfortable thought.

Beaufort looked up over my head, and a faint tinge of pink touched his cheeks. “It is what happens when a djamphir drinks blood. After a certain point, the, ah, the nosferat part of our heritage rises to the surface. We gain more strength, more speed—and less ability to withstand sunlight. It burns us just as it burns them, when we give in to the craving.” His mouth pursed. “We’ll cover more of that later, Milady. With your permission?”

So that was why Christophe had hidden from the sun after biting me. I nodded, pulled my jaw back up. Closed my mouth with a snap. Gee, I was just learning new things all over. I wished I had my hoodie on. Gooseflesh crept up my arms, spread down my back.

“Without the King, the Court scattered and gradually lost their ability to walk during the day. Which brings us back to the point of this lecture. Why do you suppose Scarabus had to hide his sister?”

I just knew I was going to say something snide. “For snacking later?”

There were a couple of gasps, one horrified chuckle, and several snorts. A few of the boys looked down at their notepads or books, one or two of them with bright crimson cheeks.

I never used to wise off in class. Things were just changing all over.

If Beaufort’s mouth could have turned down any further, he would have looked like a commercial for bitter beerface. “No, Milady. Because the thing that allowed the Vampire King—and therefore the rest of the wampyr—to walk during the day was regular ritual infusions of svetocha blood. Which is, incidentally, what makes svetocha such high-priority targets for both us and them.” The grimace eased up into a mirthless grin, one that showed his white, white teeth as the aspect ran through him again. The fangs look different when they’re exposed and lengthening. Thicker, with a distinctive curve. “Svetocha have become increasingly rare ever since, for reasons we’re still working to understand.” He finally turned away from me, his eyes roving the class. “Over the course of four centuries after the killing of the King, the Court scattered. Human populations were also on the move, and a pale copy of the original Court settled in Greece, since Egypt and, by extension, the Hittite empire proved . . . unwholesome. Unfortunately, though, Scarabus and his followers could only train so many djamphir; casualties were high, and the wampyr had the upper hand until fairly recently, when the Treaty with the wulfen was made.” He glanced at the clock over the door. “I think that’s enough lecture for today. Open your books to page 285, please, and—”