Chapter Four: An Alliance of Blood Debt

Pei Du did not move out of the lens. “Take it,” he said. “You will forget a span of time equal to what you take from me. The question is, how much of your past already belongs to me?” Jianyue's finger stopped on the shutter. It was not a threat. A vampire could not command someone who had neither surrendered her true name nor incurred a blood debt. But he understood her ability too well. He even knew how it selected its price. She lowered the camera. “Show me the progress report Lin Zhou left.” “First learn how to survive long enough to see it.” Pei Du took her and Su Mi to level minus seventeen. It felt less like an office than an old city without a sky. Doors lined black-stone passages, each lintel carved with a name, some chiseled away.