Chapter 20 · Her Face in the Coffin

The coffin's open.

My blood's still wet on the lid, dripping down the carved edge, and inside there's a body. Female. Pale. Eyes closed. Wearing something that might've been white a hundred years ago.

She's got my face.

Not similar. Not close. Exact. Same cheekbones. Same mouth. Same little scar through my left eyebrow I got when I was six and fell off a bike.

I can't breathe.

"Amy." Karl's voice, hoarse. He's still chained to the floor ten feet back, blood on his wrists, and he's saying my name like it's the only word that matters. "Amy, look at me."

I can't. I'm staring at her. At me. At whatever the hell this is.

Eli's laughing. Low, delighted. "You see it now, don't you? The Ashe family's been looking for her for two centuries. The first blood source. The one who survived the binding and became something else.

Something we could never replicate." He steps closer, his shoes clicking on stone.

"Her name was Min-Ah. Korean. Taken in 1823. My great-great-grandfather thought he could make her immortal if he fed her enough vampire blood. It worked. Sort of. She lived three hundred years as a perfect vessel—