Chapter 44

From Blake’s POV, the Adoration Rite concludes with masked highbloods dressing while a highblood man lifts the Bloodmaiden, revealing she is dead. The congregation chains and hoists her body over a silver bowl; her dripping blood ignites a powerful enchantment. Blake realizes the girl is fuel and that the rite sustains coercive magic over blightborn.

Seeing Medra Pendragon’s shock and sense of betrayal, Blake tries to stop her from fleeing. She accuses him of complicity and monstrosity, convinced he knew. Blake denies prior knowledge, but Medra points to the prepared bowl and chains as proof of intent.

They retreat into a secret stairwell. Medra demands the truth about the spell; Blake admits it is magic but conceals details, claiming ignorance of the death and that tonight was meant as his initiation. When Medra links it to citywide control, Blake’s silence confirms her fear. She challenges his morality and inaction.

Blake argues he abhors killing for indulgence, invoking his father’s failed reforms, and insists he could not have stopped the assembled elders—including possibly his uncle. He then warns Medra that speaking out will get her and her friends, including Florence, killed.

After a tense standoff, Medra agrees to remain silent. They continue through the passage toward Bloodwing, distant and shaken. Blake recognizes her hatred—and his own self-loathing—have deepened, even as secrecy becomes their only protection.