But it was. Sarah pressed her eyes shut, then took Jacob's hands and folded the purse into them. "For the children you'll one day have, Jake. For an education or a guild. For me, because I'll have no babes of my own."

  Shocked, Jacob blurted, "Is the flaw in yourself or in him?", then flushed red enough to make Sarah laugh.

  "Him." Them, but she could never say that aloud. "He is...too different."

  Now consternation twisted Jacob's face, and Sarah could all but name the perversities that the miller's son imagined. She touched his arm, meant to be reassuring, but he caught her hand with concern writ large across his features. "You're sure you're all right, Sarah? You look well. You're—you're beautiful." He stuttered the compliment, as if the word was not enough, then forged on. "But if that lord is unnatural..."

  "He's my heart's desire. I could never have dreamed, but now that I know..." She was making it worse: now Jacob looked as though he thought her perverse. "I'm happy," she said firmly. "I'm well. Take the coins, Jacob, please? Take them and wed and have a family, and think of me from time to time."

  He swallowed, eyes on the purse. "You won't be coming back."

  "No. I came to say goodbye. To say that you'll be remembered." Remembered for far longer than he might think, but that was a thing he would never know. "Goodbye, Jacob. Thank you." She turned away before he spoke again, and, to the footman's gratitude and horror, let herself into the coach.

  She carefully did not look back.

  The city estate Eliseo had arranged for her was modest only by his standards. The grounds were longer and deeper than the streets and houses she'd grown up in, and their back against the city wall made them feel impenetrable. There were no rickety buildings hanging dangerously over the pathways, and the driver brought her coach and two to a coach house.

  Staff awaited her; Eli had arranged that as well, though she hadn't known it until she arrived. She had thought she would come to a quiet, dead house, and found a bustling one instead, as if she was a landlord who had only stepped out for a moment rather than one who had never attended the premises. If they were surprised to see her, they didn't show it, though how they could have expected her, Sarah had no idea. She hadn't forewarned Janx that she would stay overnight in town; the idea had only struck her as they left the slaughterfields.

  A steward showed her the house, larger by far than any one woman could need. There were three sitting rooms and a dining hall in the downstairs alone, with the kitchen hearth backed against the dining hall's inner wall so heat poured through. In summer it was sweltering, but it would be cozy when skies turned grey. An equally unnecessary number of bedrooms made up the second floor, and the one she was shown into as her own had a discreet necessary closet to one side and a brass tub as tall as her hip to the other. "I shouldn't have given him coin," Sarah said to the house. "I should have given him this. He could fill it with a family."

  "My lady?" The steward looked attentive and Sarah, with a sense of unreality, waved him away. He disappeared out the door and she laughed, quiet sound of disbelief. Janx's expansive manor had awed her, but she'd grown accustomed to its size. This house, by all accounts less grandiose, was more overwhelming simply for being hers. She sat in one of the windows—leaded glass in small diamonds—and watched the sun set, golden fire reflected dozens of times. She hadn't been alone in weeks, and the silence was welcome, though already she missed Janx and Eli. A messenger would have to be sent to tell them where she was. Perhaps there was someone at the house who filled such a role. Reluctant, she uncoiled from the window seat to ask, but as she did, a knock came at her door. "A visitor, my lady. Are you home?"

  Sarah stared at the door, bemused. Neither Janx or Eliseo would bother with formality, and she knew no one else. She stood, shaking her skirts, and came to the door. "I am. Who is it?"

  "A Master Korund, my lady. Shall I have the maid prepare a parlor?"

  Not because the parlors were unprepared for company, but so she, a fine lady, would not be alone in the room with a gentleman. Sarah swallowed a laugh and nodded, allowing the steward to guide her downstairs.

  Alban waited in the parlor, watching the maid fuss unnecessarily with the fire. He turned as the door opened, a smile creasing his face. "Sarah Hopkins. I wouldn't have known you."

  Sarah, with no regard for propriety—Janx was a dangerous influence—dashed across the room to hug the giant blond man as she had not dared to greet Jacob. "Then how did you know I was here?"

  "I've paid a boy to watch the house since you went to the country," Alban said with no apology. "He fetched me when you came here."

  "But I came in the day!"

  Alban's eyebrows rose slowly and he glanced at the maid. Sarah covered her mouth with one hand, apologetic, then dismissed the girl, who had the sense to disregard propriety and close the door behind her. "And yet Janx warned Hajnal to hold her tongue," Alban said then. "I should be surprised."

  "Why?" Sarah sat and gestured for Alban to do the same. "I suppose it's dangerous, but I'm not Pandora. Even if I was, I knew from the start that my life was a trinket to them. They were always going to be the death of me. Why not tell me the truth?"

  Alban stayed on his feet a moment, studying her. "You've changed, Sarah Hopkins. Not just your voice and education, but your certainty. It suits you. And it is against the laws of our people to tell humans the truth. We have very few laws that bind us all, and it seems neither Janx nor Daisani consider themselves bound by them at all." He finally sat, his breadth and height making his chair look under-sized, as if made for a child.

  "What happens if the laws are broken?"

  "Exile. We shun those who risk exposing us all. There are so few of us that no one wishes to be excluded from the whole, and so the threat is a legitimate one."

  "But they have each other." Sarah spoke without thinking, dismissing the depths of that threat without consideration. Her easy assumption changed Alban's expression, though; it seemed that he did not leap to the belief that Janx and Daisani would be enough to one another that exile might mean little to them. Nor was he greatly surprised, once the newness of the idea settled in. He nodded thoughtfully, and, emboldened, she pressed for more answers: "What other laws do you have?"

  "There are to be no half-breed children. Not with each other as a rule, and not with humans at all. And—"

  "You can have children with us?" Hot and cold flooded Sarah in turns, blushes scalding her cheeks while her hands turned to ice. "I thought—I thought—"

  "But we can take human forms, so we are perhaps not that different. Our own half-breeds we call chimeras, children who have aspects of both parents. They tend not to be bound by the same constraints their parents are, and they are almost always dangerous."

  Sarah's heart slowed its lurching, though her stomach still boiled with nervous shock. "I think you must all be dangerous."

  Alban said, "Yes," after a pause. "Which is why our third law is that we must not make war among ourselves. We do not kill one another. The results would be catastrophic to our peoples. What did they tell you, Sarah Hopkins?"

  "What they are. What you are. That I might live—" She hesitated over forever and said, "a long time, with them," instead.

  "A very long time, if Eliseo has given you that gift. Are you happy, Sarah? You're here, and not with them."

  "Oh." She stood, hurrying for the door. "I forgot. I need to send a man to tell them I'm here."

  "Hajnal has already gone." Alban shrugged a big shoulder when she turned back to him. "My contract with Janx may be ended, but we've kept watch for you. When you came here without them there were three choices. One, you'd run away. Two, you'd been sent away. Three, you'd dallied in the city and were unable to return home before dark. Of those, two need Janx and Daisani to know where you are, else they might tear London apart searching for you. So Hajnal went to tell them, just in case."

  Sarah's hands found her hips and rested there indignantly. "If I'd run away I would hardly want them to know where I'd gone."

  "Do you think you could lose them by running?"

  "They promised," she said after a moment. "That if I chose to leave they would honor my wishes."

  "Sarah." Gentle regret tinged Alban's deep voice. "They may even have meant it when they said it, but our world doesn't easily let humans go once it's captured them. I think that may be the greatest cruelty in sharing our secrets with mortals: you can never go back, and you can rarely escape."

  Sarah thought of Jacob, of the slaughterfields, and smiled a little. "I don't wish to."

  "And that," Alban murmured, "may be the other cruelty of discovering our world. Sarah, should you ever need it, Hajnal or I will be there to help you. Remember that."

  "I will." She made the promise lightly, and Alban accepted it with a nod.

  Janx's matched set took her back to the country estate in the morning. She was greeted by an agitated vampire with ruffled hair. Sarah touched it, curious, and Eli's mouth twitched. "I went to the city in the night. It may have left its mark."

  Sarah's eyebrows rose. "Why did you do that?"

  "I couldn't decide if granting you the city house unconditionally meant it was inappropriate to arrive on the doorstep unannounced. I changed my mind...several times."

  "What he means to say," Janx drawled from deeper in the foyer, "is that he has run back and forth dozens of times, never crossing beyond your gate for fear you wouldn't want him there. I," he said with a superior air, "have waited patiently, certain of your return."

  "You," Eli snapped, "can't transform in the city without betraying your origins. Don't pretend it was nobility and trust that kept you here."

  Sarah's smile died on her lips. "You don't trust me?"

  "I trust you implicitly," Janx replied. "I trust the men of London not at all, particularly when they might catch a glimpse of such unexpected and unescorted beauty. I would be..." Playfulness turned to discomfort on his changeable features and he glanced away with a frown. Sarah's own frown deepened and she looked at Eliseo, accustomed now to one of them completing thoughts the other would not.

  "You are peculiar to us, Sarah. It would be...distressing if something happened to you."

  "'Distressing'."

  "I would lay waste to the city," Janx said softly, almost not to her at all. "I would count the costs in thousands of lives and call it worthy if the man who harmed you was among them."

  "His living flesh would feed crows for a dozen days," Eli said in very nearly the same voice. "We swore to you we would not stop you from leaving, but should someone take you from us..."

  They were mad. That was the thought that rose in her mind, though it tempered itself quickly enough, and brought a truth to light: they were inhuman, and mens' lives meant nothing to them. She was a spark, a brief and brilliant interest set apart from the rest of her kind. It made her precious, and made those around her all the more worthless. She should, as so often, be afraid.

  Instead she was painfully glad she had said goodbye to Jacob, and cool with an anger and a comprehension. "Alban was with me. I was safe. And Hajnal told you where I was. You do not own me."

  "Yes, and yet. We cannot own you, Sarah, but I beg of you--"

  "Tell us next time," Eli finished in a murmur. "If you intend to stay away. The hours before Hajnal's message were...uncomfortable."

  Irritation sharpened Sarah's voice: "I hadn't planned at all. Epimetheus should understand that well enough."

  Janx's remoteness disappeared in a rush of laughter. He was on his feet, crossing the foyer and catching Sarah's hands to bow over them in uncontained glee. "A hit! Oh, we are put in our places, my brother! Sarah Hopkins, I shall throw a ball for you in thanks for your skewering wit and your cold anger. This," he said to Eli, "this is such a woman as we so rarely find. Why can they not all be so bold and wise?"

  Eliseo proved his own humor to be restored by saying, "Because we would be left broken and exhausted if they were," as dryly as he could. "Shall we do this for you, Sarah? Hold the event of the season? Present you to the gathered courts, and make them wager on where you've come from?"

  "Only if I collect the winnings." Sarah smiled, though. "You'll have to teach me to dance."

  It had seemed simple at the time. If she could be taught to speak and dress, she could certainly be taught to dance. "Like a bear," Sarah said under her breath, but there was no mutter her men couldn't overhear. Eli laughed aloud and released her while Janx slid from his chair to sprawl, snickering, on the floor, putting both himself and his lute in danger of Sarah treading on them. She took more care avoiding the lute than Janx: it was a beautiful instrument, and he would catch her if she fell.

  "The astonishing thing is not that it dances well," Janx said to the ceiling, happily, "but that it dances at all. Sarah, my dear, I assure you you have more grace than a bear. You're simply concentrating too hard. It will come more easily if you have more fun. How did you never learn to dance? Is it not what the simple folk do?"

  "I learned. I can dance you a poor jig if I must, but I was never any good. I thought it was..." Sarah waved an impatient hand, and felt suddenly as though the men had altered even the way she spoke with her body. "Disinterest, or lack of practice, or—but we've been practicing for hours every day for three weeks now. I'm not a good dancer. I don't suppose you've some kind of magic in your blood like Eli has in his. For grace instead of life, perhaps."

  Curiosity quirked Janx's eyebrows. "I have no idea. Not being a vampire, I've never been inclined to feed anyone my blood. We could try, though I doubt it would impart grace." He pushed up on his elbows, suddenly delighted. "Does this mean you think I'm more graceful than he is?"

  "You are," Eli said without rancor. "I've always thought the selkie or djinn, people of water and air, should be the most graceful of our kinds, but it's the dragons and even gargoyles and harpies. I think it's something to do with the wings."

  Janx, sounding genuinely pleased, said, "I hadn't thought you'd noticed," and in a rash movement sat up and tore his wrist open. Sarah, as thoughtlessly, moved forward, knelt, and drank.

  Bitterer blood than Eli's, with a taste of smoke. She swallowed and coughed and wiped her mouth, eyes watering. Janx laughed. "You didn't do that with Eliseo's. I never thought it tasted that bad."

  "You drink a lot of your own blood?" Eli wondered.

  "Like anyone, I cut myself from time to time, and the injured digit finds its way to my mouth. We don't all heal as quickly as you do, Eli. Sarah?"

  His blood sat at the back of her throat, dark and sharp. Sarah exhaled through her mouth, trying to push the flavor away, and finally swallowed repeatedly, rapidly, but the bitterness lingered. Through a face distorted with distaste, she rasped, "I hope that did something, because...bligh!" Her tongue protruded, still trying to rid itself of the lingering sharpness, and Janx got up, rueful, to find and offer her wine. Sarah drained a glass gratefully, coughed again, and lifted the cup for more. After the second, the worst of it had faded, but she took a third cup and drank it before standing to begin her lessons again.

  The dancing got easier, after that. Less to do with Janx's blood, she mumbled into his shoulder much later, than the three cups and more of wine. But the ease of finding her feet lasted: the next day, even with a bad head, she showed more grace and skill on the ballroom floor, and in another week she was no longer certain of embarrassing herself. Janx took full credit, though Sarah showed no evidence of increased poise anywhere but the dance floor. Less of it, in fact: weariness dogged her as the summer nights grew longer, and she blamed those longer nights spent tangled with both men for her indolence.

  "Indolence," Eli said with admiration. "Your vocabulary has improved, Miss Hopkins."

  She curtsied. "Thanks to you and Lord Janx, Master Daisani."

  Eli shook his head, unexpectedly serious, and caught her fingers with his own. "The opportunity is thanks to us, perhaps, but you've embraced it. One cannot tutor an unwilling pupil, not to any meaningful degree. You've done yourself proud, Sarah. I should think you're ready for anything."

  "It's easy to believe that when I'm here with you. Harder, when I think of facing the rest of your world. Of the courts and society, I mean. The other part..." She fell silent a moment, tracing a pattern on Eliseo's hand. "I won't ever be part of that, will I? Not really. Alban told me about your laws. You should be exiles already, you and Janx. Just for telling me you exist."

  Eli echoed something Janx had once said: "Laws are for the law-abiding. It's easier, I think, for some of the other races. The gargoyles and djinn still live in tribes, and the selkie who are left survive in pods. But there are very few vampires to begin with, and dragons have always been solitary creatures. Exile means less to us, perhaps. And besides, who will tell?"

  "Alban might."

  "No." Eli spoke with such certainty that Sarah peered at him. He shrugged. "We've spent a little time together these past few months, he and I and Janx. He's young, hardly more than a hundred years old, and he has an interest in the world beyond the Old Races. Otherwise he and his mate would still be hidden in the mountains with the rest of their kind. So he may not approve, but he won't tell tales. The cost is too high."

  "Would he be exiled too?"

  "Not that." Eli's gaze slid off hers, and a chill took Sarah's breath.

  "Me. I would...I didn't think to ask what happened to Pandora, did I?"

  "Suffice it to say she did not live to a ripe and happy old age," Eli murmured. "The Old Races take their secrets seriously, and count human lives as little cost to the keeping of those secrets."

  Sarah closed her mouth on the next question: and you? She knew the answer already, had known it for weeks, ever since Janx and Eli had made it clear they would stop at nothing should she ever come to harm. She had no need and more particularly, no desire, to hear the sentiment explained in plain language. Fear might lie down that path, and it was a price she was unwilling to pay. "Will they not hunt for me?" she asked in time. "If I live at your side for decades, even centuries, the rest will know I've been told. Would they not act?"

 

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