Page 70 of Flames and Blood

“You talked more when I was chained to a floor.”

“You asked better questions when you were chained to a floor.”

“Fine.” She turns in the seat to look at me properly. “Then I’ll ask one now. You’re a vampire, right? I mean, it’s pretty obvious, but I thought I should get it from you.”

“Yes.”

“How were you made?”

“Made?”

“Created. Whatever the word is for becoming a vampire. You weren’t born like this.”

“No.” I watch the road.

“Is it a rude question?” She tilts her head. “I don’t know much about your customs. But I’m curious. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“I’ll tell you.” I keep my eyes on the road, but my thoughts are somewhere else. “It was back in the mid-1960s. I was thirty-five. A vampire wanted a man who could move through a city without being noticed and who already knew how to find things and people. He found me first, drained me in an alley behind a warehouse, and gave me enough of his own blood back to make me what I am. Then he told me what I was for.”

“That’s it? That’s the whole story?”

“That’s the whole story. It’s not romantic. Nobody sat me down and asked if I wanted this. I was a good tool, and he needed one.”

“Are you still his?”

“He’s dead. Has been for forty years. I work for whoever I choose now. The vampires’ Nocturne Court, and others with special requirements, because the alternative is not working for anyone, and a man who doesn’t work for anyone gets noticed eventually.” I glance at her.

“So you just work for them? You don’t have a…family seat, or something?”

“I’m a Turned.” I shrug. “Not born, not ancient, not one of the old bloodlines that get invited to the good tables. I’m a few decades old, which is nothing to the ones who’ve been walking around since before your grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother hatched.”

“That’s oddly specific.”

“I’ve met a few of the ancients. They like reminding you how unworthy you are.”

“Huh.” She looks at me for a while, working something out behind her eyes. “You say all of that like it doesn’t matter.”

“It’s just a fact. I didn’t choose the century I was born in either.”

“Okay,” she says, and doesn’t push further.

“Your turn,” I say. “Tell me something. Not about what they did to you back there. Something else.”

She’s quiet long enough that I think she’ll refuse it.

“I’m the Heir of the Aldrake,” she says. “Of the Eyrie Seat. Which sounds like a title out of a bad story and is actually mostly paperwork and a lot of standing very still while old men decide things for you.”

“What does an heir do?”

“Learn the clan’s holdings. Learn the treaties, the borders, who owes who a favor going back three generations. Fly the boundary lines so the neighboring clans see you doing it and know somebody’s watching. Sit at councils I wasn’t allowed to speak at until I was past thirty, listening to men argue about land rights.” She shrugs, and the shirt slips off one shoulder, and she pulls it back up without noticing she’s done it. “My grandmother ran the seat before my mother. She used to say the crown weighs more than the woman wearing it thinks it does, and less than the woman inheriting it fears. I didn’t understand that until I’d tried wearing it.”

“Did you like it? Before.”

“I don’t know yet. I liked flying the lines. I liked my grandmother. I did not like the councils, or the paperwork, or being told my whole life was owed to people I’d never met.” She looks at me sideways. “What did you like? Before you were what you are now.”

I have to think about that. I’d forgotten how long ago it was.

“I liked being underestimated,” I say. “I was good at looking like nothing. Doors opened because nobody thought to check who was walking through them. I still like that part. It’s the one thing that survived the alley.”