Page 98 of Flames and Blood

“Whose?”

Nobody in that hall has an answer.

“We… We thought it was yours.” Kalli’s mother is the only one to speak now.

I watch it all, and it takes me less than a minute to figure it out. Somebody put a body on the north face made to look like Kalli. That person stood among this group, watched them deal with the fall and the recovery, and then stood at her graveside, without saying a word.

This wasn’t some rash act of anger. This took planning. It took resources. And it took more than one pair of hands.

Whoever it was is standing in this building. Probably in this hall. Probably close enough to touch her.

Something tightens in my gut. Without thinking, I take a step closer.

Her mother is the one who ends it. She says a few words and the hall empties out into the passages, and it takes a while, and Kalli doesn’t move through any of it.

Then her mother comes to me.

She stops in front of me and looks up, and she looks at me properly, which is more than anyone else in this mountain has managed.

“Who are you?”

“They call me Crowe.”

“Crowe,” she repeats. “Vampire.” She’s already reached this conclusion. She’s not asking me.

“Yes,” I tell her anyway.

“You brought my daughter safely through country where a single hour of daylight would have finished you.” She says it clearly, and loudly enough for the twenty people still in the hall to hear every word.

“He did more than that, Mother,” Kalli says. “He was the one who got me out of there. There is a story to it that you might not believe.”

“Indeed.” She’s still looking at me. “My house owes you a debt that it will pay. You will name a figure. If you name it low, I will double it. I don’t want it said that the Aldrake paid under price for a daughter.”

“I’ll think about it,” I say.

“Do. There’s no hurry. You’ll be a guest here as long as it takes.” She turns her head. “Hesper. He’ll want a room with no window in it, and he’ll want feeding, and what he takes is blood. Give him a beast and don’t stand about while he uses it.”

“Aldrake.”

Every word of it is gracious, and every word of it is correct. It’s also the sort of thing you’d say about a horse that’s just come in from a long day of labor.

Across the hall, Kalli is standing with two of the council, and she has heard all of it.

She looks at me. It’s a short look. There’s a lot in it, but I turn away before either of us can make more of it.

Hesper takes me down.

The room is four levels under the hall with no window in it, as specified, which is what I’d have asked for. A bed, a chair, a jug, a lamp burning in a stone niche.

“They’ll assign you a beast,” she says at the door. “A goat, or a hill sheep. Bled into a jug. I trust that will suffice.”

“That’s fine.”

“There’s a bar on the inside of that door, and there’s a bar on the outside as well.” She looks at me while she says it. “The inside one is for you. We never use the outside ones anymore.”

“Also fine.”

“You’d be surprised how many of them are out there arguing about using that outside bar right now.”