Page 111 of Never Invite a Vampire to Dinner

My eyes sting, and he tightens his hands around mine.

“I would rather have sixty honest years with you than six hundred you gave me because you knew I wanted them.”

For several seconds I can’t think past the fact that he has apparently considered six hundred years with me and still thinks I’m the dangerous person in this relationship.

“I’m not deciding anything today,” I say.

“No.”

“I mean it. I’m not deciding about three hundred years on the twenty-second of December in a room with a fire in it because I’m thirty-two and in love.”

“Good,” says Victoria.

I look over at her. She’s picked up her bag and risen to her feet.

“That is the first entirely sensible thing anybody has said in this house today.”

Julian gives her an offended look. “I’ve said several sensible things.”

“No, Julian. You’ve said several careful things. You confuse them.”

He doesn’t say anything as she puts on her gloves. We accompany her to the door, and in the hall where the coats are, Victoria stops and looks at me.

“He was worse company in 1830,” she says. “I want you to know that I have noticed, and that I have not enjoyed noticing it, and that I would like it to continue.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“It’s the only kind I do.”

Then she looks at Julian.

“I meant what I said. If you leave, leave because you have decided to leave. Not because you have mistaken an old reflex for wisdom.”

Julian inclines his head.

Victoria goes out to a car with its wheels dead straight and drives down the hill. The house is very quiet after that. I stand in the hall for a while, looking at the hooks by the door. One of them has my work coat on it. Another has Julian’s. There are four more, empty, and I wonder for the first time whether they have always been there.

When I go back into the library, Julian has returned to the window, with his hands behind his back, in front of black glass that holds his reflection and mine coming up behind him.

“I’m still angry with you.”

“I know.”

“Not about the blood. I understand about the blood. I don’t like that you didn’t tell me, but I understand why.” I stop beside him. “I’m angry about the ninth of November. You stood in a kitchen for two hours.”

“I did.”

“On your own.”

“Yes.”

“You have got to stop doing that.”

“I am aware of the size of the project,” he says, but his voice isn’t steady, and I take his hand.

We stand there and look at the water. The harbor lights move below us, little yellow pieces scattered along the shore, and somewhere down there Theo is probably pouring beer and Mabel is correcting somebody and Harriet is telling a person who did not ask about her hip. My life is happening. Julian’s life is happening. Neither of us is dead.

“There’s no hurry,” I say eventually. “That’s the actual thing, isn’t it? That’s what Victoria gave us. Not forever. Just—not sixty. Not a number you’ve already been quietly counting down.”