Page 79 of We Were Eternal Once

“I am sure that⁠—”

“You are sure of nothing, because you have seen nothing. You are sheltered, Melinoë. For someone so old, you don’t understand anything. You only know what you’ve read in a book, and you wear that haughty smile as if you are superior for having lived long. You are not, you know nothing. You don’t know what it is to watch your maker dragged into a square, to hide in an attic and watch through the windows, fighting the call of sleep as the sun crests and burns him to ashes. You don’t know what it is to fall asleep, unsure if you will wake or not, and then flee your home and hope they’ve no knowledge of you.” She blinks rapidly though no tears come.

“And you assume they were hunters?”

“I know they were hunters.”

“You cannot⁠—”

“Stop!” she yells, her frantic steps narrowing the distance between us. She reaches out as if to touch me, then thinks better of it. “I tell you this not to save you, because I don’t care what happens to you. You are so ignorant, it’s pitiful. You think you’re too good for the rest of us, and it sets you eternally apart. Rather than understand this is a flaw of you, you take it to be a flaw in us. I tell you this because that huntress knows what you are, and she is biding her time to learn if there are others. My maker thought the hunter was interested in becoming a vampyr, but he was studying us. He was learning our weaknesses, trying to understand if there were more in the village. They don’t kill us right away, they know that will make the rest scatter. The more time you spend with her, the more likely you’ll let it slip that we exist. And then she’ll come for us, and I don’t think I will be lucky a second time.”

“She does not know what I am.”

“Are you so sure? How do you explain your red eyes, Melinoë? Some of us are lucky to have eyes that could reasonably be human.” She waves at her yellow eyes. “But you? You are a target to a trained hunter. She knows exactly what you are, even if she does not let on. She’s gained your trust so she can catch you off guard. I hope she kills you in your sleep and leaves the rest of us be.”

“You’ve no proof,” I growl. She has the good sense to take a step back, though she does not break eye contact with me.

“The hunter that killed my maker wore a sliver of wood from a hawthorn around his neck. That is their symbol. It is the tree that makes the stake that can kill us.” She watches my face as she says this, nodding knowingly when I don’t answer.

“A necklace is your proof?”

“Surely you’ve noticed she’s different. In eighteen hundred years, you’ve never created another. Have you a history of befriending humans? I’d think it below you. You were drawn to this human for a reason.”

“The same can be said for all of us. Why else would we be created?” I ask.

“My husband owned the largest printing press in Venice. I was a lady of the court with access to riches and information. Eloise was a pretty face that would worship the ground her narcissistic maker walked on. Tomasz and Margarethe were dying, and their maker close enough to his humanity to want to save them amongst the ruins of wars and destruction. Yusuf was the brightest mind in the Ottoman. We all have something that drew our makers to us, something more than a pretty face or quick wit. We had something to offer. I know you cannot understand this, as I am unsure what your maker saw in you.”

I was a temple mouse, an orphan serving a god I don’t recall. Or goddess?

You must see something in me to keep me all these years. As we fracture and fall apart, I wonder what that is. I, who cannot stay in one place too long. I, who longed for the company of other vampires, just to hate them. I, who nearly died and took you with me.

I, eternally unworthy, eternally hoping to be in your good graces once more.

It was not like that with Zora. She was a friend, we were equals. There was no reverence, no bartering.

But she is not talking of Zora. I do not think of turning Zora because she has something to offer me, or because she plays into my ego. I think of turning Zora so she might be free, and I might have a friend at last—one that will not die in several short years.

That is not self-serving, that is a gift I would give to her.

“Kill her. Stop playing with your food. Throw her in the Seine and watch her die if you haven’t the stomach. Or, better yet, lock her underground. There is a series of tunnels that are not well-traveled. She will die of starvation soon enough. You can wash your hands of her then. But do something, or we will, because we cannot suffer a hunter to live.”

Caterina turns her back on me, her chin high, as she disappears into the night.

Realization

Zora waits by the arcade, her satchel pressed to her side. I study her for as long as I dare, until I’m sure she can feel my gaze upon her. I wait for any tell, any sign that she is what Caterina says she is. I don’t know what I expect—for her to slay one of the other vampyrs right here in the street?

I’ve walked with her for months, and I was none the wiser.

Caterina could be lying. I do not know what to expect from her. Of all the members of Le Sang Bleu, she is the quietest. She speaks the least. I don’t even know if the story of her maker destroyed by a hunter was true, because I know so little about her.

Zora leans against the wall of the stone arcade, her gaze sweeping the crowd that moves by. She studies them, her intense gaze raking over one form before moving on to the next.

Is she looking for more of my kind? Or is she looking for her next mark to steal from?

This is ridiculous. I’ve allowed Caterina to influence me against my only friend. She’s been watching me, she knows that I have no other I speak to. She likely hasn’t seen you. I wonder if she thinks you are real or a figment of my imagination?

I should dismiss her words. I should give Zora the benefit of the doubt. She’s taught me how to steal. We’ve laughed together. We’ve shared intimate moments—not intimate as you and I have, but moments of closeness I’ve not had before.