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“Only mine.”

Elias nodded. The tension in his shoulders finally released.

He had me stand.

My feet reached the floor. I intended to take one step and cross half the room. Stellan caught me around the waist before I struck the wardrobe.

“Shit.”

“Shorter movements,” Elias said. “Your strength arrived before your judgement.”

“That feels personal.”

“It is medical.”

I tried again. One step. Stop. Another. My body wanted to race ahead of every decision, but it listened when I made the movement smaller.

By the time I reached the window, dawn had thinned the darkness outside. I touched the edge of the curtain. Even the light leaking around it made my skin tighten.

I left the curtain closed.

The day still belonged to the world. I would learn how much of it could belong to me without ignoring what the change cost.

Stellan came up behind me. His arms circled my waist, and his mouth touched the healed mark at my throat.

I rested back against him.

For the first time since I entered Harrowmere, my body held only one life.

Mine.

The first week refused to become graceful.

I woke hungry enough to snap the stem from a second glass. I moved too quickly on the stairs and took a chunk out of the banister with my shoulder. My new teeth appeared whenever blood was near, whenever I kissed Stellan too deeply and once when Mara startled me outside the blood cellar.

She looked at my mouth. “Better.”

I decided not to ask what standard she was using.

On the second evening, Elias made me stand in a stripe of indirect daylight near the covered walk. My skin prickled, reddened and healed as soon as I stepped back. Direct sun caught two fingers when I misjudged the curtain the next morning. The burn was small, vicious and entirely convincing.

I rearranged my work hours again.

On the fourth night, I discovered that vampire strength improved several parts of sex and was extremely unkind to old bed frames. Stellan paid the carpenter without apology. I worked from my flat the following evening and took a call while he replaced the blackout lining the landlord had installed badly.

The life I kept didn’t fit around the change perfectly. I altered it until it fit better.

My first visit to the Night Hall lasted twelve minutes. Every conversation faltered when I entered. A few vampires tensed as if they expected the Crown to speak from a stronger body.

“Evening,” I said.

The word moved through the room and compelled nobody.

Someone answered. Another conversation resumed. Mara handed me a glass of blood, and the court returned to its night.

By the seventh evening, I could cross our rooms without damaging the furniture, separate one voice from fifty and drink without staring at every exposed wrist. I still misjudged doors when I was distracted. Hunger still arrived faster than I expected.

I was learning, not finished.