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“You do not have to eat it.”

I don’t know what I’d been expecting, maybe a snarl or a lecture or a cold hand on the back of my neck, or a very polite threat delivered in that ocean voice in front of a window.

I hadn’t been ready for bread.

For about four seconds, we stood on opposite sides of Room 214, two grown men, one of whom was supposed to be a monster, looking at a paper bag.

“Okay,” I said. My voice cracked in the middle. “Okay. No. We’re not doing this. I know what you are.”

Maksim didn’t move. He didn’t blink. Not a muscle in that smooth pale face changed, but something in the room changed, like the second before a pressure drop.

“What am I?” he said, very quietly.

“You’re a vampire.”

I said it, and it sat in the room between us like a dead cat. I couldn’t tell you what I’d expected, maybe laughter or denial or a concerned face, and I would have taken any of those.

“Yes,” said Maksim.

I opened my mouth.

I shut it.

“What?”

“I am a vampire. Yes.” He said it the way you’d say I am a dentist. “I have been one for a long time. You are correct.”

“You— just like that?”

“I do not see the use of lying to you.”

I sat down. It wasn’t a decision; my legs just stopped. I was on the edge of the bed with my elbows on my knees and the coffee cup in both hands, and I said, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’m processing.”

“That is reasonable.”

“I saw you bite somebody.”

“Yes.”

“You bit a woman in an alley.”

“I did.”

“Did you kill her?”

His eyes, gray and flat, went very slightly darker. “No,” he said. “I would never. Her name is Tamsin, and she is a friend, and she is fine. She was drinking wine and complaining about her feet while I looked for my car keys. She will have a headache tomorrow, and I have already sent flowers.”

“You sent flowers? “

“It is customary.”

I put my face in my hands. “I’m going to throw up.”

“Please do it in the bathroom.”