Arc 2: In Memoriam (Part 3)

My rooms aren’t very complicated. There’s a receiving room of sorts, furnished with plush seating, a small coffee table, and a television screen mounted on the wall. To the right is a bedroom with a balcony, which in turn leads to an ensuite bathroom and a dressing room that has yet to be converted to a walk-in closet. To the left is a door leading to a small but well-ventilated room that would serve as my study. I’ll need to arrange for a desk and bookshelves later. And a computer.

I’m more or less dry, Canus having used sorcery to clean me when we first came inside, but I’ve trodden barefoot through half the house, and I’m clad in a ratty white vest and a stiff pair of sleeping boxers. As such, very desperately needing a proper bath, I head directly for the bathroom and the antique bathtub within.

The soap and shampoo aren’t made from my preferred recipe. In fact, I don’t think my preferred recipe will be discovered by Scintilla for another three years at least, which is a shame. I make do, however, luxuriating in warmth and cleanliness that I haven’t enjoyed in what feels like months.

I dwell on my earlier interactions with Scintilla and Canus, wondering if I’ve made the correct decision not to tell either of them anything. With Canus, the secrecy brings with it a sense of guilt. Scintilla will want to rebel within the next decade, and he’ll be in grave danger because of it. With Scintilla, however, the secrecy brings with it a far less rational sense of wrongness. I’ve gotten used to being able to confide in her, and it feels strange to have Scintilla within reach but not within my confidence.

She seems so young right now. The following decades will change her far more than it did Canus, who some part of me feels is still stuck two or three centuries ago. There’s a desire within me to befriend Scinty again, to do better than before, to somehow be good enough that she won’t betray me this time.

It’s probably not an extremely healthy line of thought, but it’s much easier to obsess over what might have gone wrong between Scintilla and me last time than it is to remember all too clearly what definitely did go wrong between Canus and me last time.

Only when a distant grandfather clock chimes midnight do I get out of my bath and start dressing myself. I dig through the antique wardrobe for a pair of dark jeans and a nice blouse as I let my waist-length hair air dry.

There’s a vanity in the dressing room as well, which I know is stocked with a modest selection of makeup, but I don’t bother. For one, I don’t remember the current makeup trends, and I don’t want to look too strange if Canus is going to take Scintilla and I out for hunting. For another, my thirst is too bothersome for me to delay a hunt.

I step into a pair of oxfords before I walk across the hall to knock on Scintilla’s door. She answers in an instant, giving me a look of quiet appraisal before smiling shyly at me. She’s wearing one of her dresses, more modest tonight than the styles she’ll come to prefer in the upcoming decades. She towers over me a bit, her heeled sandals being far taller than the modest heels on my oxfords.

She slouches slightly to compensate. ‘Favilla, right?’

How does she know my name already? Did she eavesdrop? I smile in return, but it feels strained. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘You look nice.’

I look down at my plainer outfit, pretending to feel insecure about my clothes, though I know that the clubs Canus prefers tend to be discreet enough that my business casual outfit will spark no more controversy than Scintilla’s fitted dress.

When I meet her gaze again, her smile has become rigid. ‘Hunting… is easier when I look the part.’

I swallow. I feel bad now, for thinking badly of her. I’d forgotten that she only ever began to dress so gaudily because it gave her more options for sustenance.

‘What do you mean?’

She nibbles on her lower lip, suddenly embarrassed. ‘Our Sire will explain later,’ she says instead of answering. ‘Come on. The master suite is this way.’

Walking through these halls, arm in arm with Scintilla, is an exercise in melancholy. Every press of my shoes into the carpeted halls feels like it’s been wrapped in cotton and dipped in syrup, like I’m in a dream.

‘You don’t talk much, do you?’ Scintilla asks eventually. Her words are brash, but her tone is friendly, teasing.

I can only remember how she betrayed me, how she fought me even as she apologised for her betrayal, how pale her fangs were when she opened her mouth to tear out my throat. I wonder if I’ll ever find out why she did it. Why she will do it. Do I dare become her friend again? Will it hurt more to shut her out? Or will it hurt more to let her in again, knowing that she’ll only turn on me in the end?

‘Sorry. I suppose I’m just nervous.’

‘Hunting is difficult,’ she says with all the sagacity of a week-old vampire, ‘but it gets easier with time.’

‘Hrmm.’

‘You’ll get the hang of everything soon, I’m sure. You’re already better at it than I am, if you haven’t tried to follow the smell of human.’

I wince. I should probably pretend to act a bit more like a newborn if my behaviour is already strange enough that Scintilla noticed.

‘You won’t have to worry,’ she reassures, mistaking my reaction for concern. ‘All the thralls—all the humans—will be staying in their rooms tonight. You won’t be able to get to them before we stop you.’

‘I didn’t really notice,’ I say. ‘I was too overwhelmed by it all.’

Scintilla tightens her hold on my arm in commiseration. ‘I didn’t feel that way until after I stopped feeling so thirsty. It must be your own human scent helping you. I wish our Sire remembered to do the same for me.’

‘As great the privilege of being the eldest might be, so too must there be sacrifices,’ Canus says from around the corner.

Both Scintilla and I freeze.

‘Sire!’ Scintilla exclaims. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean—’

‘Peace. I meant no rebuke. I didn’t heed my father’s advice regarding the needs of newborn vampires, and you were the one to suffer for it. You have my regrets.’

I don’t know if I’m feeling annoyed or fond in response. Canus’s apologies have always been so circuitous, so insincere. Suddenly, I’m unsure now if he really doesn’t mean it, or if that’s just how he talks.

Canus is wearing navy trousers and a button-up shirt in a blue-grey. He examines both Scintilla and I with assessing eyes. It’s nothing I haven’t endured before, but I feel prickly tonight, anxious that he might discover something amiss in his examination.

‘You’ll both want coats next time,’ he eventually says. He turns and strolls towards the front door, adding, ‘It’s a good temperature for us, but the humans will find it odd that you’re not cold.’

A sleek car awaits on the driveway, key in the ignition but otherwise unoccupied. Scintilla enters the back, gesturing for me to join her as Canus settles in the driver’s seat. I almost ask why there isn’t a driver, but I remember in time that I’m not supposed to know anything yet about what servants are under Canus’s employ. He probably just didn’t want me trying to take a bite out of his chauffeur.

The night is lovely, dark and hazy with the incessant drizzle that has been plaguing the night of my rebirth this time around. The streets of this city take better to rain than it does to any other weather. Dry, this entire place feels grimy, like the infinite cesspool that so many accuses it of being. In rain, however, everything calms. However thin the drizzle, however busy the streets, the moment the overcast sky begins to unleash its burdens, all the bustle of the city seems to just fade away.