Evening at Dark Heart: soft and slow, blue dusk rising out of the parkland little by little, drawing color out of the world. The long avenue of copper beeches that gave the house its name turning from deepest purple to black; over the ornamental lake a faint haze of mist, drifting on the slow night breeze.

Greta Helsing had been down at Dark Heart for a week now, and had spent every evening sitting on the parterre with a drink, watching the slow changing twilight, enchanted by it every single time. Nightfall in London just happened: here it was a process, a kind of tide one could observe going out, and the old parklands were at their most beautiful in the blue deepening dusk.

It was late spring, and still chilly enough once night had properly fallen to send her inside, shivering, to warmth and light and the welcoming scent of a cheerful applewood fire. Sir Francis Varney, draped in a chair by the hearth with a couple of hairmonsters at his feet, looked up and smiled. �Still satisfactory?� he asked.

�Deeply,� said Greta, and set down her empty sherry glass. Stacks of veterinary textbooks everywhere indicated that Varney�s unofficial ward, the young vampire Emily, was studying hard for her latest exams; Greta carefully moved several out of the way to sit on the arm of his chair. �I could watch that every night for a year and not get bored. It�s so � peaceful.�

�There are certain advantages to having a country house,� said Varney. �One cannot order takeout at all hours of the night, nor nip round the corner shop for a packet of fags, but there are nevertheless certain advantages.� He curled an arm around her waist. �You�re not missing the city too much?�

�The only thing I miss is the clinic,� Greta said. �And that is in good hands while I�m down here. I keep meaning to do something about my flat in Crouch End and I keep not getting around to it.�

�Such as moving out,� said Varney. �I can�t think why you lived there to begin with; it�s a wretched place and a long way from your work.�

�Money,� Greta said, wry. �Up until recently I didn�t have any of it, and trying to find a flat anywhere near Harley Street is a thing that normal people cannot actually do � but I�m staying with Ruthven and Grisaille so much of the time now that keeping the Crouch End place is getting a little ridiculous.�

�You know you have access to all the money you want, darling,� said Varney, giving her a little squeeze. �Along with a somewhat absurd but genuine title that you are entirely allowed to use.�

�I�d have to have the brass plate redone,� she said. �Greta Helsing, MD, FRCP, Lady Varney. The idiom�s just wrong.�

�I don�t know, I think it has a ring to it,� said Varney, and leaned up to draw her into a kiss. This was sufficiently distracting that Greta didn�t notice Emily come through from the library with yet another stack of books until she shrieked and dropped them on the floor.

Greta startled, turning to see Emily staring at the French doors onto the terrace with wide horrified eyes. �What the fuck is that?� the girl demanded.

�Good God,� Varney said, following her gaze, and Greta had to admit she might have lost her grip on the books as well. Standing on the other side of the glass was the figure of a woman, skeletally � almost ghoulishly � thin and pale, long hair in green-gold braids hanging over her shoulders, her eyes nothing more than two cold points of greenish light in hollow dark pits. She held in her arms the limp figure of something bundled up in blankets, the size of a child.

�What is it?� Emily demanded, still frozen in place, and that was enough to get Greta moving; she stepped over the fallen books and went to unlock the doors and let the barrow-wight inside.

�Thank you,� said the wight, in a voice like cold stone echoes in the dark. This close, the chill she was giving off was enough to make Greta shiver despite the warmth of the room. �I�m so sorry to barge in like this, but I didn�t know where else to go.�

�What�s � what happened?� said Greta, and the wight pulled aside a fold of cloth to show her what it was she was carrying. Varney was beside them now, and both he and Greta sucked in their breath at the sight.

A child. A young child, no more than ten or eleven. Asleep, or unconscious.

And very definitely a vampire.

�You know, I cannot get over the names here,� said Grisaille, looking over his shoulder at the village sign they�d just passed. �Someone literally named this place �Nether Wallop� and nobody thought that was weird?�

Edmund Ruthven changed down for Nether Wallop�s 30-limit zone, his Aston Martin�s engine protesting. �See also Middle Wallop and Over Wallop,� he said. �English villages tend to lack imagination in nomenclature. There�s any number of Something Magnas and Something Parvas right next to each other, not to mention Something Minster or Something Abbas if it�s got the right sort of church in it. I will admit �Wallop� leaves much to be desired.�

�Wild,� said Grisaille, leaning back in the seat. �So just to make sure I know what to expect: what are you actually planning to do when we get there?�

�I wish I knew,� said Ruthven, wry. �Other than try to help the kid get over the shock as much as possible. It�s never fun but I can barely imagine how traumatic being turned like that must have been. Did you have � help, after it, or did you have to bear it alone?�

�I had help, for a certain value of help,� Grisaille said, seesawing a hand in the air. �The vampire who turned me didn�t dine and dash, as it were: he wasn�t what you might call the sensitive nurturing type, but he did stick around to tell me what I was and taught me basic hunting technique. I think he�d intended to have me as a companion, but we didn�t exactly mesh, if you know what I mean.�

�Mm,� said Ruthven. �That�s not great, but at least you had some support after the fact.� He let the car speed up again as they regained the open road. Grisaille glanced over at him.

�You never told me your origin story,� he said. �Was it dramatic and terrible?�

�Not exactly,� said Ruthven. �Unpleasant and lengthy is more accurate. I had the long-form version; it took the thing that turned me about a month from its initial visit to finish the job, after which it split the scene and left me as a brand-new vampire with no useful self-protective instincts, guidance, or mentorship, in the wilds of bloody Perthshire. I didn�t do very well.�

He tried not to think about it too often, those early terrible days; first the drowning, terrible, feverish dreams as he grew weaker and weaker and the nightly visits of the thing with the red eyes drained more and more life from his wasted veins, and then the hole of black madness that had followed his death and his subsequent awakening.

�I escaped to the Continent,� he continued, �and found some � friends is the wrong word, associates, and eventually learned how to be a person again, but it was a long damn process.�

�I�m sorry,� said Grisaille, with unaccustomed simplicity. Ruthven glanced over, gave him a wry smile.

�It�s all right. Was a long time ago, end of the fifteen-nineties. But you see why I have rather a strong reaction to people going around turning innocent victims without consent.�

�So does Varney,� Grisaille said. �I gather he goes all murderous about it.�

�He does.� Ruthven sighed. �I don�t actually know his story, come to think of it; the version in that penny-dreadful is both incoherent and inconsistent, but either way it�s probably safe to say he didn�t have a choice in the matter any more than I did.�

�Did you ever meet anyone who did?� Grisaille asked. �Someone who asked for it?�

�Oh, yes. Infrequently, but yes. And before you ask, yes, I have turned a couple of people in my existence, reluctantly, and I still don�t like thinking about it. One of them begged me for months and months and the other was going to die right there unless I did something.� He tried very hard, and mostly successfully, not to remember the circumstances surrounding the latter; it had been at the height of the AIDS epidemic.

�Three,� said Grisaille after a moment. �Two I regret, one I don�t.�

Ruthven looked over again. �You don�t have to tell me about it.�

�I know,� said Grisaille, and gave him half a smile. �Maybe someday I will. What�s � actually going to happen to this kid?�

�Physically or in general?� Ruthven said, speeding up to pass a caravan, grateful for the change of subject. �The effects of the transition will settle down, she�ll feel better, start to get used to the changes and her new abilities and disabilities. Mentally, God knows. But she needs a home, someone who can take care of her and who is entirely aware of what she is and what that means, who can give her the support she needs.�

�Which is probably not Greta and Varney,� Grisaille said.

�Unlikely. Varney�s not what I�d consider good with children and Greta works all the time. And it�s not us, either, although I�m certainly willing to take her on a temporary basis if you�re all right with that. She needs somewhere that�s stable and permanent.�

�How many stable vampire households do you think there are in England?� Grisaille said, bone-dry. �We�re not exactly thick on the ground.�

�I�� Ruthven began, and then shut up, looking thoughtful. His pupils expanded and contracted once, a single wave.

�You what?� Grisaille asked.

�Shh, I�m thinking.� He tapped his fingers on the Aston Martin�s wheel. �It�s a very long shot, but � I spoke with the Voivode a couple of weeks ago, remember? On the phone?�

�About that rogue vamp St. Germain caught in Paris coming off the Eurostar,� Grisaille said. �Right? He wanted you to keep an eye out for any other possible UK troublemakers headed to the Continent.�

�He monitors that sort of thing, extremely remotely but he does pay attention,� said Ruthven. �It�s been a while since I had a conversation with him � not since the last time I caught anybody with sharp teeth doing naughty things � but he sounded a bit different than usual. More interested in people rather than miscreants. Asked after the house, if all the repairs and renovations after the fire were satisfactory, that sort of thing. It wasn�t really the kind of conversation I�d expect from him, to be honest; I�m not the level of important he�d usually bother with � but the thought occurs that he might possibly take an interest in the case, or know someone who could take her.�

�Oho.� Grisaille laced his fingers behind his head, leaning back in the seat. �Count Dracula, Outreach Coordinator of the Undead? Catchy!�

�Sometimes I wonder why the hell I didn�t leave you in Paris,� said Ruthven sourly. Grisaille beamed at him.

�Because of my intense aesthetic value, ducks,� he said, and Ruthven tried quite hard, and failed, not to smile.

Sir Francis Varney could see quite well in the dark.

He could also, like Ruthven, turn into a bat, although it was a slightly more difficult experience and he rarely had to resort to it; he could not make himself into mist, but on the other hand, his thrall was exponentially more powerful than that of his friend. What he very certainly could not do was track scent the way a werewolf could.

What he had picked up the previous night, with the barrow-wight Sigyn by his side, had definitely been a vampire. Had been a vampire who had fed well very recently, and was wearing a distinctive if not sophisticated cologne Varney could almost recognize. Other than that, he had very little to go on, and his ability to follow the scent simply died out after a few miles.

He sat down on a stile between two fields and turned his face up to the moon, which had come out at last, after a slow grey rainy day. As always, the touch of its light soothed him, taking away some of the dull aches in his back and knees from hours trekking through the countryside. It was evident that he was completely insufficient to handle the problem, and he pushed away the mental as usual that appended itself to the thought.

After a moment or two the cool touch of moonlight woke a different thought entirely, and Varney fished out his phone from his coat pocket and had a look through his emails.

Ah. There.

He had sent out a fairly dramatic request the previous night, and now had a response: an old friend of his in Oxford whom he hadn�t spoken to in months.

Grisaille had been around, one way or another, since the late eighteenth century, and had met a great many vampires, some more famous than others. The ones he�d most recently spent a few years with had been trying to be infamous, which hadn�t worked out too terribly well for everyone concerned, but up until now, Lord Ruthven and Sir Francis Varney had been at the top of Grisaille�s list of vampire celebrities.

He hadn�t actually known that Count Dracula was real. Or that he actually dwelled in a castle in Romania that had oubliettes, even if it wasn�t one of the three famous ones associated with the legend. Or that Ruthven occasionally chatted with him on the phone.

Grisaille wasn�t trying to eavesdrop. He just wasn�t trying not to.

They�d driven back to London the previous afternoon, with Lucy tucked into the Aston Martin�s hilarious excuse for a back seat. He was glad to be home, even if staying at Dark Heart had been a little like sleeping in a National Trust property; Varney wasn�t the most scintillating conversationalist at the best of times, and right now he was obsessed with trying to find whoever had done this to the kid. Grisaille didn�t envy him the job of thralling every single car-rental clerk in Salisbury to ask if they�d recently rented a vehicle to someone wearing a ton of cologne. Joanna Winters had returned to Oxford and botany, and now that Lucy was more or less over the physical trauma of the transition, it was clear that Dark Heart wasn�t exactly the best environment for her.

Well, that, and the fact she�d clearly imprinted on Ruthven, or fallen in love with him, or whatever it was that people invariably did when bombarded by the full force of his charisma and his big shiny silver eyes, Grisaille thought. Taking her to London with them had been obvious.

He was stretched out on the drawing-room sofa with his eyes shut, listening. In the kitchen Ruthven was pacing as he talked on the phone.

�� as soon as Varney knows anything about the person responsible, I�ll pass it on,� he was saying. �I realize it�s not exactly helpful to report the crime without any indication of who perpetrated it other than that they wear Acqua di Gio and have the morals of a hagfish. They�d have been best friends with that wretched coven in Paris.� He sighed. �At least she�s doing better. She�s in London with us at the moment.�

He was right, Grisaille thought: whoever had turned Lucy would have fit right in with his former colleagues, one of whom had turned Emily at the age of nineteen. Not smart, ducky, he had told that particular vampire at the time. Not smart at all.

Ruthven was still talking. Not for the first time Grisaille wondered exactly why it was so important to report malfeasance on the part of vampires to Count Dracula, or why Ruthven never referred to him by name. Or how Ruthven knew him in the first place. Or why he was�weird about it, both deferential and stiff at once.

(There were so many things he didn�t know about Ruthven. Sometimes the scope of that extra century�s worth of experience felt overwhelming; sometimes it tickled Grisaille enormously that he was going to get to find out. That � hopefully � he would have time to do so.)

�Who�s he talking to?� said a voice quite close by, and Grisaille realized that either he himself was more distracted than he�d thought, or the kid had apparently mastered the vampiric don�t-notice-me effect absurdly early; he hadn�t sensed her entering the room. He cracked open one eye and observed her.

Ruthven�s gift for shopping for other people was uncanny: he could judge size, style, fit, even color preference at a glance, and selected garments accordingly. Lucy was wearing new jeans and a dark purple sweater, and had actually brushed her hair; the bedraggled-waif quotient had dropped substantially.

�He is deep in conversation with Count Dracula,� said Grisaille, and sat up. �About whoever turned you. I don�t actually know what Dracula intends to do about it, now that he�s been apprised of the situation. Perhaps he has a secret army of vampire goons to send after our mystery man.�

Lucy snickered at vampire goons. �Count Dracula�s actually real. It�s kind of � hard to believe?�

�Oh, I quite agree,� said Grisaille. �Can�t wrap the old bean around the idea myself. But he and Ruthven apparently have a natter every now and then.�

She was watching him. Grisaille noticed that the brown was almost completely gone from her eyes; they were the same bright scarlet as his own. �Is Grisaille your first or last name?� she asked, and he had to blink.

�It�s my only name,� he said. �It�s not the one I was born with, because that one was rubbish, but it�s been my name since I got turned. My nom de vampire. Pretentious as all hell.�

Lucy was still watching him. �Is Ruthven his real name?�

�It is indeed. Edmund St. James Ruthven.� Grisaille widened his eyes slightly and lowered his voice. �Don�t tell anyone, but he�s an earl.�

�Really?�

�Really. He�s got a ruined castle up in Scotland and everything.�

�Are you married to him?�

Grisaille raised an eyebrow. �Do you always ask this many questions? No, as it happens, I�m not.� He thought briefly that the world really had moved on; that query would have been unthinkable for a child even twenty years ago. �And before you add, Do you want to be, I�m going to change the subject.�

�Okay,� she said, reasonably enough. �Tell me more about vampire stuff. Like how to turn into a bat or hypnotize somebody with your eyes.�

Grisaille sighed internally: this was so very much more Ruthven�s area of expertise than his own. Ruthven liked teaching people. �The eye thing�s called thrall,� he said. �I think Ruthven told you a bit about it down at Dark Heart.�

�He said it�s harder to thrall a vampire than a human,� said Lucy. �Could you do it to me?�

Up went the eyebrow again. �Why on earth would you want me to?�

�Because I can�t remember anything about the man at Stonehenge, and if I could, Mr. Varney wouldn�t have to keep doing all that stupid stuff to try to find him.�

�There�s no guarantee you�d be able to recall it even in a state of thrall,� Grisaille said, slightly impressed. �And it could be � traumatic for you.�

�What could be?� said another voice. Grisaille turned to see Ruthven standing in the doorway, still holding his phone.

�The magic eye thrall thing,� said Lucy. �To make me remember stuff.�

�That�s bold,� said a voice from Ruthven�s phone, on speaker: one Grisaille had never heard before, deep and resonant and slightly accented � but only slightly. It wasn�t as beautiful as Varney�s, but he thought he could easily imagine how compelling it could be when it wanted to. �The girl has courage.�

�That she does,� said Ruthven, sounding a little rueful. �I�m not sure it�s a good idea, Lucy. Voivode, I�ve used up quite a lot of your time already��

�Nonsense,� said the voice. �Introduce me.�

Grisaille and Ruthven exchanged equally startled looks. �Um,� said Ruthven. �Lucy Ashton, this is the Voivode Vlad Dracul the Third. Voivode, Lucy Ashton, recently a vampire.�

�Pleased to meet you?� said Lucy, rapidly enough that Grisaille knew it was a trained good-manners response, like please and thank you.

�It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance,� said Dracula. �What a particularly lovely, and familiar, name. And if you are willing to undergo voluntary thrall in hopes of retrieving further information, I believe the experiment is worth the risk.�

�Are you sure?� said Ruthven, sounding unconvinced.

�I am not in the habit of making statements that lack conviction, Lord Ruthven.� Grisaille caught the faint wince. �Furthermore,� Dracula continued, �I should be the one to perform it.�

Grisaille had to admit it was probably not a bad idea to have the vampire with the greatest power and control over their thrall running this little show � but there was the little matter of geographic location in the way. �Um,� he said. �It�s going to take some time for us to get there?�

�Who are you?� said Dracula�s voice.

�Grisaille, your worship, I�m Ruthven�s � partner?�

��Voivode� will do,� said the voice, and now it was faintly warm, tinged with amusement. �And I cannot imagine in this modern age that between you two there is not at least one computer capable of displaying video.�

�You want to thrall Lucy over FaceTime?� said Ruthven, at the same time as Lucy said �Cool!�

Edmund Ruthven looked down at the pale closed face on the pillows and wished, not for the first time, that he had never complained so vociferously about being bored.

Before the whole business with the Gladius Sancti and the rectifier in the tunnels beneath the city, he had been at a loss as to what to do with himself to pass the time. Looking back over the past several years of nearly nonstop peril and general activity, he thought now that the idea of boredom held an undeniable appeal. Things seemed to happen to him (and his friends, to be fair) with regularity.

Mostly what Ruthven had done to amuse himself in the recent past was shopping, or more accurately spending money, of which he had truly disgusting amounts � like many people with a couple of centuries under their belts � and he had always known the underlying pleasure of that was in the simple act of caring for other people: of providing aid. He�d refitted Greta�s clinic after the Gladius Sancti business; he�d paid off people�s debts and financed their start-ups; he�d made large anonymous donations to various causes around the city. Ruthven�s basic philosophy, once he�d taught himself to be a person again, was and always had been if you are in a position to provide aid, and aid is needed, you provide it. Since he was by nature a large and somewhat problematic parasite, albeit a polite one, he tried where he could to do helpful things in the world to balance out the predation.

Right now all he wanted was predation.

Like Varney, he was furiously angry at the vampire who had done this to the child; unlike Dracula, he didn�t think there was any real hope of finding that particular individual. An American who had rented a car. He had no idea how many Americans in rental cars were lurching around the wrong side of the nation�s roadways at any given moment. The vicious desire to find and to end whoever was responsible was just going to� go on and on, with no way to satisfy it.

She doesn�t need that right now, he told himself, acid-sharp. She doesn�t need you seething over impossible revenge fantasies; she needs your help, so bloody well get over it.

He and Grisaille had both felt the sheer power of the Voivode�s thrall even facing away from it; he was more than a little worried about what that much force would have done to a young, traumatized, vulnerable mind. Whether Lucy would wake entirely the same person she�d been before the thrall. What they were going to do about any of this. He wasn�t any good at not knowing what to do. At being powerless, after so long. At not being able to help, to do the thing he was for, the thing he was meant to provide.

He got up, went to the window. Looked out over the river. It was raining: not hard, not the kind of rain that felt actively malicious, but endless drifting veils of grey, like someone crying who had forgotten how to stop. Below, black-beetle taxis and the mismatched domes of umbrellas trundled up and down Victoria Embankment. Ruthven shut his eyes against a vast, terrible wave of grey despair: at the world, at the ordinariness of the world, at its cold and impartial lack of care, at his own inability to change it. At everything. It poured over him with almost physical force: his hands on the windowsill were white with effort, in another minute he was going to splinter the wood�

�Mr. Ruthven?� said a small voice from behind him, and the despair retreated. Didn�t vanish, but retreated: a tide gone out in the blink of an eye. He straightened up, turned to see Lucy lying against the pillows with her hands pressed over her eyes, and drew the curtains to block out the worst of the light.

�I�m here,� he said, coming to sit on the edge of the bed. �How do you feel?�

�My head hurts,� she said, without taking her hands away. �Inside. It feels bruised.�

�I�m not surprised,� said Ruthven gently. �You did some very hard work. I�ll get you something for the headache, but other than that, how are you feeling?�

�Tired,� she told him, and now she did take her hands away to look up at him, and Ruthven was more reassured than he would have liked that her pupils were even. �I didn�t even do anything; why does it feel like I just ran a hundred miles?�

�You did do things,� he said. �Inside your head. It�s still effort and it�s still tiring. No nausea, dizziness, numbness anywhere?�

�No,� she said. �Just my headache. Did � did it work, then? Did I get anything useful?�

�It worked,� said Ruthven. �You got us a description of the man and � importantly � his accent. He wasn�t English; he was American, or doing a really good imitation of one. The Voivode is going to use that to try to find him.� He thought, anyway. He had no idea exactly what Dracula was going to do, and he was not about to ask; asking would, quite obviously, point out that he couldn�t work it out on his own. The thought made his face go very briefly warm. �I�ll get you that aspirin.�

Downstairs he found Grisaille in the kitchen, microwaving blood, and some of his thoughts must have showed on his face because Grisaille took one look at him and came over to wrap Ruthven in a bone-creaking hug. �You look horrendous,� he said. �What�s the matter?�

�Oh, just garden-variety existential despair,� said Ruthven, muffled in his shoulder. �She�s awake, doesn�t seem to demonstrate any symptoms of neurological injury. Also doesn�t remember what she saw and said.�

�You think that�s trauma, or on purpose?� said Grisaille. �That Dracula put a block on it after she gave us the info?�

�I have no idea,� said Ruthven, and he could hear the misery in his own voice. Grisaille held him closer, one hand cupping the back of his neck. He wasn�t used to not knowing things, or to fits of dread regarding the fact that he didn�t know them, and it was remarkably unpleasant.

�What you need,� said Grisaille, �is some nice hot blood with quite a lot of expensive whiskey in it, and I will go fetch our young guest some aspirin.�

�� All right,� said Ruthven, capitulating much too quickly, and as always, being told what to do came as a small but present relief: being someone else�s problem rather than his own.

Waterloo was chaotic, as always; Greta was put in mind of a kicked anthill, swarms of people scurrying in all directions with their luggage in tow. The train had been late out of Salisbury: she�d texted Ruthven, but nonetheless felt uselessly guilty at making him wait for her. He�d sounded a little strange on the phone earlier, and she was not entirely surprised to see that he looked a little strange when she finally met him on the platform: faraway, distracted.

�Are you all right?� she demanded before dropping her suitcase and wrapping him in a tight hug.

He hugged her back, a brief and careful squeeze. She was just about as tall as he was, five foot six and a bit, but she knew perfectly well he could have picked her up with one hand. �I�m fine,� he said, �and we�re in the way. Give me your bags.�

�I�ve only got the one case, I didn�t bring much down to Dark Heart,� she said, but let him claim it anyway. �I�ve started leaving stuff there. Nightgowns and so on.�

�Slippery slope,� said Ruthven, threading his way through the crowd. �Soon you�ll have a whole underwear drawer of your own in Varney�s bureau, and you will have to start using the title after all, as mistress of Dark Heart.�� You�re staying at the house, of course.�

She had been rather dreading the prospect of making her way up to her tiny flat in Crouch End. �Thank you,� she said simply, doing him the courtesy of not arguing. �I�d love to.�

�I want you to look at Lucy, anyway,� said Ruthven. �I�ve made up the green room for you. How go things in Wiltshire?�

Greta had to smile: she�d always loved the green room best, with its magnificent four-poster and malachite-inlaid mantelpiece. �Varney�s busy checking all the car-rental places for Americans who might have passed through recently, which at least gives him something to do. I told him about the thrall business and he was somewhat astonished.�

�So was I,� said Ruthven, rueful. �I seem to be in a constant state of astonishment about this entire wretched situation.� They had made their way out to the taxi rank; he waved a cab over. �I�m not � exactly good at astonishment. At not knowing things.�

�No one is,� said Greta, making a mental note to have a conversation with Grisaille about his boyfriend�s state of mind. �We manage, nevertheless.� She settled into the back of the cab, with Ruthven beside her, and the silence was companionable.

Ruthven went upstairs in a thoughtful frame of mind.

He�d asked Greta to look in on Lucy one more time before bed, and once she�d gone up, he and Grisaille had settled in the drawing-room with after-dinner brandy and talked for a while about things completely unrelated to the current situation, which had helped somewhat. At least they�d managed to get hold of the necessary information and pass it on as required; he no longer felt quite so terribly responsible for things he could absolutely not control. Whatever happened next was up to Dracula, not to him, to decide.

He was not particularly surprised to see light under Lucy�s bedroom door, despite the time of night. He�d put her in the smaller of the three rooms overlooking the Embankment and the most normal and modern in terms of furniture, and wondered now if that had been a good idea: there wasn�t much point in trying to achieve a semblance of normalcy in a world that had � for her � comprehensively moved on.

Ruthven stood there for a moment in the dimness of the hall, and then tapped gently on the door. �Lucy?�

�� Yes?� she said, sounding as if she�d been caught doing something against the rules.

�Is anything the matter?�

�No?�

He pushed the door partway open and saw her sitting up in the bed with a book hastily stuffed under the pillows, and another of those narrow sharp spikes of care ran him through the chest. �� Were you just sitting up reading?�

�No,� she said, lying very badly indeed. �Of course not, I know it�s after lights out.�

�Oh, for heaven�s sake,� said Ruthven, and came over to the bed, pulling the book out from under her pillows. It was the paperback copy of The Hobbit she�d been reading at Dark Heart, now considerably dog-eared. �You can sit up reading in bed till the last trumpet sounds, for all of me, and how many times is it by now that you�ve gone through this particular opus?�

Lucy blinked at him. �You�re not cross with me? But� it�s late? And I stole the book?�

�Borrowed it without asking,� Ruthven corrected, sitting down on the edge of the bed. �I expect Varney�s munificence can run to another copy, and no, my dear, you are now part of a species that is known for staying up all night, although it does make living in the waking world a bit difficult. You can read anything you like � I�ve got tablets you can use to download e-books, if nothing in the drawing-room library appeals.�

�I always got told off for reading under the covers with a torch,� she said, still looking at him as if she wasn�t quite sure he meant it. �Over and over and over. Not just in the home-for-children but in all the foster placements.�

�People who punish children for reading ought to be tied up in knots and roasted,� said Ruthven. �Are there particular books or series of books you liked?�

Lucy blinked at him, and then grinned. �Well, that,� she said, pointing at the book he held. �Tolkien stuff. I couldn�t really understand The Silmarillion but I read The Lord of the Rings and most of that was great. And The Dark Is Rising books. And � stuff with kids who go on adventures that are really hard and grown-up and they do it anyway?�

�Have you encountered Arthur Ransome?� said Ruthven, with a smile whose effect he had completely underestimated: it lit his face, made him look briefly and completely alive. �He wrote some absolutely wonderful stuff about that very subject, young people who sail boats and go on camping-trips to islands and have wars with other kids, all by themselves.�

Lucy was looking somewhat dazed, but blinked herself out of it. �They have wars with other kids?�

�Sort of. They aren�t the sort where anyone gets hurt, but it�s certainly adventurous.�

�I�d like to try that,� she said. �How many books are there?�

�Lots,� said Ruthven. �I think twelve?�

She grinned again, her own face lighting up. �Can I have the first one? I mean may I?�

�You may have the first and second, because I have a feeling you read rather quickly, and it�s nice to have something standing by to move on to, when you finish a book.�

Now her face was positively glowing. �No one understands that! No one got why I wanted that. I could only have one library book at a time, and I wasn�t allowed to check out a new book until I had returned the first one, and sometimes it was days before they let me go back to the library to get another one.�

�Never again,� said Ruthven, �will you be denied all the words you want. I�ll go and fetch the first two for you, and you can stay up as late as you want � but you are also welcome to spend the daylight hours reading, all right?�

Her eyes were shining. �Thank you! Um. I � did kind of want to talk to you about some other stuff, but it�s not that important.�

�I�ll get the books, and then if you�d like, we can talk about whatever�s on your mind,� he said. �Otherwise, it can wait until morning.�

Lucy nodded, and Ruthven got up, setting the battered Hobbit down on the nightstand, and took his leave � both pleased and faintly murderous at the idea of people preventing children from reading, when the whole bloody country kept bemoaning the abysmal state of education.

It took him about fifteen minutes to return, because he was carrying a tray with two books and two small cups on it: warmed blood with cinnamon and nutmeg. This time when he let himself into the room, the look on her face was not one of guilty resentment so much as gladness to see him, and it felt as if the world had been running subtly out of true and had just settled back into its proper track again, frictionless and easy.

He set down the tray and settled again on the side of the bed. �This,� he said, holding out a book, �is Swallows and Amazons, the first of the series, and here�s the next one, Swallowdale. Less good in my opinion, but still absolutely worth reading. And this is blood with some spices in it, in case you�d like some.�

Lucy took the books, turned them over to read the back copy � he�d been right, she read absurdly fast for her age � and then reached out with both hands for the cup. �Yes, please,� she said. �Are you sure it�s all right for me to be up this late?�

�It is consummately all right.� Ruthven cradled his own cup in his hands. �Basically, whatever idiot rules your previous guardians laid down are almost completely moot. Now: did you want to talk about something, or should I push off and let you explore Mr. Ransome�s oeuvre?�

�What�s an urve?� she wanted to know.

�Body of work. It�s French.�

�I was supposed to start French this year in school,� she said, and then smiled gleefully. �And now I don�t have to. At least not with Madame Burton. She has hairs coming out of her nose.�

�You are spared Madame Burton,� said Ruthven mildly. �But I expect you could learn it if you wanted to.�

�Maybe I might,� she said, and he had to hide a smile at the haughty tone, watching her try the blood. �But � this is really good, thank you,� she said, licking her lips. �Okay, so about Dracula.�

�About Dracula,� said Ruthven with a distinct sinking feeling. �What about him?�

�Who is he really? How come you�re all afraid of him? I mean, obviously he�s a famous vampire, all the movies are about him, everybody knows his name, but why? Is he some kind of, like, vampire king or president or something?�

�That is a very good and enormously complicated question,� said Ruthven, trying not to mind you�re all afraid. �He is, as you say, a very famous vampire � and a very old one; he died in the fourteen-seventies, about a hundred and twenty-some years earlier than me. There are older vampires in Europe, of course, but they tend to keep themselves very much to themselves, and many of the really old ones have simply gone into a sort of hibernation, vampire sleep, in which they�re not really here at all.�

�They can do that? Like bears?�

�Rather more like tardigrades,� said Ruthven. �Creatures that can dry out completely, be completely frozen, and then come right back to life when they�re rehydrated. Old vampires are very, very, very tenacious, but like I said, most of them aren�t active anymore.�

�So is it just that he�s the oldest one who�s still walking around and doing stuff?�

�It�s partly that, but partly it�s because a huge fraction of vampires currently active can trace their history back to him in some very distant way. The type of vampire you and I are is called �classic draculine� because we share his traits.�

�History,� said Lucy. �Like � you�re related to him?�

�In a very specific technical way: he turned a great many people into vampires, all of whom turned more people, who turned more people, et cetera. It�s a very distant connection, but a lot of vampires can claim descent from Vlad Dracul, which makes him a sort of � patriarch, at least of this part of the world, as well as elder statesman.�

�Are all the classic what-you-said vampires like his great-great-great-great-grandkids?�

�Not all, but many. I�ve done the research and I can�t exhaustively prove it, since the one who turned me didn�t stick around to tell me his ancestry, but I have good reason to believe I�m a very distant descendant.�

�Is there��she paused to finish her cup and set it down��is there some kind of test or something? Like a DNA test? To see if you really are related?�

�No,� said Ruthven. �But it�s not incredibly difficult to trace. There really aren�t all that many active vampires: in a city like London we might have five at absolute most, and in less heavily populated areas there are very, very few. That�s the thing about us: we don�t do well in large groups. The more vampires there are in any given area, the more likely it is that our activity will be exposed.�

�I guess that makes sense,� said Lucy, frowning. �But does that happen in other places? Are the American vampires all descended from him, too?�

�Fewer of them,� said Ruthven. �There are many very old and powerful vampires around the world: the Voivode�s territory just covers the majority of Europe, not the rest of the globe.�

�And he is your leader?�

�Yes,� said Ruthven. �Vampires in his territory follow his direction, or are strongly encouraged to leave. I happen to be a sort of local guardian for London, so I pass on information to him about people who are misbehaving, and it is entirely up to him what he chooses to do with that information.�

�So you don�t know what he�s gonna do to the man from Stonehenge?�

�I do not,� said Ruthven. �But my instinct suggests he�s going to find out about the local vampire society surrounding the attacker�s address, and determine whether this was a single individual acting alone, or if there is some kind of group of vampires doing things like this, and � go from there.�

�But it�s not our problem anymore.�

�Not our problem in the slightest,� he said. �In the meantime, he�s going to find somewhere for you to live that�s safe and not dreadfully boring.�

�It�s not dreadfully boring here,� she said. He had to smile.

�The Voivode seems to think you need somewhere with more space to run around and explore and get into trouble,� he said. �A bigger place than I can offer.�

�What�s he like?� Lucy asked. �I mean � I know you�re scared of him � Mr. Grisaille isn�t, but I think that�s �cause he didn�t actually know he was real, but Dracula seemed pretty nice when he did the eye thing to me, at least what I remember of it?�

�He is � courtly,� said Ruthven. �Old-fashioned. He still lives in a castle overlooking the River Arge�, and he loves his wife, the Countess Dolingen, very much.�

�Is it a real castle with towers and battlements and stuff?�

�It is indeed. It also has some fairly hefty spells on it to prevent curious tourists from venturing too close; he and the Countess have taken some pains over the centuries to link the Dracula legend to a couple of other castles in Romania to distract tourists.�

�When I was little, one of the foster mums took me to see hillforts and old falling-down castles,� she said. �I loved going up in the towers and imagining what it�d be like with a roof and furniture and stuff. The stairs in the towers had this dent in the middle because people walked up and down them for a really long time.�

�Do you know what I think?� said Ruthven, smiling.

�What?� she said, punctuated by an enormous yawn. The newly sharpened fangs glinted like rose-thorns.

�I think Dracula is right about you,� he said. �I think you�re going to do nicely.�

Greta was finishing up a bogeyman pup�s prescheduled vaccine visit when her phone buzzed in her pocket; as was her usual practice, she waited until Mrs. Gruuuueerrrgh and her small offspring had been seen off with a blood-flavored lollipop before removing her gloves and checking the phone. Two missed calls and a voicemail, both from Ruthven; that wasn�t like him unless something was seriously amiss. She tapped Play.

�Greta, call me back, I told Lucy she could read whatever she wanted from the library and if there was something I didn�t have that she wanted, she was free to use the tablet to get an electronic copy��he paused, and she could easily picture him pushing back his hair in a little unconscious gesture of distress��and you know I very specifically don�t have any of the libelous rubbish about us on hand but she�s devoured e-versions of The Vampyre and Carmilla and is well stuck in to Dracula and I am going to have to have a conversation with her about this and I don�t have the slightest idea where to start.�

She couldn�t quite squash a smile. The classic-horror-lit versions of her friends� biographies never failed to upset Ruthven. The idea that Lucy Ashton should have come across their ill-fated origin stories and would require some explanation was � all right, she could understand his distress, but it was still on some deep level funny as hell. At least Varney was safe; she couldn�t imagine Lucy � or practically anybody � faced with that particular cliff of unspeakable prose doing anything but running in the other direction.

She checked her watch: half past five, and she closed at six. Greta put her phone away and came out to the waiting area to see if anyone was left. The comfortable, mismatched couches and chairs were empty, and her receptionist was picking up the scattered toys from the floor to put them away.

�Hippolyta,� she said, shrugging out of her white coat and hanging it up, �I�m going to shut down early tonight � finish up and make sure the answering service is on and get out of here. I have a vampire�s chagrin to soothe.�

Hippolyta Hollister � an unexpected creature here in Harley Street, a statuesque American blonde and the girlfriend of Greta�s colleague and associate Nadezhda Serenskaya � straightened up and nodded. �Somebody call Ruthven �lord� where anyone could hear?�

�Along those lines,� said Greta with a smile, and let herself out into the slant-light of late afternoon. It was a nice enough day that she could have walked the couple of miles to Ruthven�s house, but he had sounded disturbed enough on the phone that she judged celerity was in order, and took the tube. It had been difficult at first, after the business with the Gladius Sancti and then the Parisian catacombs, to get reacquainted with the idea of going down voluntarily into holes in the ground, but Greta was desensitized to it now: inured enough to ignore the rattling and swaying of the train and consider instead the issue of classic horror literature as unauthorized biography.

Ruthven�s chagrin, while somewhat amusing, was real. There was a peculiar kind of awkwardness for a monster whose continued safety and well-being depended on the world not thinking they were real being known to that world, albeit inaccurately, through a famous work of fiction. Shells of falsehood inside shells of truth. The real problem, of course, was that each of the creatures described in the classic-horror-lit pantheon at one point or another had caught the eye and pen of an author sufficiently deeply to have inspired the subsequent work: it was effectively their own fault for being memorable. There was also the chicken-versus-egg aspect to consider. To what extent did the events in the fictional narrative influence the actual experience of the creature they purported to describe?

On the other hand, Greta thought, the fact that the fictional accounts did exist and were so widely known and recognized did lend a kind of paradoxical security to the creatures that inspired them. To most ordinary adults, the fact that there was a peculiar and extremely attractive Scottish minor peer named Ruthven, with grey eyes, was not a problem since the gorgeous grey-eyed Lord Ruthven in the book was a vampire and thus not real: the book was fiction. There could not be a real version of an imaginary monster, because the monster was a made-up character in a book. This tautology worked on people who didn�t have much imagination of their own, and on people who did but were highly skilled at squashing it underneath common sense. It did not work anywhere near as well on, say, children.

The conversation they were about to have with Lucy would have sent any number of narratologists (and the sort of psychologists who got excited about self versus other) into transports of incredulous delight. Greta regarded the prospect with the same level of enthusiasm she�d greet removing plantar warts from ghoul feet: necessary, not all that difficult, but deeply unappealing; she knew she�d have to do most of the work, with Ruthven clammed up inside a protective shell of embarrassment. Hopefully Grisaille could help somewhat.

When she emerged from the Temple station, the light was low on the horizon, turning the hoop of the Eye into a giant�s golden bangle, gilding the glass spike of the Shard against a deepening blue-grey sky. In its slanted warmth, Ruthven�s house looked both lovely and welcoming and ordinary, as if it contained nothing of supernatural import whatsoever.

Let�s keep it that way, thought Greta, and knocked on the door. Grisaille let her in almost at once, wearing a put-upon expression and an apron that said FORTNUM & MASON on it. The house smelled rather wonderfully of baking. �Thank God,� he said. �Maybe you can talk some sense into him.�

�I�ll certainly try. What are you making?�

�Croissants,� said Grisaille. �That ginger demon in Paris made croissants and he was incredibly bad at everything, so I should be able to do it no problem, except where I�m having to tell Edmund every five seconds that it�s not actually a big deal that the kid read The Vampyre.�

�What did she think of it?� Greta hung up her coat on one of the pegs in the entryway and followed Grisaille into the kitchen, which was liberally covered in flour.

�She did not say.�� You�d better like croissants,� he added, �since there�s rather a lot of them and you�re the only consumer of solid food in the current lineup. I don�t get what all the fuss is about, honestly. It�s an old book about some guy with the same name who did a bunch of stereotypical vampire shit, and the prose is not what I would describe as scintillating. �Aubrey�s sister had glutted the thirst of a VAMPYRE!� is kind of Varney-level bad.�

�I like croissants very much,� said Greta, �except the chocolate ones, because that�s all I got to eat in Corvin�s lair, and I have a medical practice staffed entirely by people who consume solid food on a regular basis, so give me a box of them to take in tomorrow.� She paused thoughtfully: something was kicking her brain. Something about Paris. Something about Grisaille and her captivity in Paris, and horror literature.

�What is it?� he asked, beginning to sweep up the excess flour. �You went all quiet.�

She snapped her fingers. �Back in the lair. You said you�d studied medicine in Ingolstadt a long time ago. Didn�t you.�

Grisaille stared at her, red eyes intent. �So?�

�So � would it bother you if Lucy were to add Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley to her TBR list?�

She�d wanted to ask him about it all the way back then, but subsequent events had driven the question directly out of her mind; not that it actually mattered, but � she�d been curious. Still was, in fact.

Grisaille sighed, and put the rolling-pin in the sink. �Fine,� he said. �Yes, your insinuation is accurate, and no, I don�t care if she reads it � that one actually is mostly true, unlike most of the others. Victor was exactly as much of a self-obsessed idiot as the book makes him out to be, if not more.�

�I�ve always thought he came across as such an undergrad,� said Greta. �What was the attraction?�

�He was attractive,� said Grisaille, deadpan. �And � oh, brilliant. Flashfire brilliant. Moth-to-flame. I knew he was dangerous and narcissistic and unpredictable and it�s not that I didn�t care so much as that I couldn�t stop myself.� He ran water in the sink and began washing up with neat little self-contained gestures, the tension in his shoulders visible. �I didn�t know what he was working on until too late, and I could have stopped him, I think, and I didn�t.�

�It wasn�t your fault he was the kind of selfish bastard who behaved appallingly without expecting consequences for his actions,� said Greta quietly. She hadn�t actually meant to turn the conversation down this particular alley. �Nor was it your responsibility to stop him.�

�I know,� said Grisaille. �Trust me, I know, and it doesn�t help. But the answer to your question is no, I don�t mind if she reads all about it.� He paused. �Possibly because the book isn�t actually about me, and I was human at the time, but still.�

�I�ll refrain from recommending it to her,� said Greta. �But I have a feeling she�ll probably pick it up on her own, if she�s working her way through the canon.� What else was there? Dracula, Carmilla, The Vampyre, Frankenstein, the lesser-known vampire tales like Croglin Grange, the entire works of M. R. James, Poe�

�Probably,� said Grisaille. �She does know I�ve changed my name, but nothing more than that; it�d be hard to make a connection without more info. Go see if you can get Edmund to chill even slightly, and if these turn out to be food, I�ll bring a few along.�

Without Greta there, neither Varney nor Emily had any reason to pretend to prepare or serve an evening meal or postprandial drinks; nevertheless, both of them found themselves in the drawing-room with the fire lit as the night drew in, as if she were there and would need providing for.

Varney was enormously proud of Emily�s progress in her studies, and of the work she was doing with the hairmonsters and the wellmonsters they�d rescued from Paris the year before, along with Emily herself. After that particular rescue, she�d had a hard time of it working out what she wanted to do next, but � after a particularly successful hairmonster breeding cycle � she had decided that what she was for was fixing monsters. Varney could not really sympathize, but he�d seen the same sort of single-minded purpose in Greta�s devotion to her own work, and simply gave Emily everything she needed to study, to apply, and to excel in her courses. (Yet again, Varney had been grateful to various undead individuals of his acquaintance for offering Emily room and board while she did field study work. It was beginning to seem impossible to ignore the fact that he did, actually, have friends.)

Now he sat by the fire with a couple of hairmonsters sprawled at his feet, while Emily read about were-creatures� prelunar syndrome and underlined a phrase here or there with her pencil, feet tucked up underneath her on the sofa. Out of nowhere, a soft tapping at the French windows onto the terrace woke Varney out of the edges of a comfortable doze, and he got up to investigate.

Very much as she had seemed a couple of weeks ago, but minus the heartbreaking bundle in her arms, the barrow-wight Sigyn stood outside, all pale green-gold braids and cold-burning points of light in shadowed eyesockets. He opened the door, stood aside. �Sigyn,� he said warmly. �I�ve been meaning to deliver a bottle of something to your barrow. I can�t thank you enough for your help in rescuing Lucy.�

The wight smiled a little, looking distracted. �Polish potato vodka, if you�re offering, and � I have a favor to ask that has nothing to do with that poor little girl.�

�Of course,� said Varney, ushering her to a sofa. �Please. Anything you ask.�

�That�s a bit loaded, aimed at a barrow-wight,� Sigyn said, and then just subsided to the edge of the sofa. �I�m sorry, I�m on edge. It�s my father.�

�Your father,� Varney repeated. Emily brought over a shot of ice-cold, syrupy-thick Chopin vodka; Sigyn took the glass � it frosted over completely at her touch � and seemed to gather herself.

�My father is � a traditional wight,� she said, staring into the glass, and drank off half of it. �Which is to say he�s all into the scaring of the mortals, horrid dreams if they so much as come nigh the barrow, hideously jealous of any of his grave-goods, all that. He�s also been suffering from painful joints for a hundred years or so, but just recently it�s been much worse, serious pain and difficulty moving, and he had a nasty cold several weeks ago, which seems to have settled in his chest and isn�t getting better, and�� She paused, eyes shut, and swallowed the rest of her vodka. �He won�t listen to me, or to my husband. Keeps saying he�s perfectly all right, that he has dwelled here in this barrow in this spell-worn countryside since who knows how many thousand years ago and nothing other than the old gods themselves will shift him. He won�t talk to anyone but who is master of the surrounding land.� She looked up, eyes bright pinpoints of light in dark hollows. �I think he might be � easier to persuade if you had a word with him. As the owner of the estate, and as someone who knows a doctor who treats our kind.�

�Good heavens,� said Varney, unable to stop himself, and then covered his face with a hand. �I�m sorry; I�m just not used to being appealed to as the, ah, country squire, or as anything particularly authoritative. Of course I will visit your father, if he will have me, and do my best to suggest he see a doctor, and that I happen to know one who specializes in the undead and comes very highly recommended.�

�Thank you,� said Sigyn, heartfelt. �I�ve already told him a thousand times he should see Dr. Helsing, but he has this thing about mortals. And about land and landowners and the � the importance thereof. He might listen to you. He�ll probably be horribly rude, and I apologize in advance, but he might listen.�

�I think I understand,� said Varney, still marveling at the idea of his being a figure of actual authority. �Shall I get Greta to come down tomorrow night? And is there anything in particular he would appreciate that I could bring?�

Sigyn looked almost human with a brief flush of warm gratitude. �If you have any sort of � balm, for sore joints, and the sort of high-proof whiskey that�s drunk partly through inhaling the vapors?�

�Both of those I think I can provide,� said Varney. �Should we meet you at the barrow, or somewhere a little distant?�

�At the barrow is fine,� said the wight, smiling. �Thank you, Sir Francis.�

�It�s just Varney,� he said, and smiled back.

When she had gone, he settled back into his armchair by the fire thoughtfully. He had owned the estate for several hundred years now, but only in the last few had it begun to seem like an actual home, somewhere he belonged. His general pattern of behavior in earlier phases of his existence had been predicated upon moving every few years once he�d sufficiently enraged the populace to bring on the torch-and-pitchfork brigade; he�d find somewhere new to settle down under a new name, buy an expensive house, throw money around, and start harassing local maidens all over again.

Dark Heart had been the last of his mansions, and the process of restoring it had given Varney something to do; he found the role of homeowner � rather than itinerant monster � to be both strange and profoundly soothing. There was a difference between homeowner and landowner, however, and he had quite honestly never considered the fact that Dark Heart�s estate contained several barrows and a couple of cottages � long empty � to which he was the landlord. Which meant, he was realizing, that the occupants of the barrows were under his protection. His responsibility.

Not just the house, not just the stables and water-gardens full of monsters, not just Emily, but people he had never met. To be able to provide help and support was one thing, still delightful in its novelty, but to be asked for that help and support was a gift he hadn�t known he�d been missing. It was pleasant to think about; it was more pleasant to be distracted from his ongoing desire to murder the vampire who had turned Lucy.

They hadn�t heard anything from Dracula, which he didn�t know if he ought to treat as good or bad news. Not that the Voivode was under any obligation to keep them up to date on the investigation, of course, but Varney itched for information: having been so involved in it from the beginning and then being cut off from any useful updates on the situation rankled.

One of the hairmonsters sprawled lazily in front of the fire woke up and wuffled at Varney, and he reached down to stroke its silky head, aware of the tableau thus presented and for once not quite feeling as if he was just pretending to be the country squire taking his ease.

Grisaille had seen Edmund Ruthven in extremis, suffering under a curse that inflicted excruciating pain; had seen Edmund Ruthven miserably ill, irritated, angry, but never this kind of icy wound-tight cold. Until now.

Cold and viciously unhappy at the same time. Grisaille could smell it, acrid and unpleasant, across the kitchen table.

Ruthven�s phone lay in the middle of the table, on speaker; the screen showed GRETA was on the line. In fact, it was Greta and Varney, on speaker themselves, and this was shaping up to be one of the least enjoyable phone conversations Grisaille had had in years. He�d tried to get a few words in edgeways, at the beginning, and been snapped at sharply enough to discourage further attempts, although he couldn�t actually make himself leave the room.

�But look,� Greta was saying. He could hear her own surprise at Ruthven�s reaction to her suggestion quite clearly. �The barrow-wight was right, Edmund, she ought to be with someone who can protect and teach her, someone powerful and important��

�Never mind the barrow-wight,� said Ruthven. �What he has to say on the matter is completely irrelevant. As is your own opinion. This is vampire business, Greta, kindly stay out of it.�

�But what if Dracula wants to? He�s interested; he called me to ask about her. Directly cold-called me. I didn�t initiate anything.�

�Nor will you,� said Ruthven. �Let me be crystal clear on this point: I am not going to throw away two hundred years� worth of character restoration efforts to prove I am the sort of person who is so completely incompetent at caring for the creatures under my protection that I am reduced to ringing up the spiritual leader of my bloody species to ask if he might consider doing it for me, and nor will you. Neither am I inclined to pester Count Dracula for updates on the fucking investigation in America.�

�It really does seem like he�s interested in the kid,� Grisaille said. �I mean. Why else would he call a human to chat about her?�

�Stay out of this,� said Ruthven sharply. Grisaille narrowed his eyes.

�He�s been interested since the beginning,� he said. �Remember he was impressed when he thralled her? And there�s a lot of other stuff, too. You even said something about it once.�

�Grisaille is right,� said Varney�s voice, colder than he could remember hearing it. �There seems every reason to believe the Voivode would, if not necessarily accept the idea, at least not mind the act of it being offered.�

�Which of us has had the longest acquaintance with the Voivode?� said Ruthven. �I venture to suggest it would be me, not you, Francis, nor you, Greta, nor you, Grisaille. I�m the one of us who knows him best, and I say this idea is unacceptable.�

�Okay, so you don�t think we should introduce the idea to him over the phone,� Grisaille said, trying to sound reasonable. �What if we invited him to visit?�

�Have you completely lost your mind?� Ruthven said, ice crystallizing on the syllables. �That�s worse: that implies I�m the sort of person who is so useless as to need Count Dracula to drop whatever he�s doing and physically come over to sort out my incompetence for me.�

�What sort of person are you?� said a quite different voice, and with a sudden weight of dread in his stomach, Grisaille turned to see Lucy Ashton standing in the doorway, very white. The scarlet of her eyes stood out vividly. �Are you the sort of person who thinks asking someone to have a kid stay with them is the worst thing anyone can imagine, or the sort of person who finds books for a kid and lets her stay up all night reading if she wants to?�

�Oh, Christ,� said Ruthven in a little strengthless voice, and covered his face with his hands, slumping like a string-cut puppet. There was a long moment of stunned silence before Grisaille turned back to Lucy.

�I think he�s probably the sort who�s worked himself up into a truly stupid state and now feels like shit about it,� he said. �If you want my opinion, that is.�

�Lucy?� said Greta on the phone. �Grisaille is right. Ruthven sometimes gets himself upset over things that don�t actually matter so much. It�s not about you; it�s never been about you. It�s about him.�

�Actually it is about you,� said Ruthven, but didn�t take his hands away from his face to do it. He sounded like someone who had just been punched fairly hard in the stomach. �It�s about the first question we all failed to ask you: Would you like to go and live with Dracula, if it could be arranged? Is that even a thing you�d want to do?�

Grisaille blinked. Had they all really just skipped over that part without realizing? He thought back over the past several days and could not recall this particular conversation ever actually taking place.

Christ, he thought, we really are a Mickey Mouse operation, aren�t we.

Lucy came into the kitchen, still paper-white. �You never asked. Nobody asks fosters where they want to live.�

�And I didn�t think of it,� said Ruthven, finally sitting up and looking at her. Revealed, his face was just about as white as hers, with flushed spots burning high on each cheek; his eyes were suspiciously bright. �I didn�t think, because I wasn�t thinking much at all, and I am most heartily sorry for it, Lucy.�

�You�re scared of him, and you don�t want him to think you�re not good enough,� said Lucy. �It�s hard to think when you�re scared.�

�� Yes,� said Ruthven helplessly. �Yes, it is.�

�What did you say the other day, Dr. Helsing?� she asked. �About minutes. How many minutes it takes to understand who somebody is, by talking to them.�

�I think I came up with ten,� said Greta, sounding more than a little impressed.

Lucy just nodded. �That,� she said, looking at Ruthven. There was a short but incredibly pregnant pause before she continued, �And I don�t know. I liked him when he was doing the eye thing to me but I don�t know if I want to stay with him. And his wife. Is she nice?�

Ruthven blinked at her. �I � yes, I think so�would you like to meet them?�

Lucy nodded. �Really meet them. Not just over the computer.�

Grisaille turned back to him, eyebrow raised. �Maybe,� he said, �you ought to ring him up, and ask.�

A brief, vivid flush came and went in Ruthven�s face; he closed his eyes for a moment before saying, deliberately, like a man pulling out a splinter despite the pain, �Yes. Maybe I ought.�

Greta watched as Ruthven stepped into the hall to welcome his guests, and a pang of uncharacteristic shyness made her stay right where she was rather than going to watch through the doorway. Varney glanced over, but he, too, seemed content to remain; Lucy had left the book closed on the seat of her armchair and was peering owlishly from behind the chair itself. She listened instead. Some murmuring, and then Ruthven � as charming and urbane as she had ever heard him � saying �Welcome, welcome, Voivode, Countess, it is an enormous pleasure to have you in my home. Please, let me take your luggage; I�ll show you to your room; you must be exhausted from the journey. Follow me.�

A woman�s voice, low and sweet, said something Greta didn�t catch, and then there were footsteps on the stairs and the voices grew more distant. Grisaille, looking somewhat etiolated, came into the drawing-room and headed directly for the sideboard with the whiskey decanters.

�Well?� Greta demanded after a brief silence.

�Well what?� Grisaille flopped into a chair carefully enough not to spill his drink, and drank quite a lot of it. �I went and fetched them from the airport, exactly as advertised. What did you do to Edmund, feed him amphetamines?�

�Precisely the opposite,� said Greta. �He�s being himself as overtly and as hard as he possibly can, and I don�t know how long he�s got before he runs out of energy completely, but he�s at least not drowning in his own nerves. What are they like?�

�They�re quality,� said Grisaille, the italics audible. �Gracious. And it�s not oh-let�s-be-nice-to-the-help-for-a-lark deliberate, either. Didn�t say a lot on the drive back. I get the feeling Count Dracula doesn�t enjoy flying all that incredibly much.� He took another long sip. �Except as a bat,� he added, and gave a little unsteady laugh Greta didn�t like. This whole business had been a hell of a strain on him, especially; dealing with Ruthven in peak-neurose mode at close range would tire anybody out. The whiskey seemed to revive him a little, however, and after a few more minutes he sat up a bit. �You can come out, kiddo,� he said, and Lucy did, in fact, emerge the rest of the way from behind her chair. �They�re awfully chuffed about the prospect of meeting you. Tr�s bona to varda your dewy youthful eek, is the general gist.�

�What does that mean?� she asked, scowling, and Grisaille laughed again, less unsteadily.

�It means your uncle Grisaille is extraordinarily old,� he said. �You�ll like them, Lucy. Truth be told, I think they�re a bit nervous themselves, which is a jolly funny thing to say about our vampire lords and masters, come to think of it.�

�What happens if he does run out of energy?� said Varney to Greta quietly, ignoring the rest of them.

�He falls over,� she said. �But I really do think he�s got enough left, and knows how and when to use it so as to avoid any truly embarrassing faux pas.�

Varney nodded, and then stiffened for a moment, head tilted, listening. �He�s coming back,� he said. �Alone. Presumably their majesties are not up to socialization at the moment.� If Grisaille was right, Greta thought, they might not be up to socialization at all until the next day, which would be both a vast relief and a huge, shocking anticlimax.

When Ruthven reappeared, very pale but looking entirely in control of himself, he sounded almost completely normal: �They�re unpacking and having a bit of a rest before coming down to say hello to everyone. Flight was a bit rough. Thanks for doing the driving, Grisaille.�

�De rien,� said Grisaille from the depths of his armchair. �Should someone go stoke the microwave�s metaphorical boilers, in case they do want some refreshment?�

�Microwaves don�t have boilers,� said Lucy. �Obviously.�

�That�s why they are metaphorical, darling infant,� he pointed out, getting up. �Do try to keep up. I can run the kitchen, Edmund, sit down and breathe for a second.�

Evening, at Dark Heart: a much later hour now, full summer rather than late spring, but the sweetness of the golden slant-light and the blue dusk rising out of the ancient parklands were exactly the same. Greta Helsing sat on the parterre with a drink � and with Sir Francis Varney, at a little stone-topped table, their attention not so much on the beauty of the summer twilight as on the glowing screen propped up on the table between them.

This had become a regular habit for the two of them: keeping in touch, effortlessly and in real time, rather than relying on the phone or face-to-face visits. Since the Voivode had informed them that the American vampire clan was dealt with, Varney had not made actual mention of it in Greta�s presence, but she knew perfectly well he was still thinking about it, and talking to their friends was probably the best distraction she could provide. Mostly he seemed content, but more than once she�d caught him hastily closing his laptop as she entered a room, as if he were very determined she shouldn�t know what he was typing. Ruthven didn�t know much more than she did, and Greta knew that worried him a little � but she also knew that Ruthven could find something to worry about no matter what.

The screen showed several faces in individual squares: Ruthven and Grisaille, Lucy Ashton, and � most surprisingly � Hrafn the barrow-wight. Greta had given the old wight an iPad some time ago, expecting the response she received, Get this modern nonsense out of my barrow, mortal, which lasted until she called up the online gallery of the British Museum�s jewelry collection to show him, so that he could compare his own and be reminded that his was enormously superior. After that, Hrafn had refused to relinquish the thing until it was completely out of batteries, at which point Greta and Sigyn between them had managed to convince him that his marvelous new toy could only work if they installed the proper electrical infrastructure in the barrow to charge it � and having crossed that particular Rubicon, it had been relatively simple to graduate to the installation of a dehumidifier and a space heater. That had been two months ago, and Hrafn�s arthritis and chronic cough had both undergone marked improvement � not to mention the fact that he now had social media accounts and was becoming an accomplished online troll.

�� and Vlad says I�m getting really good at flying. It still feels so weird to turn into a bat, though; it�s like I can�t see exactly but I see with my ears? Everything�s in black and white.�

�Try mist,� said Ruthven, amused. �That one�s extraordinarily weird.�

�Vlad says not until I get more control. But I get to try wolves next! He took me out into the woods when he was in wolf shape and we met some of the real wolves that live there, and they�re huge. I didn�t know wolves were that big and it was pretty scary but incredibly cool.�

Greta could remember St. Germain the wolf in Paris, and sympathized. On the screen Hrafn was nodding. �You are learning the ways of your kind well,� he said in the wheezing croak that was his pleasantest tone of voice.

�I�m trying. It�s hard but it�s not � like math-class hard? Like a good kind of hard.� Lucy smiled, bright and excited. �Maybe soon I could come visit you and turn into a bat!�

�You are gladly welcome in my barrow,� said Hrafn, sounding very pleased indeed. �In whatever form you choose.�

�And you guys,� said Lucy. �Dr. Helsing and everybody. Sofiria wants to ask you to come stay with us sometime. It�s really pretty here. And there are dungeons!�

�Are there any things in the dungeons?� Grisaille wanted to know.

�Some old bones, but Vlad can�t remember whose they are,� said Lucy offhandedly. �He hasn�t thrown anyone into them for a really long time.�

�That is reassuring,� said Varney delicately. �And the bat colony?�

�I keep trying to talk to them when I�m a bat but they don�t talk back. Maybe I need to do it in Romanian? Since they�re Romanian bats?�

�They might just be wary of you,� said Ruthven. �You�re effectively royalty, after all.�

�Don�t let it go to your head,� Grisaille added, and he and Ruthven shared a smile.

�I gotta go, guys,� said Lucy, glancing off-screen. �Time for dinner. See you!� Her square on the screen first blanked out and then disappeared altogether.

�Well,� said Greta. �She definitely seems to be settling in nicely, wouldn�t you say?�

�Happy as a clam,� said Grisaille. �Which I�ve always found rather a suspect simile. Are clams particularly joyful creatures, that we know of?�

�Well-known fact,� said Greta. �Oh, Ruthven, I meant to tell you. Harlach said thank you very much for the bottle of Scotch; it�s appreciated.�

�Least I could do, seeing as he�s added metaphysical taxi driver to his list of surface-operative duties,� said Ruthven. �Nice chap. I�ve only met him once or twice, of course.� The demon who took Greta to and from work every day was the individual assigned by Hell�s Monitoring and Evaluation department to keep an eye on London, and had been surprised � but pleased � to find a gift box delivered to his Mayfair flat with a particularly sought-after single-malt and a note from Edmund Ruthven.

�And you�re sure it�s safe,� said Varney. �The � the flipping thing. Translocation. Not damaging reality.�

�He keeps a very close watch on the essographs to make sure it�s not doing any damage,� said Greta. �So far, we seem to be in the clear, and it is awfully nice to spend less than two seconds on the commute. And to live down here full-time.�

She gestured expansively: at the house, the parklands, the estate in general. Varney. �It�s where I belong. Where I want to be.�

�It is correct,� said the barrow-wight. �To be in one�s rightful place. One�s home.�

�That it is,� Grisaille said with uncharacteristic simplicity. �It�s � rather the best thing, I think.�

All of them were thinking about Lucy Ashton, who had so very recently not had such a thing, and who was now having to learn what it meant to belong somewhere; about Emily, who had lost one home and family and was building another; about finding what and where you were meant to be, and being that just as hard as you possibly could. If you did that, then the rest would take care of itself.

�I think it�s time to say good night,� said Greta, and reached for Varney�s hand; his cold fingers laced themselves with hers, held on tight. She looked up at the old golden-stone house that was now � truly, for the first time � her home, and then at her husband, and her friends; and she was for a moment so full of a brilliant glass-clear gladness, she could barely breathe. It didn�t matter that they still lacked answers about the American business; it didn�t matter that she had a dim, distant, sinking feeling that they weren�t done with it after all. Right now, right here, she had all she�d ever wanted.

This, she thought, leaning against Varney�s shoulder. This, and yes, and you.

As usual, I owe a great many people my thanks. My wife, Arkady Martine, who is also my dear friend and first reader; Jane Mitchell, without whom this story wouldn�t exist; my agent Stephen Barbara, whose tireless efforts on my behalf are profoundly appreciated; the fine folks at the Ordnance Survey and their cartographical exactitude; and my family in Dorset, where every summer as a child I used to visit and run around the countryside clambering over barrows and exploring stately homes. (Dark Heart House has a lot of Kingston Lacy in it.)