The monster across from me gave me a crooked smile. “It’s just not the same. I can ask you how you enjoy your meals, or if something is to your liking, but for me… well, it seems more polite to not mention it.”

If it makes you feel better… I raised my brows at him. How did you enjoy your dinner? And don’t try to weasel out of it with a silly answer. 

“Cirri, this is not going to help your fear of me,” he muttered, and I tapped the question imperiously. “Fine. For the most part, I don’t require much blood to survive on a day to day basis—I will drink more if I must go deeper into the fiend metamorphosis, but I prefer to maintain this aspect. I take my blood from prisoners—those condemned to death, those who have no chance of being permitted parole from the dungeons. It’s preferable to making a mistake with an innocent. As for the enjoyment… no, there’s not much that’s enjoyable about drinking from them. It’s simply a necessity, rather than something pleasurable. Now, have I put you off your meal?”

No, I wrote, eating a heaping spoonful of stew to drive the point home. I was curious and I wanted to know. Do you drink from them, or do you… I don’t know, decant it like a wine first?

Bane read my question incredulously, then let out a snort of laughter that only emphasized the ridges of bone and cartilage across his nose and brow when he grinned. “We’ve always called it ‘harvesting’, but now I’ll refer to it as ‘decanting’.”

Did it have a fine bouquet? I asked, unable to resist.

“Let’s just say it was well-aged, with notes of hard labor, no remorse, and a future death sentence.” He shook his head, still chuckling.

I polished off the stew, nibbling at the vegetables and thinking. He could joke about it, but it was obvious that he only fed as much as necessity dictated—I supposed that I too would dislike harvesting blood from condemned prisoners. Food was really such an intimate process with one’s own body that the idea of consuming blood from a monstrous person seemed invasive.

But he fed from them only because he didn’t want to harm someone innocent… and that scared me as much as the needle-sharp teeth. When I thought of Bane’s mouth at my throat, those teeth piercing flesh, I feared that he would lose control. That the taste of fresh blood, straight from the vein, would bring the beast in him to the surface.

There was no logic to the fact that I loved being near him, yet feared such a fundamental aspect of his being.

I wanted to overcome this horror, but I couldn’t afford to try again and fail. Not when I’d so clearly made him question himself the first night we’d tried, and if I failed again… I might completely shatter this burgeoning friendship.

“Cirri?” he asked quietly. “Are you… well?”

I nodded, realizing I’d been drifting off in my own thoughts, caught between my desire to try and my fear of making him feel inferior.

I was thinking, I wrote. There’s vampires all over Argent, but since I lived in the Cathedral, I almost never saw them. Everything I know about your people is purely academic. I do know that there were places where people could go if they wanted to be fed upon—but we were forbidden from so much as laying eyes on those shops. The Sisters think they’re heresy.

I flipped to a clean new page after Bane read it.

“Of course they do,” he muttered. “Yes, that was part of the arrangements in the Blood Accords. By law, none of us can feed without explicit permission—although I will note that we specifically added an addendum for the sake of the other three Lords and myself. Obviously, no one is going to line up for us to drink from them, so we’re permitted to decant blood from prisoners sentenced to death. But for most of my people, they have no problem sating their thirst. Those shops opened solely so those interested in my kind could… experiment for themselves. I’ve been told most of them return quite often.”

So… it really doesn’t hurt, then? I’ve read such a thing, but it’s hard to believe. 

He leaned forward, his brow furrowed more than usual. “There is a pinprick of pain in the beginning. But after that… we can give those we feed upon a sense of ecstasy. I suppose there is a reason why relationships between our people are growing more common.”

How common is that, exactly? I wouldn’t say there were many married vampire-human couples in Argent, despite the blood shops.

Bane shook his head, flexing his clawed finger as he thought. “Marriage? No. You have to be quite sure of the commitment to share blood in such a way, as the chosen human will live so long as they take blood from their vampire lover, and a vampire will only share their blood out in the case of such devotion. But for those who are simply lovers, the vampire’s thirst will be slaked, and the human will receive ecstatic sex in exchange. That is quite common now. It’s how most of my knights feed—quite a few have lovers throughout the Rift.”

The hated flush crept into my cheeks at the thought, especially since I hadn’t forgotten the feeling of Bane waking up curled around me in bed, and the thought of his body hadn’t been far from my thoughts all day.

I realized Bane was watching me, his amber eyes pensive.

“Cirri, if I still had my old face…” He touched his own face, his claws against a protruding cheekbone. “If I were still that man, would you have feared my bite so much? Or would that face, that form, have made it easier?”

I didn’t hesitate before writing. The thought of any vampire biting me frightens me. I’m afraid you’ll lose control. Even if you looked like that, it would’ve changed nothing. It was too soon for me to try, when I’ve spent a lifetime among people who hate your kind, and growing up, I was fed nothing but horror stories about your people. There is no amount of beauty that can change that fear.

He leaned back, a neutral expression carefully in place. I couldn’t tell if he felt better or worse for my answer, but either way, it was the truth.

And with the truth, that conversation ended.

“Are you finished?” he asked abruptly. “I should take you to Wyn.”

I nodded, feeling like I’d ruined a perfectly good moment, and packed my journal and pen away. One of the keep servants slid past us unobtrusively, packing up the tableware I’d left behind—it made me feel a little guilty to see someone else picking up my mess.

But Bane had taken my hand, and as he guided me to a corner of the keep I hadn’t yet seen, new scents met my nose: the omnipresent tang of blood, but also herbs and smoke and spices.

“This is the Tower of Autumn, where Wyn and Visca live. You are never to enter if she’s not here, understand?” He took a breath when I looked up at him. “I don’t mean to condescend to you as though you’re a child, but there are things here that are dangerous to all of us. Things that should never see the light of day. Nobody is permitted in this tower without Wyn’s presence, not even me.”

Now I’m not so sure I want to go in, I signed. Maybe we should just go to bed? 

He knocked on the door, and Wyn opened it, her eyes gleaming with a fervor so intense I wondered if I’d spend the next hour looking over lists with her.

“Oh, lovely, she’s here.” Wyn beckoned me in, and shooed Bane away. “You go on. I’ll send her to you when I’m done.”

I looked back at Bane, silently begging him with my eyes to save me, but Wyn shut the door on him and hustled me into a chaos of desks and tables and arcane alchemical equipment. I was suddenly more conscious of my elbows than I’d ever been in my life.

“I’m working on something that requires another donation of blood. I’ll need… oh, about as much as we required for the ritual of the vows. Come here.”

She brought me to a desk covered with clean cloth, laid out with an iron vessel and another one of those leaf-shaped blades, polished to perfection.