Chapter 2

The next night, Adrian really did cancel all his meetings. He stood in the doorway of the dressing room, watching me button my coat, and reached out to wrap my scarf around my neck. Edmund waited at the end of the hall with a thick stack of papers, but Adrian didn't even turn around. He told him to hand them over to his second-in-command, Marcus Calloway.

"Tonight, I'm all yours," he said.

Marcus had always handled important business for him. In the past, once Adrian was done with his own work, he made a point of following up with Marcus to see how things were going. But lately, "Give it to Marcus" had become his favorite way to brush people off. And as for who all that freed-up time was really going to, I was probably the only one in the whole house who knew.

I put on my gloves and didn't answer.

The city center was holding its winter night market. The streets along the river were strung with colored lights, an outdoor band played huddled against the cold, and long lines formed in front of the hot drink stalls. Children chased each other across the cobblestones clutching shiny paper stars, and their parents laughed and told them to watch their step.

This place and the Vane estate were two completely different worlds. No one fell silent when Adrian came near, and no one checked his expression before daring to smile. Passersby saw him as just an ordinary, well-dressed man, glanced at him once, and went back to chatting about their own lives.

I stood in the crowd, the smell of roasted chestnuts and cinnamon all around me. Since my turning, food like that couldn't keep me alive anymore, but the warm satisfaction I remembered was still vivid. Those familiar sights and smells reminded me that I'd once been an ordinary person who didn't have to consider the Blood King in everything I did.

Adrian looked down at me. "Do you like it here?"

"I do."

He squeezed my hand, smiling warmly. "I should have brought you a long time ago. We can come often from now on."

From now on. He always said those words so easily. From now on we'd go south for the winter, from now on we'd find a place by the sea, from now on, once everything settled down, he'd have more time for me. Every time, I took those words to heart, as if the life he described already belonged to us.

I'd spent eight whole years in Greyport waiting for a future that never came.

In a corner of the market, an old gramophone was playing a record. The music skipped here and there, but the sound was wonderfully warm. I stopped to listen, and Adrian stood beside me, shielding me from the crowd. Seeing us linger, the stall owner picked up a record and said with a smile that it would be perfect for two people to listen to at home.

Without thinking, I turned to ask Adrian what he thought. The words were on my lips when I suddenly realized it had been a long time since we'd sat and listened to a whole song together. He always had another call to take, another matter to deal with, and before the song ended, I was usually alone.

I bought the record anyway and paid with my own money. Adrian reached to take the bag from me, but I shook my head and held it myself. He didn't notice that small change. When he saw me smile, he relaxed too.

For once, I'd chosen something simply because I liked it. I hadn't thought about his taste or waited for him to be free. With the bag pressed against my coat, it suddenly struck me that music like this, filling a home I lived in alone, might be nice. If I hadn't met him, I'd never have chosen this city with its long winters and scarce daylight, and I'd never have shrunk my whole world down to a house where I waited for him to come home.

Looking at the bustling crowd, I realized that beneath my fear of leaving him, there was also a small flicker of hope.

"There's a bookstall over there." I looked at the tent up ahead. "I'd like to take a look."

"Watch your step." He reached out to straighten my collar, and his fingers brushed the moonstone necklace at my throat. "Careful it doesn't catch again."

It was the token he'd given me when we took the oath. An oval stone set in platinum, with the date we first met engraved along the edge. He'd insisted on keeping that date, saying that my agreeing to share his long life didn't mean my human past should be erased.

I looked down. The stone had a cold sheen. The necklace held no part of the blood oath and couldn't be used to track me. It was only a gift. After wearing it for five years, I'd gotten so used to its weight at my neck that I'd nearly forgotten I could take it off anytime.

A little girl with a flower basket ran out from behind a stall and stopped in front of us. She was the florist's daughter, and I'd seen her before. She vaguely knew vampires existed, but in a crowd, she only ever called him sir, just as the grown-ups had taught her.

"Would you like to buy flowers for your wife?" She held her basket up high. "The white roses are really nice today. My mom says they stand for loyalty and forever."

Adrian looked pleased and bent to straighten her tilted basket. "Let me see."

The flowers were in full bloom, their petals beaded with water. He picked through them carefully, lifting one stem and setting it down again, then looked up with a smile. "I'll take them all. I want her to see them every day."

I put my hand over his. "No need."

He frowned. "What's wrong?"

The little girl's smile faded a little too. I didn't want to embarrass the child, so I softened my voice. "The flowers are lovely. It's just that I don't like white roses anymore. Save them for your other customers."

Adrian's fingers went stiff.

He stared at me, his relaxed expression slowly stiffening. "You used to love them more than anything."

"Tastes change."

All around us were vendors shouting and people laughing, bickering, and taking photos by the river, but he seemed cut off from all of it, staring at me for a long time. "Why don't you like them all of a sudden?" he asked quietly. "The greenhouse still has..."

He stopped mid-sentence. I knew what he was remembering. He'd picked the spot for that greenhouse himself, and to keep the roses by the window blooming through winter, he'd even argued with the gardener over the heating. For a long time, before he went out, he'd cut a stem himself and put it in the narrow vase in our bedroom.

But now, Livia's cabin had the very same white roses. I'd already learned her name. That time at the logging camp, an attendant delivering something had called it out loud, and those few syllables had burned into my mind. They followed me even into my sleep.

I almost wanted to ask whether he'd been this attentive when he picked out roses for that woman. If white roses meant loyalty, had he forgotten what they meant, or were vows only good for saying out loud?

In the end, I just took my hand back. "My taste changed, that's all."

The little girl quietly lowered her basket, as if she thought she'd said something wrong. I apologized and explained that there was nothing wrong with the flowers, so she wouldn't feel bad. She soon smiled again and told me that next time I could pick yellow or pink roses, and she could save some for me ahead of time. Listening to her innocent chatter, the sharp pain in my chest eased a little.

So once you were tired of something, you could simply choose something else. There was no need to keep explaining why you'd once loved it, and no need to promise it would never change.

Adrian was still looking at me, waiting for me to add that I just didn't feel like buying them today. His hand rubbed the back of mine as he searched my far-too-calm face for any sign that I was joking. Just then, someone in a northern night patrol uniform squeezed through a gap in the crowd.

"Sir, something urgent has come up in the south. You need to come right away."

The newcomer spoke in a deliberately low voice, cap pulled down, coat too big. But I caught a glimpse of a slender wrist under the cuff, and through the mix of smells, that familiar scent of white roses hit me.

It was Livia.

She'd hidden her long hair under the cap, changed into a man's uniform, and layered on a heavy leather scent to cover her own. An ordinary person would take her for a skinny young guard, but any vampire who came close enough would know her at once. She wasn't trying to fool everyone. She was betting that even if I suspected something, Adrian would play along to the end.

He recognized her at a glance. His expression darkened, and after a quick look at me, he casually stepped forward and used his shoulder to block her from my view. As I watched his back, my throat tightened.

I'd once naively believed that protective gesture belonged only to me.

"Eve, you can keep looking around for a while." He turned his head, his voice gentle again. "I'll take care of this and be right back."

"The south again?"

He froze for a second. "Just a little trouble."

I nodded. "Then go."

He probably hadn't expected me to agree so readily. He reached out to touch my cheek, and I turned aside. His hand hung in the air for a moment before dropping to his side. When he looked at Livia again, his voice turned cold.

"Who gave you permission to come straight here? Didn't I tell you that everything goes through the proper channels?"

Livia lowered her head, the brim of her cap hiding her mouth. "I'm sorry. I just couldn't wait. I thought you'd want to hear the news."

She drew out the last part.

Adrian gripped her arm and pulled her back half a step. "Watch your words. Remember what you're wearing."

Livia drew a soft breath, but her fingertips came to rest on his wrist. It wasn't how a subordinate being scolded would act. It was more like a lover after a quarrel, waiting to be coaxed back. "I know I was wrong." She looked up at him. "Don't be so harsh with me."

He let go, and two red marks showed on her wrist below the cuff. Given her strength, they'd vanish in no time. But she didn't pull her sleeve down. Instead, she deliberately left her wrist exposed, lingering a moment longer in the lamplight. As she turned to step back, she brushed past me, and the button on her uniform cuff caught on my necklace.

Something at my neck suddenly gave way. I reached up, but the necklace had already slid down my scarf. People streamed past us. A boot ground against the metal clasp with a sharp little sound, and the necklace was kicked under a stall.

"My necklace came off," I said.

Adrian immediately bent to look for it, while a few steps away, Livia made a show of her reddened wrist. She said nothing, just looked at him quietly, as if she were bearing some great injustice. He paused for a moment in his search.

Then he called over two guards waiting at a distance. "Find Eve's necklace, and don't step on it. Stay here with her."

One crouched to search under the stall, while the other directed people to step aside. Adrian squeezed my hand. "Don't worry. We'll find it."

I watched him quietly. I'd never been worried at all. He let go of my hand and hurried toward Livia. I gave the bag with the record to a guard and asked them to put it in the car with the necklace once they found it. The guard took the bag, glanced in the direction Adrian had gone, seemed about to say something, and in the end just nodded.

I was quietly grateful he didn't make excuses for the Blood King. Tonight, I had no strength left to play along with another lie.

The little girl with the flower basket was still standing nearby, looking at me in confusion. I gave her a small smile, bought one ordinary red rose, and sent her off to find other customers. The thorns had been trimmed clean, and the bare stem sat in my palm. After I watched her go, I set the rose on the corner of the stall and walked slowly in the direction Adrian had gone.

The guards hurried to ask where I was going, and I pointed to a brightly lit shop nearby. "I'll wait inside. When you find it, just put it in the car."

They could see the shop's front door, so they didn't stop me. I walked into the shop, went through the short passage to the back door, and came out on the street again. I used to hate this maze of alleys, but in that moment, it became my cover.

As I moved away from the river, the band's music faded behind me. The shops grew sparser, until there were only abandoned warehouses and tool sheds left over from the logging camp. Adrian hadn't gone toward the checkpoint.

He and Livia walked side by side through a narrow alley and stopped in front of an empty wooden house at the edge of the market. It wasn't far from the crowd, so when they came back, they could pretend he'd just finished some business. But the bushes outside the window had grown thick enough to keep passersby from seeing in. I slowed down and didn't take the main path straight to the door. I circled around to the side of the house.

An old wire lay buried under the snow. I stepped on it and heard a short metallic snap.

I should have stopped right there. The area around the logging camp was quiet and dangerous. The night patrols had cleared away what the hunters left behind, but they couldn't dig through every inch of frozen ground. I knew perfectly well that if I got hurt, I couldn't heal in an instant the way Adrian could. But the faint light in the window kept alive a ridiculous scrap of hope in me. Hope that everything I'd seen was a misunderstanding, that he'd push her away and refuse to go any further.

Following them this far couldn't change a betrayal that had already happened. It wasn't until the metal snare suddenly clamped around my ankle and a piercing pain shot through me that I understood that hope could hurt too. It was a hunter's snare, half buried in the frozen ground, its thin wire plated with silver. It wasn't strong enough to hold a powerful vampire, but when it snapped tight, it could slice through flesh and let silver poison into the wound.

Pain gnawed at my ankle. I braced myself against a tree trunk and bit down hard on my lip to keep from crying out.

The night wind blew from the house toward the woods, carrying my scent away behind me. In the distance, the band started playing again and drowned out the snap of metal. I held my breath and pressed my injured ankle into the snow, keeping myself out of view of the window.

On the other side of the window, Adrian pulled Livia in front of him. "Are you out of your mind? Who said you could show up in front of Eve?"

I looked up and forgot about freeing myself from the snare. Livia took off her cap, and her long hair fell to her shoulders. She didn't defend herself. She simply reached out to hold him. He leaned away, and tears fell from her eyes right on cue.

"I just wanted to see you." Her voice was soft and broken. "You said you'd be free tonight. I waited for you all night, and then I heard you'd taken her to the market. I only wanted to see you a little longer."

"That's not your decision to make."

"That's why I dressed up as a guard." She lifted her face to look at him. "No one recognized me, and Eve didn't say anything. Why do you always assume I'll get you in trouble?"

His frown deepened, anger still burning in his eyes, but he never pushed her away. I wrapped my scarf around my hand and dug at the iron stake anchoring the snare to the ground. The silver wire would burn my skin, but the anchor buried in the dirt was ordinary iron. After two hard tugs, the stake came loose, easing the loop around my ankle a little. My fingers shook from the pain. I bent down and, through the thick fabric, worked the snare apart bit by bit, peeling the silver wire out of the wound.

The wound couldn't heal quickly. Blood soaked through my stocking and stained a small patch of snow red. The two people inside the house noticed nothing.

Or rather, right then, he didn't want to hear anything outside.

Livia came around in front of him and held up her wrist, where the red marks had faded until they were barely visible. "Look, you hurt me."

Adrian lowered his eyes, his fingertips brushing that patch of skin. She lifted her face, her eyes darkening to a vampire's deep red, and slowly bared her fangs without a trace of shame. Born a vampire, she'd had her power all her life. She didn't have to adjust carefully to every feeding the way I did. That natural strength was something she loved to flaunt.

"Don't you like me like this?" She leaned closer, her fingertips resting on his collar. "Last night, you didn't look like this."

I gripped the rough bark so hard that splinters drove into my palm, but I could barely feel the sting. She undid the top button of her uniform, and delicate lace showed underneath. Beneath the loose men's coat, what she wore had clearly been chosen with care. She was sure he'd see it. She was sure he already had.

"I changed just to see you." She smiled. "Are you really not going to stay?"

His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and he caught her wrist. The warning he'd given her at the market had turned into a private joke between them. "You always know how to stir up trouble."

"And I know how to make you feel good."

He finally bent his head and kissed her. I saw him cup the back of her neck and deepen the kiss. Livia melted into his arms and reached behind her to push the door shut. The heavy door closed, but the curtains hadn't been drawn all the way, leaving a narrow gap. He took off her guard's coat and set it aside, unhurried. She was still complaining that her arm hurt, so he took that wrist and kissed the spot he'd gripped.

It hit me then that the scolding at the market had never really frightened her.

She'd known perfectly well that in the end he'd give in, soothe her, and stay, leaving me alone in the noisy market, waiting.

I slid down the trunk until I was crouching. The moment I put weight on my injured ankle, pain shot up my calf, but I was almost grateful for that unmistakable pain. There was nothing to guess at and no need to fool myself. From inside came her soft laughter and murmured words. I didn't want to make them out, but the sharp hearing I'd gained from my turning delivered every sound to my ears without mercy.

I covered my ears and dug my nails into my skin. The sounds grew fainter but didn't stop. Before I came here, I'd already known about the betrayal.

The first time I caught them together and came home, I changed every sheet and pillowcase, naively thinking that if I cleaned the room, I could wipe away the scent he brought back. I even bought a new perfume, secretly hoping he'd notice and ask why I'd switched. He did ask, and he said it smelled nice. But the next time he came home, his collar still smelled of white roses.

My chest tightened as I looked back on those pitiful attempts to comfort myself. I hadn't done a single thing wrong, yet I'd automatically put myself in the position of having to win him back. As if my clothes, my perfume, my body were somehow flawed, and that was what drove him to someone else.

Through that gap in the curtains, I couldn't fool myself anymore. I couldn't avoid this ending by changing my perfume, asking fewer questions, or swallowing my pain.

Knowing the truth was one thing. Watching him choose another woman again and again of his own free will was another. As long as I stood here, I would see him set aside every hesitation and willingly hand the time he'd promised me to someone else.

No one was forcing him.

I suddenly remembered the little girl selling flowers. She'd said white roses stood for loyalty and forever. Adrian had smiled so easily then, without the slightest pause at those two words. My tears fell onto my gloves and turned cold at once. I didn't burst through the door, and I didn't shout his name. For the past month, I'd rehearsed a confrontation in my head countless times, imagining him panicking, making excuses, begging me to hear him out. But now that I was really here, all I felt was a bone-deep exhaustion.

I didn't want to humiliate myself just to win him back.

I tore a strip from my scarf and tied it tightly above my ankle to stop the bleeding. It couldn't undo the silver burn, but it was enough to get me back to the crowd. I tried to stand, but my leg gave out, and I grabbed the tree again.

The second time, I stayed on my feet.

The first step hurt so much my vision went black. On the second, I found a way to put weight on it. The bushes gradually hid the house, and I didn't look back. Even if he'd run out the door that moment and called for me to stop, I wouldn't have. By the time I reached the parking lot behind the market, my skirt was caked with dirty snow, my hair had come loose, and the clip hung crooked at my temple. A human woman packing up her stall saw me and asked if I'd fallen. I nodded and sat down on the chair she offered.

"Do you need me to call someone for you?" She handed me a tissue. "You don't look well."

I took the tissue and thanked her quietly. "No need. I can get home myself."

She didn't know I was a vampire, much less the Blood King's mate. She'd only seen a hurt stranger and offered a chair and a tissue. That kindness, with no strings attached, nearly brought my tears back. I called the house for a car and hid my injured ankle under my skirt. When the driver opened the door, I held on to the frame and pretended I was just worn out from the market.

He didn't ask any questions. He turned up the heat and drove smoothly back to the North District. The whole way, I didn't get a single message from Adrian.

When the car passed an intersection, a couple was just coming back from the market. The woman's heel had snapped, and the man crouched by the road, letting her hold his shoulder while she changed into the flats from the trunk. They laughed together, then got into the car. I looked at the green light ahead and didn't look at them again.

Adrian had once looked after me just as carefully. I didn't need someone else's happiness to prove what I'd lost, and I didn't need tonight's pain to convince me that all closeness ends in deception. I just couldn't trust him anymore. And I no longer had any duty to repair that trust.

The driver asked if he should swing by the clinic. Once I'd made sure there was a night nurse at the house, I shook my head. He drove even more gently, steering around the potholes. I leaned back against the seat and, for the first time, seriously worked out how long it would take to get from here to the airport.

That "right back" had never mattered as much to him as he made it sound.

When I got back to the house, the two guards were already waiting in the entrance hall. They'd found the necklace. The clasp was slightly bent, but the stone was intact. One of them handed me the jewelry box, while the other explained uneasily that they hadn't been able to find me in the shop and had only learned I'd gone home when the driver told them.

"I decided to come back on the spur of the moment," I said. "Thank you both."

They breathed a sigh of relief and offered to send for a physician. I glanced down at the bloodstain my skirt couldn't hide and knew I couldn't keep it secret, so I only asked them to fetch the night nurse and bring the blood I usually drank. All the silver fragments were out of the wound, and the worst danger had passed. The nurse cleaned it, made sure nothing was left behind, and bandaged it carefully. She told me that with my constitution, the swelling would take days to go down, and that I shouldn't walk far for a while. I nodded and dutifully drank the warm blood. I still had to escape this place. I couldn't afford to wear my body down any further.

After the nurse left, the room went quiet. I opened the jewelry box. The moonstone lay on the dark velvet as if nothing had happened. Adrian had picked out this stone himself. The first time he put it in my hands, the vampire king the whole North bowed to had been a little awkward, and only after I accepted it did he smile.

"I know giving me the rest of your life isn't easy," he'd said. "I'll always cherish you. Say yes, will you?"

I used to think those words were even stronger than the blood oath. For the first few years, he really did keep them. When someone mocked me in public, he cut them off sharply. When I was frustrated that I couldn't control my new strength after my turning, he practiced with me and told me not to rush. When human hunters attacked, he even took a wooden stake aimed at my heart and nearly died.

The more vivid those memories were, the more they hurt now.

I couldn't erase all his past tenderness just to prove he'd never deserved to be loved. All I could do was admit plainly that the man who'd once been willing to give his life for me could now leave me alone in a crowd and go to another woman. My thumb ran over the cold edge of the stone one last time.

"Goodbye, Adrian," I whispered. "I don't want this necklace anymore. And I don't want you anymore."

The door behind me suddenly opened.

"Darling, what were you saying just now?"

I turned to look. He stood in the doorway, his hair a mess, his tie retied but crooked. When he saw me sitting on the edge of the bed, relief washed over his face, as though every lie he'd told tonight could be wiped away as long as I was still here. I held the necklace I'd already taken off and didn't make up a single excuse for him anymore.