A Long Time Dead

by Samara Breger

Genres: Victorian Romance; Gothic; Historical Romance

Synopsis

Samara Breger's A Long Time Dead is a lush, Victorian romance, drenched in blood and drama, about the lengths two women will go to secure a love that cannot die.

Somewhere foggy, 1837 . . .

Poppy had always loved the night, which is why it wasn’t too much of a bother to wake one evening in an unfamiliar home far from London, weak and confused and plagued with a terrible thirst for blood, to learn that she could no longer step out into the day. And while vampirism presented several disadvantages, it more than made up for those in its benefits: immortality, a body that could run at speed for hours without tiring, the thrill of becoming a predator, the thing that pulls rabbits from bushes and tears through their fur and flesh with the sharp point of a white fang.

And, of course, Roisin. The mysterious woman who has lived for centuries, who held Poppy through her painful transformation, and who, for some reason, is now teaching her how to adjust to her new, endless life. A tight, lonely, buttoned-up woman, with kindness and care pressed up behind her teeth. The time they spend together is as transformative to Poppy as the changes in her body, and soon, she finds herself hopelessly, overwhelmingly attached. But Roisin has secrets of her own, and can’t make any promises; not when vengeance must be served.

Soon, their little world explodes. Together and apart, they encounter scores of vampires, shifty pirates, conniving opera singers, ancient nobles, glamorous French women, and a found family that throws a very particular sort of party. But overhead, threat looms—one woman who is capable of destroying everything Poppy and Roisin hold dear.

 

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Release date: May 16, 2023

Publisher: Bywater Books

Sample

Chapter 1

Poppy was well rested and warm, which meant something was wrong. Neither state was easily acquired in London’s limpid early spring, the lengthening, foggy days offering up exhaustion and cold in clammy handfuls. This wretched March huddled sheepishly in the damp, unmanning non-season between the body-heat-hungry snow and the eager, pollen-stained warmth to come, when men would bang down Poppy’s door, reawakened, ready to split the earth like tulips from their bulbs. Until that time, until Green Park was yellow with daffodils and the sun burned away the last wisps of fog, she would bed down beside hunger and chill.

She recognized the weakness in her bones—that at least was familiar, as good rest had been hard to come by, what with Minna turning her out in one of her inscrutable changes of mood. But beyond the weakness there was something else—a thirst like she had never encountered, burning from throat to eyeballs. She thought first of water, and her stomach roiled. No, water wouldn’t do at all. There was something else, something terribly vital, and if she could only figure out what it was she would shout its name.

“Here.”

Someone shoved a goblet in Poppy’s hand and she drank down its contents greedily, the smell awakening her brain like a lightning strike. It was warm and viscous, savory with a sweet iron tang. She moaned into the goblet, the sound echoing back against the metal in feral harmony.

“Fucking hell,” she gasped when the goblet was empty. “Fucking hell.”

“Quite.”

Her eyes snapped open. “Who are you?”

The woman beside her was turned away, baring the back of her bonnet and frock. She wore heaps of gray fabric. In the dim candlelight, she was a brooding pigeon constructed entirely of rags. “I’m no one. Do you need more?”

Poppy blinked down into the empty goblet, licking her sticky lips. “What was that?”

“Blood.”

“Naw. Pull the other one.”

“I’m not deceiving you.” The woman spoke pristinely, with what might have been the fading hint of an Irish lilt. “It was rabbit’s blood. Not the most fresh but needs must.”

“Why are you giving me blood? This some sort of, what do you call it, demonic practice?”

The woman sighed, finally turning to reveal her face. Her eyes were the strangest hue, a deep, cool iron-gray that grabbed Poppy and held her. Poppy was typically one for riotous color, spending her meager earnings on richly dyed lengths of ribbon to wind around the pale curls that framed her heart-shaped face. How, she wondered in this never-ending moment, could a pair of eyes entirely devoid of color captivate her so completely?

The woman, Poppy realized after a few moments, was speaking.

“Your life will be different now, I’m sorry to say. I hope you don’t have a large family awaiting your return, because you’ll never be able to—”

“Wait.” Poppy held up a hand. “What’s your name?”

The woman blinked. “My name?”

“It’s not an unreasonable question.”

“It’s not. Of course. I—” There was a brief second in which the woman appeared flustered, before a careful blankness overtook her face. “My name is Roisin.”

“Roisin.” Poppy let the syllables roll over her tongue, smooth as treacle, just to see if she could crack that steely facade. It didn’t budge. “I’m Poppy.”

“Yes. I’m aware. Now if we could return to the matter at hand . . .”

Had she been abducted? She wasn’t chained, of course, but there were other ways to keep a cat like Poppy against her will. Taking her away from London would be enough, particularly in this state; she wore only her chemise, with no stockings nor shoes, and had no idea where those needments might be. She took a peek around, discovering she was in a bedchamber, and that she sat on a bench at the foot of a looming, behemoth four-poster. The room was dim, lit only by two thin tapers in heavy brass sconces. Yet despite the lack of light, her eyes could easily discern details. She could see each twist in the mouldering wallpaper, which might have begun as any color, but was now a garden of wilted grays and dust-caked browns. The planks below her naked feet were warped beyond repair. The whole place smelled of disuse, a relic of riches long gone.

“Poppy?”

She jolted to attention. Roisin had been speaking. She wasn’t any longer. Now, she stared, silent, concern hewing her features from granite, carving her cheekbones and chipping lines into her forehead.

“I’m well,” Poppy said. “I don’t know why I’m here, is all.”

“Oh, yes.” Roisin winced. “Terribly sorry about that. There’s much to explain. Though, you seem to be taking this very well.”

“Taking, erm, what exactly?”

Roisin frowned. “What I’ve been—” Comprehension dawned slowly, widening her eyes. “Don’t tell me you weren’t listening.”

“I won’t.” Poppy wiped an itch from her chin. “Tell you, that is.”

Roisin made an aborted movement toward her nose, likely to pinch the bridge. “I’ll say it once more: several nights ago you made the acquaintance of a woman named Cane. She probably plied you with alcohol and payment, as well as, more than likely, a good deal of mesmerism. She drank your blood, and you hers, and now you are a creature of the night. An immortal. A vampire if you’d rather. You will not hunger for food—it will sicken you. You will not thirst for ale—it will taste of filth. The sun will sting your skin. The blood of humans will tempt you to drink. You will not age. You will remain young, healthy, and beautiful for the rest of your days.” Roisin eyed her warily, braced for a reaction. “Do you have any questions?”

Poppy felt the tears welling. “No more food?”

“I—what?”

“No more sausages? Pints? No more jellied eels?” She swiped carelessly at her eyes. “Are you telling me I can’t have my spoonful of treacle before bed?”

“I’m telling you that you will no longer need to sleep.”

She batted that away. “It’s for my health, yeah? The treacle. Surely I can have that. It’s medicinal.”

The blankness on Roisin’s face was no longer careful. She looked stunned beyond the capacity for thoughtful physical reaction. “No.”

Poppy dropped her head to her hands. Her mother had often told her to slow her eating, that her body was becoming too round and too soft, that there was far too much of her. That had never bothered her; food was a pleasure, and the full breasts and dimpled buttocks she earned therefrom were pleasures in themselves. Her bedfellows had certainly never minded. One of her regular partners had often remarked that Poppy’s entire body felt like a breast, and that could only be a good thing. Therefore nothing could stop Poppy from the joys of her delicacies, when she had the dosh for them. Nothing but this. Gone were the days of tasting. No more rice milk, thin and sugary and oh so warm. No more bone broth, hearty and fatty and bolstering on those long nights walking the cobbles. No more cottage loaf or stout or sharp wedges of cheese toasted on the hearth. No more of these lovely things she so enjoyed putting in her mouth. And to that end . . .

“How will I make my living?”

Roisin was staring at her. “You earn money by eating?”

“Sucking pricks, you dolt. Am I meant to take a pay cut because I can’t swallow?”

Roisin stilled. Her lips thinned into the familiar expression of someone caught between bemusement, disgust, and the first wisps of real alarm. “I’ve told you that you’ll outlive everyone you’ve ever met, and you’re concerned about swallowing seed?”

“Oi! Not all of us are dealt the same lot. I won’t have you judging me for my living, not when I don’t know a damn thing about you.”

“Sorry, sorry.” She frowned, tight and small. This expression, too, was a familiar friend: the face of someone reluctantly amused by Poppy and irritated about it.

Roisin had a strong, patrician nose—now vaguely twitching—chiseled out above a mouth entirely devoid of smile lines. Her cheekbones could shelter mice in a rainstorm. It was her eyes that gave her away; they crinkled sweetly at the corners, and in those tiny fronds of mirth Poppy counted her victory.

Her favorite sort of people were like that. Schoolmistresses, priests, the ladies who handed out pamphlets on the perils of vice while Poppy was attempting to earn an honest day’s wage. The sort of people who didn’t dole out smiles easily. The type that required coaxing. Their pleasure, when received, was never false, never meant to flatter. When a man generous with smiles paid for Poppy’s time, she knew he’d disappear the moment he was spent, in a muttered flurry of apologies and buttons. But the frigid, icy ones would always return—the sort from whom she had to drag high spirits kicking and screaming. Like Clive, who hired rooms, allowing Poppy to sleep in blissful solitude when her work was through. Or Henry, who brought her little cakes and treats, and in return she’d make him laugh and laugh. Those men had wanted her, valued her, and not for the fucking. Well, not entirely for the fucking. In the end, all anyone wanted was to laugh. It was as much a service as a pull on the old arbor vitae, and just as rewarding.

“All right, all right,” Poppy allowed. “I’ll figure something else out, shall I?”

“I don’t know the answer. I never—” Roisin shook her head, brow creased in genuine consideration. “I know who to ask. I’ll write a letter.”

Poppy pressed her lips together and swallowed a laugh. In its absence, she realized she was absurdly touched. “Thank you.”

“But your stomach will rebel against human food. Your, uh, other faculties will be intact.” Roisin turned her face away at that, apparently in discomfort. “The rest of your body, aside from your digestion, will function as it always has. Better, in fact. You’ll never be ill. You’ll run faster. You’ll be far stronger. You may . . . I couldn’t say. I ought to dress.” Roisin rose, just a touch unsteadily. Poppy spared a wisp of curiosity for what the woman wore when she was comfortable. If she were ever comfortable.

“And,” Roisin went on, “I suppose you’d like a minute with your thoughts? I daresay I’ve given you a great deal to mull over.”

“Yes, that would be welcome.” No, it wouldn’t. Poppy never enjoyed quiet moments with her own mind. She preferred the joviality of drink and company, the din of a public house gilding the dark edges of her private thoughts. But there was no route nor reason to express any of that to Roisin. Roisin would dress, and then she’d come back. The stiff ones always came back.

Roisin hesitated by the entrance. “If you have any questions . . .”

“I’ll think some up.” She pulled a reassuring smile from her well-worn collection. “Don’t worry.”

At the click of the closing door, Poppy groaned, the silence of the dust-choked room swallowing the sound. Any reasonable person would doubt what Roisin had just told her. She ought to grasp at an earthly explanation for why a woman like Roisin might try to convince Poppy she had become an impossible thing. But Poppy couldn’t deny the change in her own body. Her sight, even in this dim room, carried farther than it had since her thirteenth summer, when a passing doctor recommended spectacles her family could ill afford. Her skin was smooth, the little rose garden of nicks and imperfections around her nail beds gone fallow. And the smells. Outside the heavy drapes, greenery forced its way in, stubborn and wet, teeming with fresh, split-leaf fragrance. In her improved ears, Poppy heard the familiar notes of a cricket orchestra.

She wasn’t in London. At least that was certain.

She rubbed her face, piecing together shards of memory. There had been a woman. A tall, beautiful, unquestionably wealthy woman, who had pressed a pouch of coins into Poppy’s hand and asked, unsubtly, for her company over the nearest pint. Stares greeted them as they tromped into the local, the woman dressed as though she were asking for her pockets to be thoroughly and mercilessly picked. Fortunately, the landlady was well acquainted with Poppy’s odd range of companions, and managed to act as though nothing was amiss, leading the assembled patrons to follow suit. Still, Poppy felt the press of a dozen gazes. If the roughs had their way with the strange lady’s belongings—well, it hadn’t been Poppy’s idea to dress like that, had it? Any grown woman should have known not to wear silk in this part of the city, least of all for the puddles of mysterious filth that a floor-length frock would soak up like bread in broth.

Despite the ignorant dress and the—oh hell, those jewels had to be paste, hadn’t they?—the woman had a fearsomeness to her. Her fingers were slim but strong, with long, well-kept nails. Her collarbone was hewn from marble, her neck like a swan’s. Swans, Poppy knew, were not to be crossed. They didn’t honk; they hissed.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” the woman cooed. Her voice was as low and husky as fog. “It’s a lovely spot.”

“’Tisn’t.”

The woman laughed easily. “I was being polite.”

“Of course. You’re a lady.” Poppy showed off her most knowing smirk. “And so am I.”

“Then perhaps we should have met at a teahouse.” The woman raised a manicured eyebrow. “Or at a more appropriate hour.”

“You chose the hour, mate. Not me.”

The woman’s dark eyes traveled up Poppy’s body, spending a long, leisurely moment on her breasts. It raised the hair on the back of her neck, just as it sent a pleasant rush between her legs.

“You may call me Cane.”

Poppy wasn’t entirely sure how or when it had happened, but she suddenly discovered a pint of bitter sweating before her. She reached out to take a bracing sip.

“Like the Bible?”

“The very same. Though spelled differently. C-A-N-E.”

“Of course.” Poppy couldn’t read much beyond her own name. It wasn’t for lack of trying—she’d had schooling. The letters just had a pesky habit of darting beyond her reach. “C-A-N-E.”

“Well done, you.”

Poppy didn’t enjoy condescension, but she loved praise. Her body warred with itself, revulsion and attraction warming her skin in equal measure.

“You’ll find I have many skills,” Poppy told her, attempting to regain her composure. She realized, distantly, that she was sweating.

“I don’t doubt that. You’re a clever little thing, aren’t you?” Cane snapped her fingers and Poppy stood, not bothering to wonder why she did so, why it required so little thought. “Come along. We have places to be.”

The memories flitted through her skull like butterflies, landing for only seconds at a time. Poppy was in a lush set of rooms, Cane’s lady’s maid squeezing her body into a frock that was just slightly too small, her breasts spilling out of the top. Cane watched, silent and assessing, and Poppy had never felt more exposed, more vulnerable. Her skin crawled, but her quim was wet and aching to be touched. Cane rose and pinched a nipple through the soft fabric of the garment and Poppy couldn’t hold back her ragged, wanton moan.

Poppy sat in a chair at a chophouse, or music hall, or private parlor—there was no way of knowing. There were people all around, well dressed and perfumed, but Poppy had eyes only for Cane. Cane’s fingers, delicately holding a champagne flute, tipping it into Poppy’s open mouth.

“Drink. Good girl. Drink it all. You want to please me, don’t you?”

Poppy was in someone’s arms, her back to their front. It was Cane. She whispered in Poppy’s ear as her deft hands traveled across Poppy’s naked body.

“Please!” Poppy wailed, bucking into Cane’s teasing fingers. “Harder.”

“Hush, now. I’ll take my time with you.”

And so she did, graduating from teasing circles to firm, punishing strokes, coaxing crisis after crisis out of Poppy’s tingling, throbbing body.

“Good girl. But we aren’t finished yet.”

And then she bit Poppy where neck met shoulder, flesh yielding to Cane’s sharp teeth and clever tongue, and Poppy came so hard her vision blackened, screaming and writhing, warm spend gushing from between her legs in wave after unceasing wave.

“Oh, you’re a sweet thing. Far too fun to drain. I think I’ll keep you around for a bit longer, shall I?”

More impressions, more ragged bits of memory. Being fed raspberries from Cane’s chilled hands. Wrapped in a blanket and bundled into a coach. Cane whispering “Hush, now,” and “More sleep, I think.” More coupling, more powerful, terrifying bites and their ensuing, earth-shattering pleasure. And then, this bed.

“Quickly.” The cool flesh of a split wrist, sticky with blood, pressing against her slack lips. “Quickly, drink of me.”

Then, only pain. Blistering hot in one moment, freezing cold the next. Her bones had ached like they yearned to force their way out of her body, tearing muscle and tendon and skin. Her fingers and feet had gone numb, then stinging, then screaming pain, needles scraping and poking her flesh. Her muscles had locked and released, seized and spasmed and twisted. Her organs had become a frightened mouse, her body the powerful snake digesting it. She had screamed, her voice a ragged, baleful thing, shaking the walls and the floor.

But she hadn’t been alone.

Someone had stroked her hair. Someone had watched over her. Someone had held and bathed her, dressed her in the clean, unfamiliar chemise she currently wore. Someone had stripped the bed and taken the bloodied sheets away. Someone had run their fingers over her burning eyelids and said, “It’s all right. It’s nearly over.”

That someone hadn’t been Cane.

Poppy stumbled to her feet, realizing as she did so that she was shaking. She peered out the window. It was night. The curtains were heavy, perfect to block out a sun that stung. She wondered whether, in time, she’d grow to miss the sun. Luckily, she had always been a night creature, ever since her childhood on the pig farm, sneaking out to stare at the endless stars. Then in London, starless nights working and fucking and laughing, drinking and swearing and, on occasion, running and fighting. The night was when people like Poppy could thrive, those who were never meant to clerk or serve or marry. The debauched found a home in the night, and Poppy prided herself on being as thoroughly debauched as a girl of her station could possibly manage.

She slipped from the chamber into a wide, dingy hallway. A cheerful little bouquet of larkspur and geranium sat in a pot beside the door. There must be gardens here, wherever “here” was. She had never been inside the stately country home that her family’s pig farm supplied, but she had imagined it might look something like this, with paneled wood walls and ornate rugs covering the floor. The master of that big house—Poppy had only seen him up close on the one occasion her father brought her along while he paid his rent—probably wouldn’t have allowed his home to become as shabby as this one. That landlord had been stuffy and fastidious, unmoved by Poppy’s father’s emotional pleas. He had so carefully turned up his nose at the pig farmer’s hungry daughter, used as an ultimately ineffectual prop. Poppy had imagined he treated his home as he did his tenants: without compromise.

His nibs would not have abided the dust graying the mounted portraits, nor the wayward eye of the pathetically decayed taxidermy fox. His drapes would have been drawn in the day and shut at night, tassels tied away, not hanging loose with the air of a farmhand on break. He wouldn’t have looked at his bare feet and thought, as Poppy did now, that it would have been wise to wear shoes, lest one split one’s foot open on an errant, filthy nail and succumb to infection.

Although—hadn’t Roisin told Poppy she’d now be free from disease? Bolstered, she plodded on barefooted.

As expected, there were no maids to encounter in the innumerable rooms into which Poppy poked her head. No signs of life at all, for that matter. Instead, she spotted a moldy library that smelled of the forest and a garderobe that might have been one of Dante’s more macabre imaginings. A brace of unused bedchambers huddled uncertainly at the top of a stairway, as though even they couldn’t recall their intended purpose. Eventually, she wound up in the kitchen, which was as derelict as one might expect in a home where no one ate food. On the far wall, an open door let in a sliver of moonlight.

Roisin was crouched on the ground outside. She startled as Poppy approached.

“Oh,” Poppy breathed. “Oh.”

Roisin’s eyes were wide and frightened, her unsmiling mouth smeared lurid red. She hunched over the unfortunate form of a dead hare, its blood dripping from her bared teeth. Quickly, she schooled her face and snapped her mouth shut.

“Pardon me,” she stammered, reaching into her pocket for a handkerchief and wiping her lips. “That was most unbecoming.”

“No, please, don’t stop on my account. It was—” Odd. There had been a bare second before Roisin had fully awoken to Poppy’s presence, in which she had been as an animal, feral and wild. Not eating, but feeding. It had been horrible, but entrancing. Frightfully beautiful and beautifully frightful, like watching a goshawk swoop down and snatch a field mouse. Poppy lived to see the buttoned-up unbutton, to unleash the wild, incautious beast that slumbered within every human soul. Roisin’s beast was almost beyond imagining, and even now, just moments after watching it slip away, Poppy longed for it to return.

“You can keep going,” Poppy whispered into the reverent night. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“No, no, it’s unseemly.”

“Please.” Poppy stepped forward. The clover was dew-damp and midnight-chilled, but the cold barely touched her. “I want to watch.”

Roisin’s mouth fell open, exposing the white points of fangs just past the reddened flesh of her upper lip. She looked stunned, transfixed. Bathed in moonlight, she was an apparition pulled out of time, fixed in a moment that stretched on for decades.

“Y-you want . . .”

“To watch.” She watched the shiver run from Roisin’s lifted shoulders to her swaying knees. “If you’ll let me.”

Roisin’s steel eyes flicked to the ground. Her knees softened once, twice, and then—

“No, not tonight.” She swallowed thickly, straightening her clothes. “It’s, uh, impudent.”

“Of course.” She brushed off the disappointment, making a note to ask again, once she’d fully endeared herself to this woman. “You’ve changed your clothes I see.”

“What? Oh. Yes.” Roisin wore men’s clothes: simple breeches, shirtsleeves, and a waistcoat, a watch chain peeking out from the left pocket. Like Poppy, Roisin wore no shoes. Her hair, which had previously hid under a bonnet, was now tied in a low queue. It was wet-earth-dark and bone straight, glistening and touchable under the stars. “I prefer to dress casually while I’m here.”

“Where is ‘here’?”

“Covenly. The family seat.”

In the dark, the grounds stretched on and on, clover and wildflower and overgrown shrub, with forest encroaching at all sides. The stars fought their way through shifting fog, winks of diamond in wool. “Whose family?”

“Yours, as it happens.” Roisin lowered herself to the ground and tossed the remains of her hare into the underbrush. She hesitated before tapping the space beside her in invitation. “Both of ours. Creatures in our line—of our sire and hers before her—have used this house for centuries.”

“It doesn’t seem like anyone is using it now,” Poppy observed, finding a seat on the springy earth.

“Well, there are far fewer of us than there once were.” Roisin placed her hands behind her, tilting her face to the sky. “It’s a long life. Between long-held grudges, the odd tontine, and the world-weariness, many of us were lost.”

“Tontine?”

“A betting scheme. The last one living gets the pot.”

“So, among immortals . . .”

“Murder is incentivized, yes.” She let out a long breath. “It’s all very juvenile, of course. Most vampires, if they’ve been alive for centuries, are wealthy. Some merely adequately, some blindingly. All it takes is a single monetary investment and a bit of patience. And even so, they’re placing bets on their lives.”

“Why?”

“To feel. To remember that life isn’t meant to . . .” She broke off. Her neck was long and slender, and Poppy watched it shift as she swallowed. “It’s difficult for one to find meaning when one’s life is this long. A life this long is unnatural.”

“And you?” Poppy asked, bristling slightly at the caustic tone in which Roisin said unnatural. “What do you do with your very long life?”

“Me?” Roisin smiled weakly. It didn’t turn up at the corners, more slid from one side of her face to the other. “Right now, my only occupation is to teach you how we live. Come. It’s nearly dawn.”

Roisin led her through the creaking halls, back to what Poppy had already begun to think of as her bedchamber—she had had so many homes in so few years, the habit of nestling into a new burrow had turned into a reflex. There was a chest with fresh linens up against a wall, beneath a sconce housing a candle burned down to the socket. Together, they made up the bed.

“It looks lovely,” Poppy remarked. “But you did say neither of us will be sleeping in it.”

“Not sleeping, no.”

Poppy raised an eyebrow. Roisin’s eyes widened, and she frantically shook her head.

“No! No, no, no, I meant—oh, saints.” She ran her hands over her restrained hair. “Yes, yes, laugh at me. I deserve it. No, I meant, well, we don’t need to sleep. But the day does weaken us, and it isn’t natural for a creature to live without any sort of rest. When you’ve grown a bit used to being a vampire, you can do as you please during the day. But now, as you are a newborn, I suggest we enter a trance.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I’ll show you.” Roisin considered for a moment, then sat on the bed. “I suspect you won’t mind us sharing, will you?”

Poppy smirked, flopping down beside her. “I promise I won’t attempt anything untoward.”

“Yes, well. See that you don’t.” Roisin’s jaw shifted, her tight expression valiantly fending off a reaction, and Poppy’s stomach flipped for the smile huddled under Roisin’s tongue. “None of the other beds are in any sort of fit state, and I’m far too coddled to go back to the coffins.”

“Coffins?”

“Yes, coffins. It isn’t as dire as it sounds. Coffins block out the sun and they’re conveniently person-shaped. And we can enter trances for long periods of time, so a vampire may choose a coffin to travel.”

“Avoid the boat fare?”

“Yes, actually, and the questions. Imagine sailing the Atlantic, attempting to explain to the passengers and crew why you spend the whole day shut up in your cabin and the whole night competing with the ship’s cat for rats.”

“Vampires drink from rats?”

“Vampires drink from people, but some animals serve as a decent substitute. Oh, come now, what did I say about looking at me like that? Rats are a far less horrific choice than humans.”

Poppy shivered. “I’d prefer a hare.”

“As would I,” Roisin replied, with some approval. “Luckily, the grounds are absolutely riddled with them. Come now. Stop distracting me and lie down, please.”

It was the less appealing of two options, but Poppy did as bid, shimmying so her head rested on a pillow. The last thing she saw before closing her eyes was Roisin peering down at her.

“Good,” Roisin murmured. The bed dipped, and Poppy knew that they were lying side by side. Comically stiff with a good twelve inches of space between them, but still somehow intimate. “Now try to empty your mind.”

“Believe you me, it’s sufficiently empty. I have my old schoolmistress’s good word on the subject.”

“Hush. Empty it of thoughts, I mean.”

“Again, my schoolmistress would—”

“Hush.” Poppy hushed. “Imagine your mind as a blank space, maybe a silent street filled with fog, or a cloudless stretch of sky. When a thought arrives, acknowledge it, then gently push it away. Feel your body, cloth against your skin, the blanket below you. Loosen your limbs, your jaw, your fingers. Let all tension go, and float away.”

Poppy was not a swift learner, and thusly prepared to face this trance business with some frustration. To her surprise, it was laughably easy. One minute she was imagining a pale stretch of blankness, and the next, she had entered a twilight state, somewhere between sleeping and wakefulness. She was aware of the room around her, the bed underneath, the weight of Roisin beside her—and yet, she was elsewhere, softly bolstered by Roisin’s sonorous voice, and, when it went silent, by nothing at all. The drapes were drawn tight, but somehow she knew that the sun rose outside, hot as sizzling butter in a skillet, then set. She knew that other creatures left their warrens and returned, rabbits and foxes, birds and other things that flew and chittered and vomited up worms for their young. She knew, when the night crawled beneath her skin and tugged, that it was time to rise.