Chapter Text
Lethbridge Castle loomed over the edge of the gorge like a brooding black dragon, the dark stones of its jagged towers lit by a flash of lightning in the night sky. Osgood quickly leaned back from the window of the carriage, her stomach growing rather queasy at the sight of the very narrow bridge across the deep chasm with the thundering river below, the speed of the horses never faltering even as the swaying slats of the bridge grew slick and treacherous with the pelting rain.
Still, Osgood did not close the carriage window’s curtain. Even her terror of heights and ever-worsening susceptibility to motion sickness were not quite enough to snuff out her curiosity. She wanted to see every inch she could of the castle that was to be her home for at least the next year of her life.
Possibly also the last year of your life, she thought with a shiver that had nothing to do with the icy rain outside; the inside of the carriage was lushly appointed with purple velvet cushions and slightly more homely woolen blankets that insulated the small space quite nicely. If the worst rumors are true and ‘released from your contract’ is code for the vampire draining the last drop of your blood…
The carriage jolted over what had to be a missing slat in the bridge, and Osgood gave a high-pitched yelp that would have been very embarrassing if anyone else had been in the carriage with her. The shackles on her wrists clanked nearly as loudly as the yelp, and her knuckles turned white where she gripped the dark mahogany armrests.
When Colonel Shindi had shackled her wrists to the chains in the carriage interior, he had assured her that it was for her own safety. Osgood had taken this with several shakers full of salt at the time, but she had to concede now that he might have been telling the truth; if she were the kind of person that terror made bolt instead of freeze, things could have gone very poorly for an unrestrained Osgood right about now.
Bloody oath of fealty should ask for an engineer next year, she thought, her breath whistling in her chest as she struggled to get her pounding heart under control. No more of this vague ‘a healthy person between the ages of nineteen and twenty-eight,’ get someone who can fix this bridge in between being bled; Lady Kate might be immortal but she could think about her servants--
They did not, however, tumble into the canyon; the bridge held, and the horses thundered on. Also, she didn’t see the dark silhouette of Colonel Shindi tumbling through the air to be swept away in the whitewater current below, so she had to concede that if he could maintain his far more precarious perch at the front of the coach, the bridge was probably more sturdy than she was giving it credit for.
Probably.
Still, she heaved a sigh of relief as the carriage wheels made their last jolting leap over the wooden slats and onto the rocky road at the other side of the chasm. Another flash of lightning lit up the cascading rivulets of rain down the deep black stones of the outer castle wall. Through the polished wood and plush cushions of the carriage she could hear the colonel bellowing something, though she could not make out the words. He hammered his fist against the great oaken gates, the thuds barely distinguishable beneath the thunder
Still, someone must have heard him, because the gates creaked open with a sound like a soul being rended from a body--
Stop it, Osgood told herself sternly. There’s nothing to be frightened of. Villages have been sending youths to fulfill the vow of fealty for centuries and none of the worst rumors have ever been substantiated. Besides, even if Osgood’s life was about to be cut shorter than she would have liked, she was going to meet a vampire before (possibly right before) that happened, which was very exciting. The scientific literature on vampires was very thin—well, the scientific literature that you could buy off a traveling peddler in a remote village was very thin, and it wasn’t as if anybody had been going to pay for Osgood to go to university in one of the larger city-states—not to mention often very sensational, and contradictory. Some of the properties attributed to vampires struck Osgood as utterly absurd, and yet they were so widespread that she felt they must have had a basis in fact at some point. Now she was about to get a chance to do some real, in-person observation of their natural habitat and behaviors!
Very, very close observation.
The thick oak gates crashed shut behind the carriage, and Osgood gulped, eagerness and trepidation a tangled mess in a heart that was now firmly lodged in her throat.
She was now in the stronghold of Lady Kate, and even if she later wished it, there would be escape.
#
The shackles came off immediately. Whether this was because Osgood was no longer in danger of bolting out of the carriage into a gorge or whether it was because Osgood bolting at all was now a moot point was still up in the air, but Colonel Shindi was incredibly proper and polite about it, to the point where Osgood nearly found herself apologizing for the bother.
He handed over the care of the carriage and the horses to a Lieutenant Bishop, a burly young man who shared the same dark uniform of the vampire’s mercenaries, and like Shindi had a cloth bandage tied tightly around his left wrist. The colonel barked orders for her luggage to be taken in by a contingent of servants, before leading Osgood deeper into the castle. Even with him conscientiously shortening his stride, Osgood struggled to keep up; her breath was still catching a little in her chest, and brief as her time in the courtyard had been before they took shelter, it had been enough for the pelting rain to utterly drench her outer layers, which now dripped down onto the polished stone floors, making treacherous puddles. She tried to make an apologetic face at the servants rushing quickly to sop the water from the floors; she noticed that a few of them also had the bandages on their wrists, mostly the left ones.
Does she prefer the radial or the ulnar vein? Osgood wondered, but this didn’t seem like the time to stop and quiz the servants on the particulars of their mistress’ feeding habits. Though it did seem a bit odd that she required a new thrall every year if she had this many subjects who were willing to tithe blood to her. On the other hand, some of the vampiric exploits that Osgood had read about in the deeply inadequate scientific literature she had been able to get her hands on would be quite energy intensive; what was the required caloric intake for shape-shifting into a wolf or a bat or mist, and back again?
“You may freshen up here,” Colonel Shindi said stiffly, halting before a door and holding it open. “Lady Kate will be down to greet you shortly.”
“Right,” Osgood said, only a little faintly. She stepped through the door, heard the hinges begin to squeak closed behind her with Shindi still outside, and looked back quickly. “Er, when you say ‘greet,’ do you mean—”
The old soldier’s face softened for a second. “Just greet, miss,” he said gently. “She won’t drink from you tonight.”
“The ‘miss’ isn’t really necess--”
But he was already letting go of the door, and solid oak slid shut with deep thud, followed by the soft click of the latch.
One year, Osgood reminded herself as she grasped at the edge of the wall, suddenly feeling a little dizzy. The terms of the oath of fealty are a thrall from randomly chosen village, to be sent to the castle for a year. Even if he’s lying or mistaken and she wants to feed, she’s not going to fully drain you on the first night.
Forcing her breath to slow, she took in the room. It was small and windowless, holding the heat of the brazier well without being stifling; fresh air with the sweet taste of rain came in through grates high in the walls. The stone of these interior walls was a pale grey in contrast to the outer black, a few tapestries of forest scenes in an old-fashioned style hanging from them; below Osgood’s feet, a lush and slightly more modern carpet was rapidly becoming sodden from the drippings of her hem. Was this to be her bedroom? Doubtful; there was no bed, only a lounge next to the brazier, overstuffed as if someone could not quite remember the amount of cushioning required for a human frame and had overcompensated. Or perhaps that was merely Osgood’s fancy. There was a mirror on the wall next to the lounge, so perhaps the literature had been wrong about that as well.
‘Freshen up,’ the colonel had said. Osgood carefully draped her cloak before the brazier to try to dry it out as best she could, and stepped towards the mirror to take stock.
She looked like a bedraggled rat.
Beauty had never been her strong suit, but Osgood determined to do the best she could. She wrung out her hair, and did her best to corral it back into a tidy braid, though of course now it wanted nothing more than to frizz out in a great storm cloud of its own. She pressed the worst of the travel wrinkles out of her white dress with her hands, and pinched her cheeks to try to bring some color into them. She couldn’t say she looked pretty, but she looked somewhat more presentable.
And maybe a pretty face wasn’t the kind of thing a vampire cared about. Osgood contemplated her high neckline in the mirror. Should she undo a few buttons? It would be rather immodest, but it wasn’t as if the vampire’s interest would be prurient, and she might very well want to, well...inspect the goods. As if were.
Osgood’s trembling fingers slid one pearl button through a buttonhole, exposing an inch of her neck’s bare skin, blanched white from the cold.
The thing was, no one back home had known what the vampire would value most either. It had been over a century since the lottery system had chosen their village to supply a thrall in fulfillment of the oath of fealty to Lady Kate, and most of the other villagers had not been cursed with Osgood’s level of curiosity. They had lived the decades of their lives in blissful ignorance, convinced, as far as Osgood could tell, that if they ever inquired for further details from their neighbors who had been called upon to surrender a youth as tax for the vampire’s continued protection, then the very act of inquiry would draw her notice to them.
...in retrospect, in was probably a good thing that no one had ever paid much attention to what books Osgood bought from the traveling peddler.
(They had been more interested that she bought any books at all. Osgood had it on good authority that her supposedly profligate ways after the death of her parents had given the town plenty of gossip fodder to chew on, at least until they saw Chloe’s new dresses.)
Osgood wasn’t supposed to know that the town council was so ignorant of the vampire’s preferences, but she had been curious, and so she had, well, eavesdropped a bit. For a value of a bit that included hiding in an alcove in the town hall three hours before they were due to discuss the tithe.
“No, not her, she’s related to half the town, do you want our houses burned down to cinders? Not to mention a rat’s chance in hell of being elected again—”
“Well, we can’t go with your choice, her father own half the businesses on the thoroughfare and has loans out to the other half, we’d never--”
“Does it have to be a girl? It just says youth…”
“And be a hand short at the harvest? Do you want to starve to death this winter?”
“Don’t be so dramatic—
Osgood’s face flushed as she recalled the way the town council had spoken as they made their decision:
“Well, what about one of the Osgood girls then? They sold the apothecary after the plague took the parents, so we won’t be down a business, and no relatives to complain either.”
“Chloe’s as good as engaged to that Cartwright lad; you know they’ve been stepping out of an evening. If we’re thinking a maiden would be...Petronella would be a better bet if Lady Kate would prefer her meals...”
“You’re thinking of dragons, surely--”
In the mirror, Osgood saw the pink flush racing down her neck, the heat of embarrassment burning across her chest. She couldn’t say she was experienced, exactly, but she hadn’t qualified as a maiden for a few years now. There had been that traveling peddler’s daughter who had invited her out for a walk by the river which had culminated a few rather fumbling but enjoyable embraces. There had been that pair of soldiers from the visiting regiment who had issued a similar invitation, culminating in embraces that, while briefer, had nonetheless had their own high points.
It had not escaped Osgood’s notice that the few people who had expressed an interest in her physical charms were those who were already planning an imminent exit from the village, though she sometimes wished it had.
At the time it had felt like something precious, to have a moment just for herself, away from the town’s scrutiny, their judgment. But now she wondered...
She bit her lip, her eyes behind their thick spectacles squinting worriedly at her reflection, her fingers fretting at another pearl button.
The councillors had said nothing about the vampire’s requirements when they had come to her, all oily smiles and vaguely panicked eyes as they spoke instead of the great honor of being chosen and the benevolence that Lady Kate was always said to show her favorites, and so there had been nothing for Osgood to refute. Not that she probably would have tried if they had; after all, a chance to really meet a vampire! To observe, to learn--
And yet what if it were true, that virginity imparted some special quality or...flavor...that the vampire desired? Would Lady Kate be able to somehow sense her indiscretions, smell them on her? Or perhaps it would not strike her right away, but there might come a moment, when push came to shove—or rather when fang came to neck—when the truth would out and she would find her offering wanting?
That final, almost offhand exchange as the councillors closed their meeting:
“‘Healthy, though, it says...you don’t think the asthma will be a problem?”
“Can’t imagine it takes much effort to lie there and be fed upon.”
A dismissive snort. “No, I suppose not. And Lady Kate certainly can’t complain about the portions.”
“A full meal!”
The flush that greeted Osgood’s eyes in the mirror deepened and reddened. For a moment she was right back there in that dark alcove, unable to move or make a sound as the town council made their japes. It was nothing she could not have guessed before from the preponderance of evidence: the mix of pitying and snide glances whenever she had entered a room, the awkward pauses before responses when she had tried to join a conversation, the queries disguised as concern that greeted her at every gathering. But it was one thing to suspect, and another to know, that the people you had grown up around your entire life had reduced you in their minds to just--
She tried not to look at her body in the mirror, the way it bulged and strained at her best dress, second-hand even before it had come to her from her older sister, out of fashion in a way that had been just barely redeemable on someone with Chloe’s classic beauty but that on her, only seemed to echo and emphasize a certain innate frumpiness of the soul. She did not measure up to the thralls in her books of vampire lore; the women in those painstakingly detailed etchings were always so slight and willowy, all elegant limbs and artistically exposed collarbones, their hair tousled enchantingly even as their eyes widened in terror. Delicate and deer-like, the perfect prey; who would not prefer them to--
There was a polite cough.
Osgood whirled around, her breath seizing in her chest.
Lady Kate stood a few paces behind her, still as a rock, her pale skin glowing with the light of her the brazier. Her eyes dark flints.
“Oh!” Osgood said. She swayed for a second, her heart trying to leap out of her chest; wheezed before she could catch herself. “The books were right about mirrors, then.” Another thought occurred to her; a quick glance confirmed that the door was still shut. “And the mist. You came through the grate?”
The vampire looked rather nonplussed for a second. “Yes. Apologies for startling you.” A blink, so deliberate it was inhuman. “But it seemed like you were considering disrobing further, and it didn’t seem hospitable to allow you continue without letting you know I was there.”
Osgood flushed even more, which she hadn’t thought was possible. “Yes, uh—the rain, and, well—” I thought maybe you would be thirsty and I was contemplating the most convenient and least embarrassing way to facilitate that seemed suddenly a terribly gauche thing to say. Why couldn’t she remember the kinds of things the thralls in the books said? “My clothes are all wet—”
Lady Kate’s gaze swiveled hawk-like to the state of Osgood’s clothing, and Osgood felt her breath catch in her throat slightly at the speed of it, the clear inhuman economy of motion. Was this what a mouse felt, looking up to see narrowed amber eyes and descending claws gleaming in the sun?
Except mice fled, didn’t they, and Osgood didn’t think she could have fled even if she had tried. There was something in Kate’s gaze that locked her in place, even as her heart beat a rapid tattoo against her ribs.
That utter focus, like an arrow loosed directly at her...it was terrifying. It was...not entirely unpleasant.
Lady Kate was beautiful. Perhaps that was part of it. The official portraits had not done her justice. They might have captured the angle of her cheekbones, the flawlessness of her skin, the aristocratic length of her nose, but in her actual presence...Osgood’s eyes, almost against her will, traced the fine crimson silk that clung to her slender frame, sleeves that ended in elegant, long-fingered hands with scarlet nails like splashes of blood, a thin ruffle of dark lace that nestled against the hollow of her alabaster throat. She stood so still, her face still too, almost as if it sculpted from fine china, but for her eyes, which flashed with the swift surety of a predator.
“So they are,” the vampire said, and Osgood’s mind flailed for a moment, what had they been talking about, oh, right, the clothes. “I’ll escort you to your chambers shortly, but first—”
Osgood blinked, and suddenly Lady Kate was inches from her; she had moved like lightning. Osgood gulped hard, and just barely kept from stuttering back a step, which would have put her foot into the brazier.
“Um, hi?”
Lady Kate’s lips parted slightly, the gleaming edges of fangs just visible behind her bloodless lips. She inhaled deeply, almost as if she were trying to breathe Osgood in.
Osgood could feel her heart beating in her ears; she was still flushed, as if all the blood in her body were obeying a silent command to yield itself up in offering. Would it happen now? Would Lady Kate grip at her jaw and turn her head to the side, bury her face in her neck, hot breath tickling as she bit down--
“No garlic,” Lady Kate said. “For at least the past ten days.”
Another blink, and she was no longer crowded so close to Osgood, though the distance was not as great as it had been at the start either.
It took what felt like an eternity, but which was probably just several seconds, for Osgood to parse her words.
“Oh!” she said, trying to breathe again. “Right. Yes. That was in the instructions, wasn’t it?”
“You read the instructions,” Lady Kate said. “Will wonders never cease.”
“Do people...not usually read the instructions?” Osgood hazarded.
Lady Kate shrugged, a single fluid motion that stopped abruptly; someone copying a movement seen before. “Don’t read it, read it but think it doesn’t apply to them, read it and think it applies to them but decide they want insurance anyway...take your pick.”
“That seems...not smart,” Osgood said.
“Oh?”
“Well, you’ve got a lot of mercenaries,” Osgood pointed out. “They seem very efficient, and probably not vampires, given that at least some of them walked beneath the sun, although to be honest, there are several accounts of sun-walking vampires, so I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand, but the very possibility of sun-walking vampires admits the possibility of garlic-tolerating vampires, so the point would be moot—”
“And what point would that be?” Lady Kate said dryly.
Oh, right, the point. Osgood had left it behind, rather. She crimsoned further. “Well, that even if eating garlic was enough to incapacitate you, you have other means at your disposal of...well, containing the situation. And the protection wouldn’t last forever, so then, I assume you could...make your displeasure known.”
“An interesting conjecture,” Lady Kate said. She did actually sound interested, and was that a hint of amusement? Osgood hoped it wasn’t the kind of amusement of a cat playing with its food, but it was so hard to read the vampire’s still face. “More interesting given the variety of literature we found in your luggage. Or should I say, the lack of variety?”
“The lack of—” Osgood’s brain caught up to some other salient facts in the conversation. “You looked through my things?”
Foolish to be so shocked, she thought in the next second. The very blood in her veins belonged to the vampire now. She would feel Osgood weaken under her as she fed, hear what cries or gasps she was not able to suppress as the lady took her due; next to that, what was her seeing a few odd books and some underwear you wished were less patched and threadbare than they actually were?
There was a strange flicker in those predator eyes—was that guilt? Gone in the next second, and Osgood was probably wrong.
“Merely a precaution,” Lady Kate said. Now that careful, cool interest reigned once more, a hawk watching a rustle of reeds and waiting to see what small form might be spooked into the open to be snatched up in its talons. “Over the centuries, we’ve found it best to intercept such stakes and holy symbols and herbs at the first opportunity, before any enterprising monster slayer takes an action they later regret.” She smiled, and it put all of her teeth fully on display, including the two upper fangs--not quite as long as I expected, but maybe they’re retractable, and ooooh, they are very, very sharp-- “Some of them found their regret to last a good long time.”
“Right,” Osgood said faintly. She had never been threatened before; was it supposed to make you this light-headed? The part of her not wholly preoccupied with being threatened was furiously reminding her of how much of a social faux pas it would probably be to inquire if that was indeed the vampire’s full fang length. “So it’s a good thing I didn’t bring anything like that then. Because I did read the rules.”
“Perhaps a good thing, but at the moment merely a puzzling thing,” Lady Kate said. “Given, as I have said, the contents of your books. Most of your brethren with delusions that they could rid the land of my ‘reign of terror’”—her lip curled derisively; it was the first facial expression of hers that looked natural, and not like she was trying on a mask-- “have not come armed so flimsily.”
“Armed so—oh no!” Osgood said. “That’s not what I—that is to say, I understand the confusion, especially if you’ve had problems before, but I don’t have the books because I want to kill you. I just—I’ve always been fascinated by tales of the supernatural, and vampires in particular, I mean naturally, given your history with our country, and I know the books probably aren’t the best but they were all I could find and I thought, well, some reference material is probably better than nothing, and if any of the authors are still alive I could write them notes with any corrections, which I’m sure they’d appreciate--”
Lady Kate raised a hand to cut off the flow of words. The vampire looked a bit like she had been knocked back by a strong wind; Osgood was familiar with this expression on humans’ faces when she really got going on a subject of interest, but apparently vampires found her enthusiasm rather startling as well.
“Back up just one second,” Lady Kate said. “And explain to what, exactly, you need reference books for if not to kill me?”
“Er...to study you?”
For one second, the vampire looked so gobsmacked that she almost appeared human.
Then she regained her composure. “Excuse me?”
“Only with your permission, obviously,” Osgood said hastily. “Nothing invasive, unless you’re—but really I was mostly thinking a questionnaire, to start with, just to eliminate some of the more extreme—not that I’d want to invade your privacy, you don’t have to agree, I mean, obviously you don’t have to agree, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, but I just—you’re very interesting, biologically I mean, well, I’m sure you’re interesting in other ways as well—” stop rambling, Osgood!-- “and obviously I’m not expecting you to do anything, nobody could expect you to do anything, you could eat me anytime, it was just an idea, but I’ve always been, well, very interested, and if you don’t eat me and I am here for a year it could at least, well, help me understand you better?”
The vampire blinked slowly, as if holding herself steady against a rushing torrent as she absorbed the information. “I can’t devour you at any time, actually. I do take my contracts seriously.”
“Of course,” Osgood managed. She had figured, but still, there was relief in hearing it confirmed. The muscles of her shoulders loosened slightly. “Are you, um, hungry now? Er, thirsty?”
Lady Kate’s eyes flicked to Osgood’s neck and away. She took a careful step back.
“I have fed,” she said. “And if I still thirsted, I wouldn’t drink from you as of yet. I’ve no idea where you’ve been.”
Osgood flushed impossibly deeper. “Um, some of the people in my town thought—there wasn’t anything, er, explicit in the contract, but if you require a maiden I wouldn’t want you to think any deception was inte—”
“I don’t care about that,” Lady Kate interrupted mercifully. “But I have physicians on staff who will need to examine you, to test you for poisons subtler than the allium family, as well as any rare diseases that may make your service unwise, weigh you--”
“Weigh me?” Osgood squeaked, dismayed. In the next second, she felt foolish. She looked down at her feet. “Sorry. Yes. Never mind.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Lady Kate cock her head, studying her. A pause, and then:
“It’s for your own safety. To see how much blood I may take from you without endangering you.”
“Right,” Osgood said. “Right. Of course.” She took a deep breath. “That’s, well, that’s rather scientific.”
“I do try to keep somewhat apace with the times,” Lady Kate said dryly. “My doctors are well-trained; they will identify any nutritional deficiencies, and make sure you have access to meals that will build up your blood, and your strength. The timeline varies, but I will likely not be cleared to drink from you for at least a month.”
“But what will you drink in the meantime?” Osgood said, looking up in concern. A second later she could heard how impolite that sounded. “I mean, if that’s not too rude to ask?”
The vampire cocked an eyebrow. “It might be, but I’ll allow it.”
Was that amusement? Osgood thought it might have been amusement.
“The bulk of my diet is gathered in the same butcher’s shop as yours will be.” Lady Kate gestured out the grate to the stormy night. “It is bland and unappealing by the time it reaches my table, but the iron in it suffices to stifle my hunger. For certain properties that cows and pigs are unable to supply...no doubt you have seen the bandages that some in my service wear. There is a small increase in wages for those who are willing to tithe the occasional glass for my succor. I cannot take much from any one person, but I have had centuries to refine my calculations on the minimum amount of human blood needed to sustain me. And there are always the woods for me to hunt in, should there be a true emergency and I need to feed without restraint.”
Without restraint… The woman before her was so still, so contained, and yet somehow that only highlighted the depths of the hunger that nearly vibrated beneath her facade of humanity. If that facade cracked—Osgood could vividly imagine those elegant lips stretched wide in a snarl, fangs bared, blood smeared over her face and down her dress as she tore into the flesh of her prey, devouring with an appetite that could never be sated, her eyes flashing—
“That’s...that’s very interesting,” Osgood said faintly.
“So you’ve said.” The vampire quirked an eyebrow. “If you’re angling for an invitation, I’m afraid that you are not allowed beyond the castle walls.”
“I—I wasn’t—” Osgood stammered.
Lady Kate cut her off with a wave of her hand. “I didn’t think so,” she said. Her eyes narrowed suddenly, flitting from Osgood’s eyes to her shoulders and back again. “You’re tired,” she concluded abruptly. “I’ll escort you to your room.
Osgood automatically looked to the grate where Kate had apparently come through earlier.
A twitch of the vampire’s lips. She produced a key ring, and gestured the other direction. “I was thinking of the door.”
“Right!” That little almost-smile on the woman’s face had made her look almost human again. She was so beautiful, both in the moments when you could forget what she was and in the moments where she made it impossible to forget—oh dear. “Right. Of course. Right.” Oh no. Osgood was not going to get infatuated with this woman—with this vampire. She probably didn’t even have those kinds of feelings anymore, if she’d ever had them to begin with, back when she was a human—and Osgood hadn’t even verified her hypothesis that she had once been human yet— “Sorry. Very tired.”
She was grateful now for all the blushing earlier. It made it impossible for Lady Kate to tell she had something new to be embarrassed about now.
Lady Kate unlocked the door, and gestured Osgood to proceed her through it. She touched Osgood lightly on the shoulder as she passed, and the young woman felt it like a brand.
This is the best—the only—opportunity you will ever have to learn about vampires. She’s very pretty, but you’re a domestic animal to her. She’s not going to be interested. Get this under control.
Dazed, Osgood allowed herself to be ushered through the door, and followed Lady Kate deeper into Lethbridge Castle.
#
They encountered no more servants as they made their made through the dark corridors of the castle; perhaps they had all retired to their beds. Lady Kate moved with the assurance of a wolf--does she have night vision? Osgood wondered as she herself nearly tripped on the edge of a rug, her vision greatly impaired by the spots of rain still on her spectacles, and the fact that only a few guttering candles illuminated the passageways that they walked down.
To her surprise, they soon came to a door, Lady Kate taking one of the guttering candles from the wall as they did so. The red wax spilled down over her fingers but she did not flinch; Osgood wondered if she could even feel the heat. She did not look down at that hand as the wax hardened, her other hand unlocking the door.
“Some separation from the main building is necessary,” she said, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the wind and rain as she opened the door into the night. “There is a covered walkway that keeps out the worst of the weather, but you may want to don your cloak.”
Osgood considered the sodden mess of her cloak in her hands. “I’ll be fine.”
“As you wish.”
And the vampire walked out into the dark.
Osgood followed her, the wind whipping cold and cruel around her. The roof of the walkway did at least keep out the worst of the rain, the deep blue slate beneath her feet mercifully dry and easier to find purchase on with her boots. The light from the single candle in the vampire’s hand did not extend much further than the walkway’s edge, but the occasional flash of lightning illuminated other blue bricked pathways and a various white stucco outbuildings with roofs of either red tile or thatch, something in their construction oddly old-fashioned even for someone like Osgood, who had grown up in a village where little had ever changed.
After several minutes of silent walking, they came to one of the outbuildings, further out from the rest and perhaps a bit smaller, with a door painted a deep blue. There were window boxes that might have held herbs or flowers at one point, though at the moment they were mostly serving as miniature waterfalls.
It looked oddly...ordinary.
“Here.” Lady Kate took another key from her ring, and placed it in Osgood’s hand. It was cold and heavy on Osgood’s palm, unwarmed by the vampire’s touch.
Osgood turned it in the lock, and stepped through the door. No fire had been stoked here, she thought with a shiver, but she spotted the rest of her belongings with relief; barely managed to keep from rushing to check that all her books were still intact. Probably wouldn’t be polite.
She turned back to the still-open door. The vampire hovered before the doorway, the wind whipping a few stray blonde locks from their careful coiffure. Osgood frowned, stepping closer. “Would you like to--”
Faster than she could blink, Lady Kate’s hand shot over the threshold, clamping over her mouth with a grip like steel. Osgood reared back instinctively, but the vampire’s other hand was already buried in her hair, her fingers clenched tight to prevent escape.
A small sound—Osgood refused to categorize it as a whimper—escaped her throat, vibrating against the vampire’s cold skin.
Lady Kate’s eyes burned, and Osgood could not look away.
Oh gosh, I don’t have my notebook, Osgood’s mind burbled, though from what seemed like a strange distance from the immediacy of the burning bright eyes, the burning cold hands against skin that was suddenly tingling from her head to her toes. I have to remember everything she does so I can right it down later, I have to remember everything I feel--
“Do not invite me in,” Lady Kate growled, and Osgood’s knees went so weak it might have only been the vampire’s hands still holding her up, and it took several seconds to parse the words and realize that the vampire was not about to feed on her after all. “Do not ever invite me into your room.”
Her hands were strong as iron and so cold against Osgood’s fevered skin. Osgood swallowed, hard. Said, her lips brushing against the skin (don’t think about it like that, she’s not thinking about it like that), “All...all right?”
Slowly, the fire in the vampire’s eyes died down. Her arms relaxed, her right hand slipping from Osgood’s mouth, the left following, not quite lingering in Osgood’s tresses. She took a deep breath—an affectation? Osgood had forgotten to observe if the vampire was breathing—and stepped back from the threshold.
“I cannot come in if there is no invitation,” the vampire said as if that were an explanation for her demand. “Everything else within the castle walls is mine. This building is deeded to the year’s thrall.”
Ah, Osgood thought, that was why she had seen it needed to be an outbuilding. But did that count, if that was technically within castle walls? She had mentioned the deed, so perhaps the ownership of the land did not necessarily tie to the buildings within it. What would happen if you brought a vampire to a society where everything was owned in common?
And why did she want a place that she could not enter?
That last question must have shown in Osgood’s face, because Lady Kate said, “You will be here a year. That is a long time for a human to go without a shelter you can safely retreat to.” She paused. “You should have one place I cannot enter.”
Osgood could only stare at her. She had not expected this. A space of her own. This was—the vampire hadn’t had to do this.
“It’s—it’s not in the contract,” she said, only half aware of the words leaving her mouth.
A space of her own. She’d never even had that in the village. The living quarters above the apothecary had been so small, the houses of the town so tightly grouped together. Even when she was not under the watchful eyes of her sister, the watchful eyes of the village had tracked every deviation from the norm for gossip and correction, and even a secret conducted in the wilder woods along the river often came back in scornful whispers in the corners of the church or tavern. To be given to a vampire had hardly seemed a change, except it would now be one person who owned her life, rather than a patchwork tangle of competing interests: Petronella, you ought to play more with the other children and Petronella, it’s not becoming for a young lady to spend so much of her inheritance on books and Petronella, it’s getting to be time that you considered marriage, there’s a few lads that might take you without a dowry…
In the end, she had learned to play down her quirks, to stay quiet. To fade into the background so that juicier scandals would carry attention away from here. That was the most she had ever hoped for, to be taken notice of and then dismissed as a less tempting target for mockery.
And yet here she was being given actual...privacy.
“Thank you,” she managed, not quite being able to keep the choking sound out of her voice.
The vampire looked away.
“You have the only key. It locks from the inside as well.”
And before Osgood could say anything further, Lady Kate strode off, disappearing into the inky blackness of the night as quickly as if she were a part of it herself.