“But the mages can draw from both?”
“Yes.”
Njáll goes quiet, apparently considering what I’ve told him. I resist the urge to wriggle around and change position so I have something to focus on that’s not him.
“Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”
“Now? Yes, I’m fine.” He dredges up a wan smile, one of the worst I’ve seen on him, which is saying a lot. At least half thesmiles he gives in a night are fake, and I am not the only one to have noticed. “All this magic is… confusing. I never knew a witch or a mage before I was turned.”
“Really?”
He snorts, shaking his head. The light from the streetlamp catches on the silver of a bead in his braid. I’ve noticed he only has the one, and I don’t know if it means anything or if it is purely decorative. “I was a sailor. Not even a particularly skilled one. A vampire bit me, turned me, and now I’m here.”
“And your sire?”
“She didn’t care much to keep me around after the first few decades,” Njáll says with a shrug. For the first time since I’ve met him, I think his even tone is a fair representation of his feelings towards her. “I get it. I’ve never felt the urge to turn anyone, myself. She taught me how to hunt, how to stay hidden, and that was it for our relationship.”
I sniff. “It’s the bare minimum.”
To my surprise, Njáll laughs. “I wasn’t achild, Maurice. She was pleasant enough. Nevernice, but sometimes kind. I could have had a much worse start to this life.”
His expression darkens, and I know he’s thinking of all that happened recently—and probably of a dozen other vampires he knows who had terrible sires. I sigh and lean back on the bench. Things are different now. Not even just here, where the clan makes sure to keep a tight grip on who is turned and when and why.
It’s just not done to abandon your turn nowadays. Hasn’t been for a hundred years or more. My mind drifts to Grant and Vlad, and I wonder, not for the first time, what must have come over Vlad in that moment, to have turned Grant despite the Huntsman’s express forbiddance of that act.
Maybe whatever came over Njáll’s sire. Maybe it can happen to any of us, at any time, some strange, magical urge to help our species survive.
Njáll’s expression goes softer. “What are you thinking about?”
“Just…” I wave a hand carelessly. “All of that. Thinking about turning. Sires.”
My own is long dead. I killed him myself, not long after I was out of my bloodlust. Just long enough he wouldn’t see it coming.
And then… freedom. Decades of it, sweet and bright, until the Huntsman came and offered me the one thing I truly missed.
“Have you turned anyone?”
“No!” The word is too sharp, so I soften it when I speak again. “No, it’s—We can’t.”
“Oh, you’re not…”
“I can’t talk about it,” I say, begging him to understand. Telling him about myself is one thing, especially when I know there is at least one true mage in this city who he has met before. I can’t tell him about the Hunt; at least, not more than he already knows.
“Yes. All right.” Njáll clasps his hands in front of him, leaning forward. His hair hides his profile, and I tip my head back to stare up at the sky. I can’t see a single bloody star in this city, and anger tightens my throat, quick and sudden.
I shouldn’tbehere.
If I weren’t, Njáll wouldn’t have needed healing. He wouldn’t have been in danger.
“What’s our next move, then?” Njáll asks, and it takes a moment for me to parse the question.
“What?”
“Our next move?” He looks at me, eyes all innocent. “Reijo knows the selkie. How else can we find her?”
“I-I’m not—You’re not…”
“I’m going to help you,” Njáll says. “The selkie didn’t try to kill me. The dryad did.”
