"That sounds exhausting."
"It can be." He picks up the next plate, examines it. "It can also be useful. I remember which guests insulted each other fifteen years ago. I remember who spilled wine on what tablecloth. I remember every detail your grandmother never asked about but which will help you succeed tomorrow."
"Is that why you're doing this? To help me succeed?"
He's quiet for a moment. Then: "Partly. I want you to succeed. I want the village to see what I see—that you are remarkable in ways your grandmother never was." He sets the plate down and looks at me. "But I am also doing this because I enjoy it."
"You enjoy china inventory?"
"I enjoy having purpose. Having knowledge that matters. Being useful in a way that does not involve violence." His voice softens. "For two centuries, I was only valuable as a weapon. Everything else I knew, the courtly training, the strategic thinking, the thousand skills a knight learns beyond the sword, all of it was irrelevant. Elspeth wanted a killer. So that is what I became."
I move closer to him, drawn by the ache in his words. "And now?"
"Now someone wants to know about napkin arrangements and table settings. Someone values what I learned before I was made into a monster." He catches my hand, presses it to his chest. "You cannot know what that means. To be seen as more than blood and violence."
"You were always more than that. She just refused to see it."
"Perhaps." He brings my hand to his lips again. "Or perhaps I needed someone to ask before I could remember."
We stand there in the dusty dining room, surrounded by priceless china and centuries of formal dinners, and something settles in my chest. This man, this ancient, traumatized, impossibly formal vampire, is letting me see parts of himself that no one has valued in hundreds of years.
"Teach me," I say. "Everything. Not just for the feast. Teach me all of it. The etiquette, the history, everything you remember. I want to know."
His eyes widen slightly. "That would take considerable time."
"Good thing we have it, then."
"You may find it tedious."
"I find you fascinating. I doubt anything you teach me would be tedious."
For a moment, he just looks at me. Then he smiles. Not the small twitch I've grown used to, but an actual smile that transforms his whole face.
"Very well," he says. "We will begin with the proper way to address a duke."
"We don't have any dukes coming to dinner."
"Not to your knowledge. But one never knows when such information may be required." He picks up another plate, returning to his inventory with renewed energy. "Also, the technique for addressing dukes is fundamentally similar to addressing vampires of ancient lineage, which you have already done incorrectly on multiple occasions."
"When did I address you incorrectly?"
"'Hey, Fangs' is not a traditional form of address."
"That was one time."
"It was three times. I counted."
"I was joking."
"Humor is no excuse for improper etiquette."
I throw a napkin at him, one of the wounded-bird ones, and he catches it without looking, his smile widening though so I’ll take any insult, any slight, anything he wants right nowl.
"Assault on a noble's person," he observes. "Also a breach of etiquette."
"You're not a noble."
"I was a knight, once. The title does not expire simply because one becomes undead." He sets the napkin aside with exaggerated care. "I shall add 'proper treatment of vampire nobility' to our curriculum."
