Page 24 of You’re So Vein

Okay, now I’m interested.

“There were rumours about the kids who went to work at the occult society – that they never returned quite the same. That sometimes they were never seen again. I should have been afraid of them, but I was curious. There’s something about locked doors and whispered warnings that makes you yearn to know the truth. When they kneeled in front of me with their fancy clothes and kind smiles and asked if I wanted a job in their kitchen, all I could think was, ‘They’ve come to rescue me.’ ”

This is his orphanage. He’s telling me about turning into a vampire.

I don’t understand why. Vampires are incredibly secretive about their lives. I’d been friends with Arabella for five years before she revealed that she was fanged and fabulous. So why is he telling me this?

“All the children who’d been awful to me for years waved solemnly goodbye, certain they’d never see me again. The hours were long, the kitchen hot and filled with danger. But the rare times when I left the staff quarters for the main house, I was enchanted by the world the Durants inhabited. Once, I delivered pastries to the drawing room for Mrs Durant, and I stepped inside just as she made Mrs Harvey’s hair turn bright purple. I caught Mr Durant dabbing a bloody handkerchief upon his friend Archibald’s neck. There were too many strange and wonderful encounters to list. I preferred their company – however strange – to children my age. I never had a friend in the orphanage—”

“Oh yes?” My jaw and tongue fight to push out the insult. “Social problems? Made the other kids feel stupid?”

He ignores me. “As months turned into years, and the burns on my hands calloused over, the Durants learned to trust me. Mr Durant snuck me pieces of candy, and Mrs Durant invited me to sit with her ladies while they drank blood tea and performed tricks to amuse each other. On the eve of my eighteenth birthday, they invited me to one of their rituals. The things I saw are forever etched into my memory. I’ll never forget the night I learned of the existence of vampires, and of vampire magic.”

Magic. Just the word makes my skin tingle with something other than spiders.

“To be an Upyr is parasitical – we can’t survive without blood,” Augustin continues. “We can’t continue our own race without taking from another. But Dusk Court vampires have powers of creation, although we must give something of our own – our blood – to bring that creation about.”

I want him to tell me more about the magic, about exactly what Dusk Court vampires can do. But questions are beyond me right now, and I don’t want to be invested in Augustin Durant’s villain origin story.

“I was thirty-six when their application was approved and the court was satisfied I’d given my full consent. In the beautiful gardens Dulcina made at court, John and Dulcina granted me the Kiss in my Bloodeve ceremony, and I became their son.”

He speaks of them with such affection. After learning about how Alaric, Gideon and Arabella were sired in violent acts without their consent, I like knowing that vampires have created a way to make the Kiss a gift, instead of a curse.

“I’d never known such happiness as our years together,” Augustin sighs, his hands on my back still drawing slow circles. “They showed me a world I never dared to imagine. We passed decades in peace and prosperity. My parents moved us from London after the spiritualism movement died out and occult societies fell out of fashion. For a time, we lived in a rambling old house in Scotland, surrounded by wild places where my mother’s magic was stronger. I was the happiest I’ve ever been. Then my father was offered a seat on the Conclave, and we decided to settle in Dusk Court. It was there, one hundred years after I’d been given the Kiss, that my mother started to think about a daughter – a sister for me. I’d made friends with Isabelle, a Thrall of the court, and they wanted to make her one of us. But during the ceremony, something went wrong, and all three of them died.”

His voice cracks. A hard lump forms in my throat as I think about Papa’s illness, and how I’d fall to pieces if I lost my family, and Augustin has lost his twice over—

Wait, how am I empathising with Augustin Durant?

It’s a problem, because the empathy dredges up memories of my own, memories of being alone in the dark, of wishing someone kind would reach in and pluck me out, but no one did.

“Durant.” I sink to the floor. “Your sob story isn’t working. I need to get out of this cupboard.”

The darkness bends around him, this cold, immovable monster who is somehow less scary than the gloom. I focus on his cool fingers on my shoulder, the only thing tethering me to sanity.

My heart hammers so loud against my ears that I have to strain to hear him speak. “I have an idea, but I need to let go of you. Is that okay?”

My hands won’t stop trembling. I nod, and then remember we’re in the dark, but he can see me, can’t he? He can see me falling to pieces. I’d be mortified if I weren’t too busy trying to keep my heart inside my ribs.

Augustin spins in a circle. A moment later, there’s a crack, and the whole door flies off. It crashes into the desk, where it splinters into several pieces.

Light.

Safety.

I collapse outward, onto the floor of his office and the shattered pieces of door. I place my head between my knees and breathe deep and long, the way my therapist taught me, until the drum solo finishes, until the needles stop stabbing, until the wet heat leaves my lungs.

You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re not dying. Nothing in the dark can hurt you.

Slowly, I raise my head, only to come nose-to-nose with Augustin Durant, his brow furrowed with concern and the tip of a fang biting into his lip in a way that makes me want to reach out and lick it.

What? No, I don’t. Why did I think that?

“Do you need anything?” he asks, his voice so low and so kind and tinged with something that makes my chest ache.

I need… a lobotomy?

“I… I…” I can’t bear to look at him any longer. I’m too fragile and afraid to be this confused. I scramble to my feet. How is he so good at this?