Page 71 of You’re So Vein

“I love to read, too,” Komal says to Hannah. “I’m even part of a book club in the village. Although we often get so busy gossiping and sticking our noses into village business that we forget to talk about the book. Augie knows all about that, don’t you, Augie?”

A nickname in Komal’s mouth is a dangerous weapon. Especially since she’s hardly called me anything except Durant. Or Councillor Durant when she’s truly apoplectic, when the vein above her right eye is throbbing.

I want her to never call me anything else again.

Except maybe mine.

I can find no words to hurl back at her, but she doesn’t seem to need them. Komal is processing what just happened the way only she knows how… by talking about anything other than what is most important.

“Your house is lovely,” she says to Hannah. “I love all the artwork. And the carved door frames. And I see you’re running a shoe shop?”

“Yes!” Something in the way Hannah warms to Komal, trusting her instinctively despite all my warnings about humans, makes me imagine I can trust her, too. “I want to be a shopkeeper, and an artist who makes pretty, sparkly things. I made those shoes myself – the ones with all the rhinestones.”

I let Komal and Hannah talk for a bit while I collect myself. Their laughter warms our tiny cottage more than fire and weighted blankets ever could.

I know we need to talk about what happened, but I can’t say what needs to be said while Hannah is grinning like a normal kid for once. I want to live in this fantasy for a little bit longer.

It’s Komal who brings us back to reality.

“I thought Dhampir were evil demon babies with skin like lead and teeth like a tiger and an insatiable hunger for human flesh?” Komal says to Hannah. “No offence.”

“I did bite you, so that’s fair.” Hannah hangs her head. “But I don’t think I’m evil, although that’s not what Dad says after I beat him at Catan.”

“I don’t think you’re evil, and I love board games,” Komal says. “We should play sometime. My favourite game is when my friend Celeste puts out cheese and crackers and slices of meat on a board and then we eat them. I’m really good at that one.”

“Hannah, let me talk to Komal alone for a bit,” I say. “Why don’t you get the labyrinth board game you made to show her?”

“I hope you feel better soon, Komal,” Hannah says seriously as she tucks in Komal’s blanket. “I’m sorry for biting you.”

She skips off, leaving me alone with the woman who could destroy us.

Komal leans back into the sofa, her arms wrapped around her knees. For the first time, she doesn’t appear formidable. Her lower lip trembles. She’s afraid. I don’t like that she’s afraid. I never wanted her to be afraid of me, or of Hannah.

After a time, Komal says, “She’s cute.”

“Hannah’s the most precious thing in the world to me.”

“She called you Dad. She’s your daughter?”

“Niece. But I’ve raised her since she was a baby.”

“So daughter, then.” The corner of her mouth tugs up. “You met my two nephews, Kiaan and Nikhil. I look after them a lot while my sister works.”

“I know. They told me. They said you’re their favourite auntie.”

“They did?” She brightens, then shakes her head, spilling dark curls over her shoulders. A sadness creeps into the corners of her eyes that makes me want to burn things, but it’s gone before I can question who requires decapitation. “No, don’t do that. Don’t distract me from what’s important. Explain to me how you have an illegal Dhampir child living with you?”

“I told you that my parents petitioned the court to allow them to sire a sister.” I swallow. I haven’t spoken of Isabelle in so long, but the pain rises, as hot and fresh as the day I lost her. “The woman they chose – my friend Isabelle – was a Thrall at Dusk Court. She was a cancer patient, and she would not survive long without the Kiss.”

Komal presses her lips together. The pain in her eyes returns, and the vein above her eyebrow pulses, but I don’t think she’s angry with me this time. “Cancer can suck my ladyballs.”

“For once, you and I are in agreement.”

“Tell me more about Isabelle.”

I take a seat on the couch where Hannah was sitting. “She’d been assigned as our family’s Thrall, and we all loved her dearly. She was serious and studious, like me, but with a mischievous side. I couldn’t wait for her to be my sister, and my parents spent every spare moment planning a ball to introduce her to Upyr society. But as the weeks went by, Isabelle grew strange and distant. She refused all of her cancer treatments. Before, she and I shared all our deepest secrets – about our fears, our hopes, our loves – but now she avoided me, and whenever I tried to speak to her about it, she’d change the subject. Days away from her Kiss ceremony, she came to my parents with a grave secret. She was pregnant. She wouldn’t tell them who fathered the child, but it was a vampire at court. The child would be a Dhampir. In Isabelle’s weakened state, giving birth to such an abomination would surely kill her.

“You have to understand, my parents saw Isabelle as their daughter already, and despite what they had been told to believe, they loved her child from the moment they knew of her existence. They refused to entertain killing the baby. Instead, they turned to magic, to their books, to their knowledge of vampire lore. And they came up with a plan – Isabelle would have the baby, but they would have to Kiss her first, to give her the strength to give birth.