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Luca brings Ellery a glass of water and the first-aid kit, kneeling on the floor at her feet and unpacking antiseptic and bandages. I could heal her cuts with my blood, but she’s in shock. Watching me smear it on her while the wounds knit shut wouldn’t help.

“I dealt with the intruder, but not before he hurt her.” I failed her. I wasn’t there.

“You saved my life,” Ellery whispers, half to herself, then she looks up at me expectantly. “What’s going on, Nick?”

Where do I even start? I look at Luca. What I do next could derail his life. He nods and urges me to go on.

“I’m a vampire,” I begin.

Ellery rolls her eyes. “We covered that part.”

“Nick.” Mom leans against the entryway to the kitchen. “You’re sure this is how you want to do it?”

“Yes.”

“All right.” She stretches. “I’ll make some tea.”

I stand by the fireplace, about as far from Ellery as I can get and still be in the same room.

“Some…people…have a mutation. It sits dormant, but if we choose to, through a ritual, we can activate it. Our hearts stop beating. We stop breathing. We can no longer eat food and subsist only on blood. We become a vampire. In exchange, we gain abilities, and we no longer age.”

Her mouth falls open. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight. I transitioned four years ago.”

She sinks back into the cushions. “For a minute there, I thought you were going to say you were five hundred or something.”

Luca muffles a laugh and mutters, “Some days he acts like he’s five hundred.”

Ellery snorts, and I’m glad my annoying little brother is able to do that.

It doesn’t last. “If it’s a choice, why did you become one?”

“I didn’t want to.” The words come out in a rush. “My situation is different from most. Ravenslight Creek is a unique town. Vampires live alongside witches and humans here, but only because of an agreement brokered centuries ago.”

Her eyes widen. “There’s witches too?”

“Yes, a few. The agreement requires a tribute, a Guardian. One from each of the three vampire clans that reside here. When our dad died, Sebastian, our older brother, was supposed to become the Guardian for the Valzeras, but he…left. And that responsibility fell to me.”

She takes all of it in. I let her.

“So, this vampire that attacked me, he lives in Ravenslight? Among people?”

I cross the room and sit on the coffee table, bracketing her legs with mine.

“No, Ellery, that vampire is different from the ones that live here.” I want her to understand. “Vampires can turn a human without the mutation into a vampire, but not through the ritual, and it usually doesn’t end well. They’re often violent and bloodthirsty, which is why it rarely happens here. I’m not like that.”

“Okay.” She rubs her eyes and flops back against the cushions.

“Just, okay?”

“No, definitely not just okay. It’s a lot.” She twists the silver ring on her finger, thinking.

Luca applies a Band-Aid to a cut on her temple, and she grips the edge of the couch cushion as he sticks it down.

“All done,” he says, and gets up off the floor. “If you have anything more serious, I’ll have to call Dustin.”

“He’s a vet.” Ellery looks puzzled.