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The sun has gone down while we talked. The orange is going out of the river.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Always.”

“Do vampires hunt?”

He goes still. Not the stillness of not breathing. He was already not breathing. This is different, as if the whole room has paused to see what he’ll do.

“Yes,” he says. “When we need to. When we want to.”

“Like a cat?”

“Faster than a cat.”

“How fast?”

He doesn’t answer. He looks at me across the table, and his eyes have gone darker, the gray-green swallowed up at the edges. “Why do you want to know?”

I take a breath. I’ve been thinking about this since last night. Since I stood in front of that mirror and watched him look at me like I was the only warm thing in a cold building, and realized how much he was holding back.

“Downstairs, you were careful,” I say. “You were perfect. You held on to everything, the whole time. And I liked it. I’m not complaining.” I hold his eyes. “But I keep thinking about what you’re holding on to. I’ve seen the fangs. I’ve seen you stand still like a statue. I’ve never seen you move like what you are.”

“Tara.”

“I want you to chase me.”

The quiet that follows is so complete I can hear the clock on the shelf by the door.

“You have no idea,” he says, very low, “how difficult you’re making this for me.”

“I think I do. That’s sort of the point.”

He looks at me for a long time. Then he stands, slowly, and walks around the table, and stops beside my chair. He doesn’t touch me.

“The suite,” he says. “Only the suite. The door to the stairs is locked, and you don’t go near the windows. The sitting room, the hall, the library, the bedroom. That’s the whole field.”

“Okay.”

“I won’t hurt you. I won’t frighten you past what you want to be frightened. If you want it to stop, you stop moving and say red, and I’m on the other side of the room before you finish the word.” His eyes hold mine. “And I don’t bite you unless you ask. Not if I catch you. Not because I catch you.”

“Okay.”

“Say it.”

“Red stops it. Stop moving and say red. No biting unless I ask.”

“Ten seconds,” he says. “Go.”

I run.

I’m out of the chair and through the sitting room before I’ve decided where I’m running, past the carved chest and the reading chair and the stacks of books, and I hear him counting behind me in that perfect, even voice. Three. Four. The hall is long and dim, paneled in dark wood, with doors on both sides. I take the first one I see.

It’s the library. Floor-to-ceiling shelves on every wall, a rolling ladder, one lamp lit on a desk at the far end, and two tall bookcases standing out into the middle of the room like aisles. I duck behind the second one and flatten my back against it and try to breathe quietly, which is impossible, because my heart is going like I’ve just done a double shift.

Ten.

Then nothing.