Chapter 18

Of the four basic needs — clothing, food, shelter, transport — the first two being in hand, it was time to improve the standard of the third.

Whatever velvet you line it with, how is a coffin supposed to compete with an actual bed, one with a mattress and springs?

Prince Anthony, fashion pioneer and habitual coffin-sleeper, raised an eyebrow in confusion. "What's a bed?"

Mary considered, and explained it in terms he could process. "It's a kind of improved coffin."

Anthony glanced at her. "You don't like the one you have."

Mary shook her head, took a deep breath, and began reciting the advertisement she'd been listening to all day: "The traditional hinged-lid dormancy coffin is excessively heavy, and both opening and closing require enormous effort. Should a mechanical fault occur and the lid fail to open, the user will be trapped inside, seriously affecting daily work, social engagements and private life. New trend, new choice! The sliding-lid dormancy coffin — leader of the age! Let us begin with sleep, and launch an entirely new revolution in living!"

She delivered the whole thing with gestures and considerable passion.

Lord Anthony listened with his mouth twitching very slightly, coughed once, and recovered his ordinary register. "So. You don't want a hinged lid, you want to switch to a sliding one? Or a voice-activated one? Never mind. When Patricia wakes, I'll have her take you to choose."

Mary shook her head rapidly, waving Anthony down, then picked up a short dead branch and drew a rectangle in the snow, adding four legs.

Gesturing and drawing, she deployed her meager vocabulary as best she could. "Bed, it's — it looks like this. And then, um, warm, soft, lying on it is very comfortable."

Lord Anthony appeared to arrive at an understanding, and summarized. "Like you, then?"

Mary froze and very nearly fell face-first into the snow.

Who?

Who was it who said Lord Anthony had a noble bearing and impeccable breeding?

That was open flirtation.

The discussion between one human and one vampire on the subject of beds concluded as the sun sank fully below the horizon.

Other flying mounts began to appear along the skyline, hurrying somewhere, marking the beginning of a new night for the Blood — and the end of Mary's day.

Anthony flew her back to the castle, and no sooner were they through the door than Mark the butler reported: Prince Ambrose Thomas had come to call.

Lord Anthony's expression darkened immediately.

Over the past days, visitors arriving at Anthony's castle under one pretext or another had been beyond counting.

The visiting was surface, of course. These idle, deeply curious nobles were mostly here for Mary.

The arrogant Prince Anthony was clearly well practiced in the discourteous but efficient technique of shutting the door, and had essentially removed them one by one as they arrived.

So his lavish and perennially deserted formal reception room had, until today, never received a single guest.

The visitor had the silver hair characteristic of the Sacred Blood, combed back without a strand out of place.

Blood-red irises sat behind gold wire-rimmed glasses, and he wore a sapphire-blue silk robe with elaborate embroidery, the crest at his chest and the rings on his fingers all set with enormous gems.

Any one of them was probably worth a small city.

The whole arrangement radiated money.

In the empty reception room, Mark the butler stood in respectful attendance behind the honored guest.

As for Anthony, master of the castle and the man being visited, he had long since gone somewhere else entirely.

"Anthony has no intention of seeing me at all, does he?" Prince Ambrose turned his wine glass in boredom. He understood the situation perfectly. "Being permitted to sit on this sofa is purely because we hold the same rank, so he can't simply throw me out the way he does everyone else. But my dear Mark — serving a guest wine this undrinkable rather means kindly get out, doesn't it?"

Mark's face did not change. "The failure of hospitality is mine. If my lord will wait a moment, I'll have the beverage replaced immediately."

"Do." Ambrose smiled with some meaning behind it and set the glass down. "I'm bored of wine, in any case. As for a new beverage — why not that Earth human's blood?"

Mary had finished washing and was ready to go to sleep.

Vampires, being a species physiologically arrested, must keep their bodies scrupulously clean at all times.

Allow too much bacterial growth, and a body incapable of renewing itself easily becomes diseased, or begins to rot.

Cleaning technology on Thorne was therefore highly developed — liquid rinsing, particulate adsorption, ultrasonic dust removal, all of it available.

The shower system, having been inspected and calibrated by Patricia, had a comfortable temperature and pressure.

The only thing Mary found mildly depressing was that the showerhead here produced not ordinary water but a strangely colored pale blue liquid mixed with disinfectant.

Since it remained unconfirmed whether humans carried microorganisms harmful to the Blood, thorough daily disinfection had become mandatory procedure.

Rather the way we spray our pets with something for the fleas.

Mary understood the reasoning. She simply didn't much enjoy carrying around a disinfectant smell that marked her as somebody's animal.

Only now did she appreciate that the drugstore shampoo and soap she used to look down on had actually smelled quite nice. Mary sniffed at her own hair, depressed, and shuffled back from the bathroom.

She had just come around a corner when she ran directly into a stranger who had forced his way in.

The man was walking fast, and his reactions were exceptionally quick.

Before Mary could so much as brush the hem of his coat, he had put out a hand, touched her shoulder, and pushed her aside without effort.

Mary landed on the floor and stared up at the tall, expensively dressed man, who brushed lightly at his cuff and then gave her a cold glance out of the corner of his eye.

Mark, coming up behind him and attempting to intercept, took one look at the scene in the corridor, pressed a hand to his temple with an expression of genuine pain, and said under his breath, "What appalling timing. Of all the luck."

Wearing a look of resignation, he raised a hand, summoned an attendant, and quietly instructed him to fetch Patricia.

Then he sighed, walked over, and helped Mary up off the floor. "Well. Having collided, there's nothing to be done. Allow me to introduce you. This is Prince Ambrose, who administers financial affairs for the Thorne system. Lord Ambrose, this is the human you mentioned wishing to see."

"Oh? This is it?" Ambrose propped his chin on one hand, looked Mary over with lowered eyes, and observed without any courtesy at all, "Very short. And not much to look at."

Mark coughed. "Lord Ambrose. That is a lapse in manners."

"Manners?" Prince Ambrose raised an eyebrow in genuine puzzlement. "It's only a pet, isn't it? Or have you started treating it as one of the Blood merely because it's shaped like a person? Hah. Rare, certainly. But in the end it's simply another Grazen, or another mermaid."

Mark said nothing.

Prince Ambrose took hold of Mary's arm, tipped her chin up on one pointed nail, bent slightly, and leaned in to smell her. "Mm. Though the organism's scent is certainly unusual." His fingertip moved back and forth across her fragile skin; his eyes narrowed and fixed on the vessel beating faintly at the side of her throat. His own throat moved once, and there was undisguised wanting in his voice. "Underneath this thin little layer of skin runs something richer than that, and warmer. Simply thinking about it makes a person — quite unable to restrain himself."

Mary swallowed nervously.