Page 59 of Embers in the Snow

If this is how I feel right now, then she’s going to be trouble.

Father, what have you done? You conniving old bastard.

Surely, my reaction to her is no coincidence. What does the old wolf know that I don’t?

“Will you give her treatment? Iron supplements or medicine? Pig’s liver?”

Ciel looks at me as if I’m daft. “Supplements are an option. So is liver. But Van, it’ll take several weeks for any of that to work. Unless…” He gives me an appraising look.

“Don’t keep me in suspense,” I say dryly. I think I know what he’s going to suggest, anyway.

“Give her a little of your magical healing elixir. A few drops mixed in with a glass of wine. She’ll be fully recovered within a day.”

“Are you sure it won’t have any adverse effects?”

“I told you before, it isn’t possible. Even if one were to ingest copious amounts of your blood, they won’t turn. There isn’t a single report in the literature of a human being turned into a vampire by another vampire. Transformation only occurs by divine magic, and even then, one has to have reached a state of clinical death.”

“If you turn out to be wrong…” I glower at Ciel.

“I’m never wrong,” he says haughtily, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. The light of the winter sun streams through the windows, reflecting the blue sky outside in his glasses, obscuring his eyes.

Wan winter light…

It occurs to me that Ciel’s space gets a lot of natural light during the day.

And said natural light isn’t affecting me the way it usually does.

I raise my hand, feeling the skin of my cheek.

It isn’t peeling, or blistering. It isn’t painful.

I’m walking around in daylight like it’s nothing at all.

Is thisherdoing?

It would be a shame. For her to turn into a creature like me… that would be a tragedy. But years and years of seeing Ciel’s work on the battlefields and beyond reassures me that I can trust his judgement.

He doesn’t order any kind of treatment without giving it the most careful consideration. In the time it takes to blink, he’s considered a hundred probabilities and narrowed them down to one.

“Fine,” I growl, stalking across to the treatment table. “Give me a knife and a glass.”

“Just a few drops will do. I’ll dilute it with wine. She could probably do with a drink after all this.”

Ciel offers me a scalpel. I make a small longitudinal incision along my wrist, close to my radial artery.

My blood gushes down, as red as hers, but nowhere near as sacred.

To my own senses, it smells bitter.

It flows into the glass, thick crimson pooling in crystal, and there isn’t a single thing about it that makes it seem special. My blood isn’t overflowing with arcane magic or shimmering with a mystical glow.

It’s just blood.

As quickly as I make the cut, it disappears, the raw edges sealing together to form perfectly intact skin. Of course, my scars are still there; a handful of nicks and cuts that have long since healed, marks I’ve earned during training and battle.

A reminder that I once was human.

I glance at Ciel. “You got anything of a decent vintage in that wine rack of yours? I want her to taste something pleasant, at least.”

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