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I should’ve apologized, but I was tired and weak. The soup from yesterday no longer warmed my bones, and the cold was taxing. We rode in silence for a moment, the sound of rain lulling me as my eyes began to shut.

“Alphonse is the horse?” Raphael prodded, not letting my earlier words drop.

I started to shrug against him, then forced my shoulders down. This close to the vampire, it was best to avoid any more movement than absolutely necessary, based on yesterday’s comments. “I figured he could use a name.”

“It’s just a horse.” His words weren’t exactly judgmental. More puzzled.

“And I’m just a void.” A void to a vampire was probably the same as a horse to a human: powerless, mortal, too quick to die. “But I have a name all the same. And so should Alphonse.”

My head began to tip forward, but Raphael spoke again, jolting me from any sleep. I knew it wasn’t good to sleep in these conditions, not when I was this cold, but it was difficult to keep myself awake.

“I take it names are important to you, Samara.”

Samara. My lips twisted, repeating my own name. “You want to know something sad?”

“I wish to know all your thoughts,” Raphael said quietly. Or at least, that’s what I thought Raphael said. With the rain and the siren call of sleep beckoning me, who could be sure?

There was no reason to tell the vampire my private thoughts. If I’d been more aware, I wouldn’t have. But something about being so close, his body sheltering me from the rain without seeing those unnerving eyes, made me feel almost safe. “You’re the only one who’s said my full name since I was a little girl.” At Greymere, as the only female servant, my sex had become my name.Girl. Lazy girl. Slow girl. Ugly girl. I frowned. “In fact, everyone who knew me as a child… they’ve forgotten me by now, I’m sure.”

Anyone who knew you’s forgotten you exist.Even from beyond the grave, Nelson’s words taunted me.

There was something almost gentle in the vampire’s voice as he said, “Not your parents.”

“My mother’s dead.” Frost followed the cold words from my mouth.

Wisely, Raphael didn’t ask about my father.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “No one deserves to be forgotten. If it’s any reassurance, Samara, I intend to live a very long life. And I will not forget you for any of it.”

A vampire who remembered me. It was the stuff of nightmares.

But it eased the tightness in my throat all the same.

“Do you… have people who are missing you?” I asked.

He loosed a wry laugh. “Oh, I imagine there’s a few.”

Of course he did. He was strong, confident. Humorous at times, though I couldn’t quite appreciate it. And attractive too, if I looked past those awful eyes and fangs—which around other vampires would probably be considered a good thing—with those broad shoulders and beautiful face. Who wouldn’t want to knowhisname?

I envied a vampire. That was a new low. “I guess living so long, you have time to make a lot of friends.”

At this, his laugh was more genuine. “A lot of enemies too. But in truth, my friends are few. When you live as long as I have… you have little patience for falsehoods, and the fickleness of friendship. Or at least the weak imitation most offer. But those that are true friends, whose bonds we’ve sealed in blood, I cherish them. I carry their names with me as they carry mine, even when we don’t see each other for many years.”

I shivered again. The sudden closeness from our conversation was unnerving. Worse was the fact I had the irrational urge to ask him more about his home. In some ways, it sounded similar to the way I’d grown up, before Greymere. Not that I’d had anytruefriends.

“We’re nearly there.” There was a reassuring note in his voice, one too gentle for my liking.

A moment later, an inn came into view as we crested a small hill. Smoke billowed from the chimney, just like Raphael had said. The windows were lit with an inviting yellow glow, promising warmth and shelter.

“You purchased disguise cards, correct?”

“I did.”

He pulled Alphonse off to the side, sheltering us under the dense branches of a tree.

I brushed my fingers as dry as I could before pulling the deck from the holder I’d manufactured. Not as fancy as the usual leather ones, but since I hadn’t had so much as a needle to shape it, it was acceptable. I flipped through and held out the disguise card to Raphael.

Better this than trying to enthrall anyone we came across. Less disconcerting too. The card would last for a week or so, unless dispelled by a witch. It wasn’t very powerful magic, but all the card needed to do was change Raphael’s eyes from the telltale red and darken his hair so it was no longer such a striking white.