Page 25

II

Seville, Spain

Beyond the city walls, ships bob, listless, on black water.

Just inside them, Sabine ambles down a narrow road. The Sailors’ Row, they call it.

It is an indecent part of town and an indecent hour, and a woman walking alone must be indecent, too. A body in search of purchase. A body inviting trouble.

Sabine smiles at the thought, her shoes—black leather, almost new—clicking against the cobblestones, her body draped not in widow’s weeds, but a lush green dress, a shawl around her shoulders warding off a chill she doesn’t even feel.

What would her late mother-in-law say, if she could see her now? Wearing no scarf, no veil, her hair twisted up into a coil, the threads of copper catching fire every time she nears a lamp. She is a flame in the dark, and the night is full of moths.

Their eyes land on her as she walks, trail after in her wake, and she wonders if they can taste her hunger on the air, the way she can taste theirs.

Some animal instinct warning them away. And yet, she knows it does not take much to tip the scale, a coy smile, a playful wink, a hand outstretched in invitation.

But she has had more than enough of their attention.

Ten years she has been free of that old life.

Ten years she has had to make her way in this one, to carve a path, between the hours of dusk and dawn, to stretch, and grow, and bloom, and while it has not been easy, nor has it been arduous. The widow was right. She is free to do what she wants. Take what she wants.

And that is everything.

Sabine walks on, heading for the wooden steps on the western edge of the Row, five rotting stairs where women are known to gather every night. Indecent women. Young and old, dark-skinned and pale, thin and wide, with painted mouths and weary eyes.

A pair sits at the base of the steps, passing a cup of wine back and forth and waiting for a caller. The air around them smells like need, and sadness, and just beneath, the barest thread of hope.

There are men, of course. So many, and so eager to follow a woman into the dark.

But Sabine has found she far prefers the taste of other women. Just as their skin is softer, she finds their life tastes sweeter, too. More earth than metal. Like burned caramel, perhaps? Hard to say.

After all, it’s been ten years since she tasted anything but blood.

In ten more, she’ll have been Sabine longer than she ever was María.

And she does not miss much about that life, but the bitter tang of citrus?

The sour bite of black cherries? The spiciness of coarse mustard?

She misses those, has learned the hard way that she can consume a life’s worth of blood, but not a bite of fruit.

And while she now understands the hungry way the widow watched her hold that chocolate on her tongue, watched her savor, watched her swallow, Sabine does not see the point in dwelling on it.

Food holds no appeal, except in memory, and as long as she can recall a taste, she will be haunted by it, the longing like a pebble in her shoe.

Far better to forget.

“Good evening,” she says now, stopping beside the women on the step.

The younger one looks up, eyes a little glassy from the drink. But the older one scowls as her gaze rakes over this red-haired stranger in her fine-cut dress.

“Shove off,” she snaps. “This is our plot.”

Sabine’s mouth twitches in amusement. “I’m not here to sell my company,” she says, drawing the small purse from her dress, the silver rattling as she turns out three coins. “I’m here to purchase yours.”

Good money, and yet, the older woman recoils, as if struck. Disgust stains the air around her, and Sabine feels her teeth go sharp inside her mouth. She has already taken a step toward the sitting woman when the younger one rises from her perch.

“I’ll do it.”

The girl steps into the light, revealing a purple dress washed out to gray. Her mousy hair is braided down her back, stray strands escaping round her face. Her nose is small and pointed, her eyes wide, alert. She reminds Sabine of a rabbit, or a fawn—

Or Ysabel.

It is not a true match, of course—the girl is shorter than María’s maid, plumper, too, but the tawny color of her hair, the shape of her face, the way her lips part even when she is not speaking—it is enough to stir something in Sabine.

A memory comes nipping at her heels—a picnic laid out on an alcove floor, her head resting on pillowed skirts—but she pushes it away. Now and then, that old life rises up to haunt her. But it dies a little more with every passing night.

“Coin is coin,” says the girl with a shrug. “Don’t see how it matters which way I come by it.”

The older woman lets a word slide between her teeth, and Sabine pretends not to hear. She will come back for her, when she is done. But first—

“Come,” says the girl, taking her by the hand, and drawing her down the dock. Away from prying eyes.

Sabine lets herself be led into a gap between the buildings where the lanterns do not reach. But there, the girl’s bravado fails her. There, she lets go, and her hand drops, and even as she turns to face Sabine, she begins to fidget with a charm around her neck.

“I’ve never been with a woman,” she admits, as if it isn’t obvious. As if the air isn’t full of the girl’s worry, and her want, her uncertainty, and hunger. A different kind, of course—a lust for the coins in Sabine’s pockets, not her touch. But hunger all the same.

“I don’t know what to do,” she stammers, and Sabine smiles, knowing the darkness will hide her teeth.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ll take care of you.”

The girl blushes fiercely. She’s younger than she seemed at first, her cheeks still round with youth.

Her hand goes again to the makeshift charm around her neck.

A simple penny, stamped flat and pressed with a V .

A bauble, made herself, or perhaps a lover’s token, judging by the way her fingers keep drifting to it, thumb skating nervously across its surface.

The next time she reaches for the charm, Sabine stops her hand.

The girl jumps a little, startled by the suddenness, the touch, but doesn’t pull away.

Relaxes a little when Sabine’s grip shifts, gloved fingers grazing the girl’s bare skin as she lifts the hand to her mouth and sets a gentle kiss against the knuckles.

What follows is a kind of dance.

Sabine steps forward, and the girl steps back, once, then twice, tensing slightly when her shoulders come up against the wall.

In the dark, she didn’t notice it.

Sabine did.

There is nowhere to go, and the girl lets out a shaky laugh, her fingers going to the laces of her dress. “Should I . . . I mean, or do you want me to . . .”

But she trails off as Sabine continues forward, snuffing out the little space left between their bodies. She is a head taller than the girl, and lifts her chin, guiding her face up until their eyes meet.

It is a cool night, and the girl’s breath comes out in clouds.

Sabine’s does not.

“It’s all right,” she murmurs, cupping the girl’s cheek. She can feel the pulse quickening beneath her skin. Her lips look soft, and for an instant Sabine considers kissing her, the way she once longed to kiss her maid. But then the girl giggles, breath like stale wine, and the illusion breaks.

Sabine’s hand slides past her cheek, and through her hair, settling at the nape of her neck.

“Don’t be afraid,” she says, and a question fills the girl’s eyes, right before she pulls her in and bites down, hard, fangs sinking deep into her throat.

Fear spills into the night as the girl stiffens, gasps in pain, tries to push away, but Sabine snakes her other arm around her waist, holding their bodies flush, tight enough to feel the girl’s heart hammering against her ribs. And then it is no longer hers.

The silence breaks inside Sabine as the pulse pours in, filling her mouth, her chest, and soon her own heart begins to beat. She comes to life again, teeth driving deeper as the blood floods in and the world goes bright.

A muffled cry escapes the girl, a sound that could pass for pleasure, if not for the terror on the air, the panicked clawing of her limbs. But this is the dark side of the dock at an indecent hour. No one comes.

And so, Sabine drinks, and drinks.

Too soon, the girl stops struggling.

Too soon, the brightness fades, and Sabine’s teeth slide free, and the girl slumps lifeless in her arms and a few moments later her own heart begins to slow again, before dragging to a stop.

How brief it is, how fast it fades.

Sabine sighs and withdraws her arm from the girl’s waist. She lets go of the body, but not before catching hold of the little charm around her neck. The hammered penny with its etched letter V . The girl collapses, the chain breaking with her weight.

Sabine slips the charm around her neck, settles the pendant in the ruby’s place.

The ruby, sold off years before, when she had nothing else.

A crime, to get so little for the gem, but she was all too happy to be rid of it, to shed the last piece of Andrés, and María.

A dozen other trinkets now hang around her neck, a dozen more adorn her hands and wrists.

The heartbeats fade. It’s nice, to have something that lasts.

She looks down at the body on the ground, amazed she ever found any resemblance to Ysabel in the unwashed hair, the ruddy cheeks. She feels no guilt, no grief, for what she’s done. Given the girl’s poor lot, it might as well have been an act of mercy.

Death is a kind of freedom, after all.

Sabine returns to the five rotting steps, intending to bestow that freedom on the older woman, too, but she finds only the wine cup, empty now. She sighs, and tips it over with her shoe.

The night is young, and so she takes the long way home.

Home—a word that once meant something solid. Caravans arriving in a square. Cherry pits tucked like secrets in an olive grove. Bare feet at the edge of a peaked roof.