Vigil at Rosemary’s coffin was dishearteningly uneventful. Aster came in and out of the room often; he had been there as soon as Agnes had asked for help. Together, they had carried her from the library. Then Agnes had bathed her, washed the blood from her silver hair, draped her in a soft, white nightgown. Now Rosemary seemed to sleep soundly in her coffin.

Aster came into the room again. “We have trouble.”

“Hm?” Agnes looked up from her bowl of porridge. Aster had supplied it, for her strength.

“Nyx will come soon to draw blood.”

“She can’t draw blood like this!” Agnes exclaimed. “Rosemary isn’t prepared for it.”

“Nyx will likely demand to draw blood anyway,” explained Aster. “She prefers Rosemary docile, I think. I have never asked why.”

Agnes nodded. “I would prefer her aware. Is there something that could wake her?”
“Do you know why she became like this in the first place?”

It had been so strange. “No. She splashed herself with blood and then... disappeared.”

“Then I imagine we must wait.”

“I don’t like that.” Agnes sighed.

“Too bad,” Aster said.

Nestled in blankets before them, Rosemary looked not unlike a princess in an old story. Struck with an idea, Agnes leaned in close. “Rosemary,” she whispered, “it is time to wake up. You must get dressed for the day.”

Nothing happened. Aster sighed.

“Rosemary,” Agnes whispered. “Lady Rosemary, the moon wants you. The moon is... sending an emissary to meet you, and you must show her around and make her comfortable on earth.”

“That isn’t going to–”

Rosemary sat up. “The moon?”

Agnes, feeling grateful that she had moved back just in time, shook her head. “I’m afraid it’s Nyx.”

“Ah. The absence,” Rosemary said. Then she rubbed her eyes. “Oh, I was out. I did not mean to be out.”

“What happened?” Agnes said. “You suddenly seemed to collapse.” It had been not unlike watching a puppet lose its precious strings. 

“I was caught in old memory,” Rosemary said. She grasped the edge of the coffin with her delicate fingers and pulled herself out of it. Agnes caught her, steadying her. “I wanted to escape a moment, and went too far.”

“Be careful,” Aster chastised. “What if Nyx had arrived and you weren’t ready?”

“Then she would simply take my blood, and I would be spared a trip to the tower, and the pain of bloodletting.”

“Should we have left you then?” Agnes crossed her arms.

Rosemary’s face was strange, half caught in shadow. “No.”

Together, the three of them readied Rosemary for Nyx’s arrival. Aster left to find a hearty bottle of blood. Left to her own devices, Agnes dressed Rosemary in a blood-red gown and braided her hair with ribbons. 

They waited together in the foyer, before an open door. As the gentle scent of pine and mud wafted into the room, Agnes felt yearning boil in her ribs. She had not been outside in weeks. Or had it been months, now? Time seemed strange in this place. All that mattered now was that the wolf in her was salivating at the thought of a hunt.

Agnes bit the feeling, chewed it to nothingness, and swallowed it. 

There was work to be done.

But perhaps...

“Rosemary, do you ever fancy a walk?”

Rosemary looked at her with red eyes that seemed near panic. “No.”

“No?” Agnes scoffed. “You’re an ancient being, and you don’t want to go outside?”

“Well,” said Rosemary, but whatever her response, it was lost in the chaos of Nyx’s arrival. 

Today, the older woman wore a pure white gown, glimmering like starlight. Yet there was a plain-ness to it; a lack of adornment that seemed odd given its quality. Her bag was slung over her shoulder, clinking with bottles. On her sharp face was a frown, terrible and blank. 

As before, she reached out her palm, and pressed a kiss to the back of Rosemary’s hand, hateful and tender. Something sharp cut between Agnes’ ribs.

Rosemary suddenly grasped Agnes’ hand. “Please. Come into the tower with me today. Please.”

Oh, Agnes thought. Her fingers found Rosemary’s cold palm and squeezed it.

A perfect chance for information, Agnes reminded herself.

The trip to the tower lasted a mere second and a thousand lifetimes. Nyx unlocked the door; it swung open, heavy. All three women stepped up a spiral staircase, its stones so worn with use it seemed more a ramp. 

Rosemary tripped on one. Agnes caught her by the waist. Nyx disappeared further up and up.

Finally, the three came to what looked like an observatory. A small room, it was circular, and lined with windows. Faded tapestries covered it’s grey walls.. Papers were scattered across the floor with celestial diagrams, lines of ancient script. Agnes caught a glimpse of a massive, bronze telescope pointed out one window, looking towards the moon.

Not a single woman uttered a word.

As Nyx reached into her bag and produced a covered vial and a thin needle, Rosemary settled on a small cushion beneath a window. Agnes sat beside her.

“You need to move,” said Nyx, twisting the needle onto the vial. “That’s the arm I take from.”

Agnes moved back. “Any reason why?”

“No. Why change my routine now?” With that, Nyx pulled down the shoulder of Rosemary’s dress, inserted the needle, and began to drain blood.

Blood as rich as a ruby streamed into fhe glass vial. Agnes watched, entranced. It was beautiful, as smooth as silk, with a silvery sheen to its surface. She understood, for a moment, the appeal of Rosemary’s blood. 

Perhaps it had nothing to do with power. Perhaps the higher status vampires merely wanted to own something beautiful. 

Then Agnes caught Rosemary’s face.

She had half expected sorrow, anger, pain. Perhaps the careful blankness of a soldier determined to show no fear. 

Instead, Rosemary’s eyes were as blank as uninked paper. She stared past Nyx’s shoulder, out the window. When woman set the full vial to the side and began to draw another one, Rosemary did not react.

No pain, no fear, no sorrow. Nothing at all. Agnes thought a moment of snapping Rosemary into feeling again. But, as Nyx began to fill a third bottle, it felt nothing but cruel.

Instead, Agnes slipped to Rosemary’s free side and burrowed in close. The woman’s cold body was growing frosty. Agnes drew Rosemary’s head to her chest. Gently, so as not to pull it, she began to stroke the vampire’s hair.

Cheerily, Nyx filed a fourth, and then a fifth bottle. “Finished. I’ll see you next month, Rosemary.” Then, in a swish of black hair, she was gone.

Rosemary was very cold. Her eyes were still far away, though she had begun to tremble. One of her delicate hands grasped Agnes’ wrist.

Agnes nuzzled close against her, then lifted her up. Cradling the vampire in her arms, she slowly descended the tower.

Aster waited at the door, two bottles under his arm, and three cups.

“I can’t drink blood,” Agnes said.

“I brought you wine,” Aster replied. “I had a feeling you’d want it.”

Together they brought Rosemary to the library and draped her across her favorite chair. It seemed that she had escaped to some other place, leaving nothing but a demure shell behind. 

Agnes rubbed her palms together to warm them, and then placed them on Rosemary’s cheeks. The vampire blinked, just a little more awake.

“Thank you for being there,” she whispered. Aster pressed a cup of blood into Rosemary’s hands; she sipped it slowly, as though afraid to swallow.

Agnes drank her own wine and felt its heat in her belly. “You asked. I answered.”

Rosemary nodded. “And… thank you Aster. For staying.”

Aster nodded. “Drink up.”

Rosemary did so. Then she said: “I’m still so cold.”

Agnes stood, and leaned against the armrest, and cradled Rosemary so that her head lay just in the curve of Agnes’ lap. With her wine-free hand she rubbed circles into Rosemary’s skin, drew her fingers over her forehead, her nose, her lips. All as soft as milk.

Rosemary’s eyes fluttered shut. Agnes supposed she must be comfortable. To her, Agnes was a trusted friend, an attendant she could rely on.

To Agnes, Rosemary was still a monster.

And, whispered a small part of Agnes, one that had slowly been growing louder and louder, she was comforting to touch, too.