France, 1431

Ysanne returned to the hills that Agnes had pointed out, and dismissed her guards. Once she was a vampire, she wouldn't need them anymore.

At first she couldn't find Agnes's house, and she felt a stab of panic.

What if she'd misremembered and these were the wrong hills?

What if Agnes had moved on during these past two years?

What if she'd changed her mind and would refuse to turn Ysanne?

Then she spotted it – a simple wooden structure tucked away in a knot of trees, huddled in the shadow of the tallest hill, and her heart stuttered.

This was it.

Steeling herself, Ysanne strode up to the door and loudly knocked.

Nothing stirred inside.

"Agnes? It's Ysanne. I've come back," she called.

A moment later, the door creaked open.

Agnes was still dressed in black, but she wore her hair loose now, spilling about her shoulders, and her face was unreadable.

"I've made my decision. I want to be a vampire," Ysanne said.

"I should remind you that a vampire's life is so often hard," Agnes said.

Ysanne thought of Joan, screaming out her prayers as she was burned alive. "In this world, a woman's life is always hard. I want the strength to fight back."

Agnes slowly nodded. "Come inside."

The house was dark, all the windows covered with thick woollen blankets, and the only light came from a few clusters of candles. Ysanne could barely see, catching glimpses of rough wooden furniture as Agnes led her into a room, furnished with a small bed.

"You understand that there is a risk you won't come through the turn. Some people don't survive," Agnes said.

"It's a risk I'm willing to take."

"And you also understand that there is no way back once you have become a vampire."

Ysanne nodded.

"I shall ask you once more, Ysanne Moreau. Are you sure this is what you want?"

Ysanne's voice was clear as a bell. "It is."

"Very well." Agnes patted the bed. "Lie down."

Ysanne did, her heart starting to thump. Agnes pressed her palm to Ysanne's chest, in the space between her breasts and her throat.

"There is steel in you. I wouldn't turn you if there wasn't," she said.

She sat on the bed beside Ysanne, and gently turned Ysanne's head, exposing her neck.

"This will hurt," she warned.

"I don't care."

Still, Ysanne was unprepared for the white-hot flash of pain when Agnes's sharp fangs pierced her throat. Her whole body stiffened, and a ragged sob escaped her throat, but she didn't struggle or try to pull away as Agnes drank her blood, not even when the world started to fade away and Ysanne realised that she was dying.

Agnes shifted her weight, her mouth finally leaving Ysanne's throat, and then something warm and coppery trickled into Ysanne's mouth. She swallowed it down, excitement and anticipation quickening her heart in its final beats, until . . . finally . . . it stopped.

Ysanne opened her eyes.

She was still lying in the small bed in Agnes's house, but the vampire was nowhere to be seen. Ysanne's thoughts were sluggish, scattered – she recalled drifting in and out of consciousness and the vague memory of a terrible ache twisting her stomach. Her mouth held the echo of something delicious. How much of her memories were real, and how much of it were fragments of dreams?

Agnes came into the room. Her hair was twisted into a loose braid, worn over one shoulder, and she gave Ysanne the warmest smile Ysanne had yet seen on the other woman.

"Awake at last," she said.

"How long have I been sleeping?"

"Four days."

Ysanne's stomach twisted, and she made a small noise.

"Wait here," Agnes said.

She left the room and reappeared a moment later, carrying a large tankard. She handed it to Ysanne. "It's fresh."

The smell of blood made Ysanne's stomach twist again, with need, and she eagerly gulped it down.

"Where did you get it?" she asked.

Agnes's expression didn't change. "Do you remember how we first met? You're not the first woman I've saved in such a manner. I have no qualms about killing monsters, and I have no qualms about keeping them alive long enough to siphon off their blood."

Neither did Ysanne.

"How are you feeling?" Agnes asked, taking the empty tankard back.

Ysanne considered it. "Strong."

"Good. You should rest for today, adjust to this new body, and tomorrow, I shall teach you how to live as a vampire."

Ysanne caught Agnes's hand before she left. "Thank you."

Agnes's face softened. "You're very welcome."

Ysanne lay back in the bed, and touched her own chest. No heartbeat. She placed her palm across her lips. No breath. That delicious taste in her mouth was blood. She touched her tongue to the tips of her new fangs, and smiled.

"I'm a vampire," she said, testing out the words. They felt right. She felt right.

"I'm a vampire," she said again, and her smile widened.

Nothing could hold her back now.

France, 1435

Ysanne looked once more around the small house that had become home to her these last few years. She didn't know when she'd see it again.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Agnes asked, watching from the doorway.

"Are you sure you don't want to come with me?" Ysanne countered.

Agnes looked away.

It was a discussion they'd had many times recently, and neither of them was willing to yield.

Ysanne leaned against the wall, folding her hands behind her. "You're the one who told me that I should see more of the world. Why are you now surprised that I still want to?"

"I'm not surprised," Agnes said.

"But you're not happy."

"I thought you were happy here."

"I am, but . . ." Ysanne searched for the right words. "I don't want to spend forever here. What's the point of immortality if you don't use it?"

Agnes didn't reply.

"You've trained me to survive in the world. You must have known that I wouldn't always stay," Ysanne pointed out.

"I suppose I did know, but somehow I still hoped that you would," said Agnes, her voice heavy.

"So come with me," said Ysanne, even though she knew it was hopeless.

Anger flashed in Agnes's eyes. "I have already seen the world, and everywhere I go it is the same. People destroying each other. Cruelty and violence and ugliness and war. I have no wish to see all that again."

"So you're planning to spend the rest of your life alone in this house?"

Silence.

Ysanne looked at the floor.

Maybe Agnes hadn't planned to live here alone. Was that why she'd turned Ysanne? Ysanne had always thought that it was just because she had asked, because Agnes understood how this world treated women and wanted to give Ysanne the power to fight back, but maybe that wasn't the only reason. Maybe she'd wanted a companion. For years she'd had one, but now Ysanne had grown restless.

She loved Agnes. The vampire had given her a new life, taught her everything she knew, and they'd lived together for years.

But she couldn't spend the rest of her life here, not even for the sake of her dear friend.

"I will come back. This isn't goodbye forever," she said, but Agnes's expression didn't change.

"Please look at me," Ysanne said.

Agnes did, but her eyes were hollow, almost as empty as Ysanne's mother's had been, when Joachim died.

"This isn't goodbye forever," Ysanne repeated. "I love you, Agnes. You saved my life, in so many ways, and I have no intention of leaving you behind for good. But there's a huge world out there, and I want to see more of it."

"I won't stop you from leaving," Agnes said, her voice as hollow as her eyes.

Didn't she believe Ysanne? Did she really think this was the end?

Ysanne hugged the older woman. "I always know where to find you. I will see you again."

Agnes managed a smile, but it was lifeless.

Ysanne left that night, and though her heart ached to say goodbye to Agnes, the only friend she had in the world, there was a spring in her step as she set out into the countryside – so different now that she was a vampire.

She looked back just once at the house, so wrapped in shadows that it was invisible to human eyes.

"I'll see you soon," she said, even though Agnes couldn't hear her.

But she didn't.

It was years before Ysanne returned to that part of France, older and wiser than she'd been when she left, though physically she looked exactly the same.

She'd taken lovers during that time, but there had never been a friend like Agnes, and her heart lifted in her chest as the little house at the foot of the hills came into view.

Her hand went to her pocket, to the gold bracelet that she'd bought for Agnes on her travels. She hoped Agnes liked it.

Her footsteps quickened as she reached the house, but where she would once have walked right in, this time she knocked and waited outside. Doubts wormed into her head. What if Agnes had found a new companion by now? What if there was no room in her life for Ysanne anymore?

She knocked again.

Nothing.

"Agnes? It's me. I'm back," she said, her words so close to what she had said all those years ago, when she had still been human.

But unlike last time, the door didn't creak open.

Ysanne waited a little longer, then pushed it. The door swung open, and unease hardened in Ysanne's chest. Any vampire would have heard the creak of the door opening, just as they would have heard Ysanne's words. Maybe Agnes had gone hunting.

But when Ysanne walked into the house, realisation sunk in. The woollen blankets had fallen from the windows; the candles were nothing but melted nubs, and the floor was covered in dead leaves and other debris. Thick layers of dust had settled on every surface, and the air smelled wild, empty.

No one had lived here in a long time.

"Agnes?" Ysanne called her name anyway, moving from room to room, looking for any sign of her old friend.

But there was nothing.

The beds were empty.

A pair of Agnes's shoes still sat beneath the window in her room, grey with grime.

Where had she gone?

Why had she gone?

Tears pricked Ysanne's eyes. "I told you I was coming back," she whispered to the empty room where Agnes had once slept, where they had spent so many nights sitting on that bed, talking. "Why didn't you wait for me?"

There was an awful, hollow feeling in her chest, as if some deep, instinctive level was telling her that Agnes hadn't only left her home behind. She'd left this life.

Ysanne would never see her again.

She sank onto the bed, gathering up the covers and holding them to her face, hoping for a trace of Agnes's scent, but there was nothing but mildew.

Nothing remained of the life they'd had here.

"I'm sorry," Ysanne whispered.

She could never have stayed, but she'd never imagined things ending like this. She'd never imagined a world without the fierce, ancient vampire who had turned her.

She didn't know how long she sat on the bed, clutching the covers and thinking of Agnes, but finally she dragged herself to her feet.

It was hardly the first time she'd said goodbye to anyone, but this was the first time she'd said goodbye to another vampire, and that shouldn't have been different, but somehow it was. Vampires were meant to live forever.

Ysanne walked out of the house. She took the bracelet from her pocket, watching as shards of moonlight glinted off the polished band of gold. Then she dug a deep hole beside the house and buried the bracelet there.

"Goodbye, Agnes," she said.

Part 2/2

On Friday we're going to find out how Edmond got the scars on his back :)