Night fell quietly. Its descent was early on account of the season, although Ira would not have been able to enjoy a longer day even in the midst of spring. With its windows blinded, Beaufort Manor was in a state of perpetual dark.

Ira passed a hand over her sweaty brow. The floor gleamed in patches where it was yet to dry. Cabinets stood open all around, their doors parted wide, their insides gutted and scoured. Fire burned in the hearth. It licked up a stone bed Ira had spent a good hour scrubbing clean, seeming almost joyous in its dance. Ira doused it with some regret.

Sir Beaufort was not in the sitting room when Ira passed through on her way upstairs, armed with vinegar and a bristly sponge. The bathroom was in a sorrier state than the kitchen, but more immediately inviting on account of Ira's own need for a shower. The mold and grime and dust from years of disuse couldn't mask the quality of its make: the floor was solid wood, the tub made of stone so pale and smooth it felt like skin under Ira's hand. Ira rolled her sleeves and got to work. The stink of vinegar soon permeated the air, accompanied by the sharp scrich-scrich of a metal sponge sliding down stained stone.

Ira let the shower run while she retrieved a change of clothing and a bar of soap from her bag, then a towel from the linens' closet. By the time she returned, the water ran clear and cold. Ira refused to rush. She scrubbed her skin until it gained a pinkish hue, soaped her hair, and watched days' worth of sweat and grime disappear with great satisfaction.

Dressed, Ira hurried back to her room, mind on the tasks she wished to accomplish before Sir Beaufort sought her presence. A burst of cold air reminded her that she had left the window open. She clambered onto the bed and reached for the shutters. Her fingers froze an inch from the glass.

There was something outside.

Ira lowered her hands to the windowsill. She leaned forward, slow and cautious, and peered into the gloom. The shadows were thick at the base of the manor and for a second, she couldn't make out anything at all.

The next, a pair of golden eyes blinked into existence a breath from her face.

Ira reared back and slammed the window shut. The glass rattled terribly, startling the creature. Something scrambled down the manor's wall on feet tipped with claws.

Ira locked the window, then closed the wooden shutters and locked them as well. She wrapped the blanket around herself and fell still. The book Sir Beaufort had given her lay near her pillow. Ira parted History of Samodevia open. Her eyes ran through words she knew by heart, thoughts far away. Blood roared in her temples. The urge to run, to chase, gave way to more pragmatic concerns, if slowly.

The world slipped back into focus. Ira caught the end trail of a paragraph and had to double-back, uncertain of its meaning.

...as the Queen is Light, She is Shadow, and the two must not be parted if the Kingdom is to stand.

Ira stopped reading. She flipped to the previous page, then the one before that, eyes catching on foreign sentences slotted neatly between familiar blocks of text. Ira stood from the bed and grabbed her bag, riffling through its contents until she found her journal and quill. There was no desk, but the vanity table served Ira just as well. She propped the book against the mirror and set to noting down every instance of discrepancy between History of Samodevia as it had been penned by Ceri and the version that filled libraries and schoolrooms around the kingdom.

A pattern emerged soon enough, impossible to ignore or deny. Ira sat back, hands still. The quill bled ink in fat, black drops, staining her fingers. She set it aside mindlessly. Her thoughts fled far from Beaufort Manor, chasing Ceri's Shadow.

#

Valeri contemplated the papers spread before him. Neat columns of numbers inked their length - poems made of zeroes and eights and threes. Terrible poems.

Potentially problematic poems.

Valeri leaned back in his chair, brows bunched in displeasure. He was not a businessman. He had never acquired the constitution for it during his mortal life - that dreadful, dull, obsessive love for numbers and margins and profits. Gold was not a fit altar for a man to worship. Not when there was so much pleasure to be found in its spending.

The youngest of three sons, Valeri had learned at an early age that the norms binding his brothers to lives of virtue did not apply to him. Childhood misdemeanors grew into more serious breaches as his years advanced yet charming, sweet Val was never punished with more than a harsh word. Money and looks got a man far, and the young man Valeri had once been had delighted in pushing past all limits. By the end of his twentieth year, his father could barely stand the sight of him.

A brush with death, however intimate and exciting, should have been enough to startle Valeri into maturity. But Valeri had been marked by a Vampire Lord - a beautiful, capricious, temperamental creature as ancient as any that existed. Sir Iavor Beaufort did not indulge human customs, had no care for morality and its complications. He had adored Valeri's ill temperament, as it closely matched his own, and encouraged its degradation at every turn.

Valeri let out a disgruntled sigh. Iavor had taken no other children. Bereft of the skills required for the materialization of wealth, Valeri had found himself at a loss when the responsibility of managing the Beaufort fortune had passed on to him. Lacking an alternative, he had decided to entrust various aspects of his finances to more knowledgeable and experienced men. The strategy had proved generally beneficial, bar a few exceptions here and there. The temptation of gold was great after all, and the human heart all too weak.

Still, a little more subtlety would have been appreciated.

A sudden noise tore Valeri from his thoughts. He was at the barred window within a breath, tearing at drapes and wood and glass until there was nothing but the night sky before him. There. The intruder was there, clinging to the wall, hidden in the manor's shadow. Valeri discerned the outline of a small body and wild hair before the creature was startled into flight. He longed to follow, snarling in territorial rage.

A heart beat within the manor. Its drumming beat caught Valeri's ears and doused his anger, turning it to embers. There was no sight of the unexpected visitor but the musty, potent scent of beast lingered. Valeri spotted naked footprints in soft earth lit by moonlight. The trail grew ragged further out, betraying the cur's terror as it fled the house. The last of Valeri's ire melted away. Rendering a wolf cub limb to limb would surely incite its flea-bitten kin to seek revenge, and there were the wedding preparations to consider.

The manor shuddered as Valeri stalked its halls. The iron-wrought runes that ran over every door frame glowed where he passed. Some hot, terrible emotion welled inside Valeri's chest and choked his throat. He did not spare them a glance, putting thoughts of home and Beatrice far from mind. The shock of magic faded with each step he took.

Inexplicably, the stink of vinegar took its place. Valeri followed the pungent scent, somewhat amused. The house had not smelled of anything but ink and blood for years. Ira had brought the world inside the Manor, the thrum of mortal life and all its sweet complications.

Valeri halted at Ira's door and listened. The woman breathed evenly, her pulse a steady thrum. She answered the door promptly when he rapped his knuckles against the wood and bore no trace of fear in countenance or scent.

"Is it time for the tour of the property?" she asked.

"Yes. If you are ready." The words fell awkwardly from Valeri's lips.

Ira nodded. "Of course. Just a moment." She went to retrieve her cloak, and the lamp burning at a vanity table. Valeri noted that The History of Samodevia sat propped against the mirror with some pleasure.

Valeri watched Ira from the corner of his eyes as they walked, trying to discern her mood. Humans tended to wear their feelings plain for all to see, but Ira was proving consistently difficult to read. The unexpected challenge her company posed was trilling.

"Are there predators in the woods around the manor?" Ira asked.

"Quite a few," Valeri said, tone mild. "Bears. Wolves. Mountain lions. The occasional fox."

They made their way outside. The night sky stretched above them, budding with stars. It ran pale and sickly where the moon hung, like a spot of frost over a dark river.

Ira's sigh misted pale in the cold. "Is there a chance my mule made it to Elsendorf?"

Valeri contained a chuckle. "None at all, I am afraid."

"Poor thing," the woman said.

"The woods are dangerous," Valeri said, spying a chance to turn the conversation to a topic of importance. "I would ask you forebear from leaving the Manor at night when not in my company."

"I understand," Ira said.

They were halfway to the stables when Ira spoke again, voice as quiet as the wind. "I spent some time in Kilmet, in the deep north. Wolves are a constant danger there, but they are at their most vicious at night. What is it about darkness that makes beasts so cruel?"

Valeri inhaled deeply. The woods shivered around him; the earth thrummed under his feet. The very air lived, carrying a thousand scents, teasing with a thousand possibilities. "I do not know," he lied and thought of how sad, how limited and small humans were.

They passed a dilapidated tool shed. Farther ahead, the stables rose from the dark, the structure a shade darker than the night.

"Do you own horses?" Ira asked.

"Just the one," Valeri answered.

Ira raised her lamp, eyes narrowed in study of the stables and their surroundings. "Are you not worried it will be attacked?"

Valeri bit back a smile. He had witnessed Zenith stomp a black bear to death. His pets were as feral as they came. "The stables are well-protected," he dismissed.

Ira cast him a disbelieving look, but said nothing. The building was indeed solidly constructed. Its doors were thick, the windows guarded by heavy shutters. Natural predators would find it impassable. Supernatural beings knew better than to cross onto Beaufort territory.

Although a few did seem due for a reminder of their manners.

"The stables are off-limits," Valeri said.

Ira bowed her head in acquiescence. Valeri turned from the sight of her submission, and ground his teeth in irritation. A glint of silver caught his eyes. He had meant to take Ira down to the banks of the stream, and warn her against crossing to the other side. The woods were a real danger but tonight, so was Valeri. He felt the call of the wild keenly, and would not wager Miss Hale's safety on his ability to withstand the lure of the hunt twice in a row.

"Would you show me the garden?" Ira asked.

Valeri looked at her, surprised. The lantern hung at the woman's side, painting a circle of gold at her feet. Her face was in shadow.

"What makes you believe there is such a thing?" Valeri wondered.

"The tool shed," Ira said. "There is a wheelbarrow, and pots."

Valeri smiled, slow and sharp. "Very well," he said.

They circled back, passing the shed and veering right, into the shadow of the manor. The terrain grew uneven.

"Mind your feet," Valeri warned.

The garden was strewn with rocks and pitted by soft, soil-rich depressions. Once, all had teemed with life - flowers and herbs and strange, fragrant shrubs of jewel tones that sang when Beatrice passed through. None of them remained. Valeri's eyes swept over the barren space, finding it unbearably ugly.

"It has been like this for a long time," he said, mostly to himself.

"Is the soil barren?" Ira asked. The lantern she held swung this way and that. It parted the dark like the hull of a ship does the sea, and just as fleetingly.

Valeri did not know. The land, like the house, was its own master. "I would like to find out," he said. It was an old desire, and it burned anew now that Ira had stocked its flames.

"Perhaps a few herbs," the woman said. "Mint grows fine in harsher climates."

"Yes," Valeri agreed. It would not be a bad thing to have mint close at hand, and other herbs besides. That is, if anything could take root among rocks and weeds. "I will send for the appropriate materials. Is there anything you found of need, in terms of supplies?"

"There are a few things. Would you mind if I compose a list?"

Valeri bit back a question regarding the woman's writing abilities. "Certainly," he said after a moment's pause. Ira's expression - slight affront, a touch of reluctant amusement - told him he had not succeeded in masking his surprise. "I believe that is enough for one night. Let us head back."

They walked in comfortable silence. The manor was dark and warm, beaconing one to rest.

"I will not require your presence again tonight," Valeri said.

Ira bowed. "Then I will retire. Good night."

"Good night," Valeri bid.

He watched the woman depart. He waited until he heard Ira's door close, then slipped back outside. There were letters that needed to be sent.

Besides, the night was too beautiful to waste behind closed walls.