Laurel hadn't ever seen the wall in person, even though she'd experienced life on both sides of it, until now. The illustrations she'd seen couldn't really do it justice. From afar, it looked like a grey slab only impressive for its span. They couldn't capture the sense of life and motion, the guard towers and patrols, the torches and lamps. Most of the solders stationed all along the wall slept during the day and rose at night. Their silvery armour gleamed in the moonlight and they marched in satisfying lockstep when they were drilling. The wall was split into twelve sections, one for each sign of the zodiac. Here, near the centre, the men wore helmets that resembled the heads of lions, animals that were likely now extinct.

  The commander spoke to her curtly, but with deference. 'My men are ready,' he said, as they walked along the battlements. Most had seen combat but nothing like what was coming. A few months ago, her father had asked her to confirm reports of an elven force amassing for an assault. She was not allowed to be seen flying or using any of her other monstrous powers, though the commander and his men presumably knew that it was how she was able to supply them with such detailed information.

  She'd also needed an excuse to even be there and that had been supplied in the form of Natasha, whom she was officially there to chaperone. She was set to marry the commander's son, a commoner but one with the wealth to mollify her family and the looks to dampen her own disappointment. 'It's so scary,' Tash said, squeezing hold of her fiancé's arm performatively and leaning into him. Laurel tuned the rest out, as they became lovey-dovey towards one another and let the commander show her up to their tallest watch tower. They couldn't actually see the elves from here but she could.

  'They're about a week's hard march away,' she said. She wanted to stay and fight but she knew that her father would not allow it. So, she had to trust that her information would be enough and that the men would prove themselves equal to the task. A few days later, the wedding was used to boost morale and many other soldiers were hastily wed or renewed their vows alongside their commander's son, a way of promising to themselves and to the world that they would live through the looming battle. Though they travelled back together, Laurel was quite happy to be rid of Tash, when she departed to stay with her parents.

  'Have you given any thought to whom you might marry?' the girl had asked, feeling the need to play pretend.

  'No,' she replied, closing the discussion before it could begin. 'I am ever so happy for you, though.' She smiled sweetly.

  The two of them batted tedious questions and answers to one another until the servants came to collect her. She, of course, spoke politely to the Tash's parents and gave them her father's regards but only spent the night and lingered no longer than absolutely necessary. The more distance she put between herself and the wall the worse her sense of foreboding became as she began to feel less and less confident that the men stationed there, however brave and well-drilled, could defeat what was coming for them. She wanted to fight but felt compelled to obey her father. So, instead, she simply gave the King her assessment, without embellishment, upon her return, and headed right back to her life of courtly pretence. Tiff was still weepy about Arthur Silverwood, who'd been eaten by a pack of gremlins, and spent most of their time together laid on Selene's lap.

  She had some new friends to distract her, however, in the form of Gabrielle and Isadora, blonde and doe-eyed twins. They were quite bad at pretending not to be terrified of her and would often squeak if she entered a room too suddenly or they accidentally brushed against her. She found it funny and it kept the nightmare in her blood satiated. They were in the gardens when she snuck up on them, startling them when she began speaking. 'It won't be the same without Tash here,' she said, trying to seem troubled.

  Once they'd overcome the initial panic, they offered her various platitude, always overly cautious not to offend her.

  'Shall we go see if Tiff's stopped crying?' she asked with a grin. The girls nodded and followed her along but refused to verbally agree, both suspecting that she was trying to trick them into saying something disparaging about the poor girl. As it happened, Tiffany greeted them in the parlour with well-practiced grace and the four of them played cards and told fortunes until lunch, when Laurel had to return to her prisoner. It had been almost three years, now, since Tamsin's infection.

  The vampire beat against the rock wall. 'I'm starving,' she said, baring her fangs.

  'I'll get you some dinner in a while,' Laurel said with a sigh. 'How are you feeling, besides that?'

  'Bored,' the girl said, before stumbling across a lie that she thought might work, 'oh, and ever so lonely. Don't leave me alone, take me with you, when you go hunting.'

  'Sorry,' Laurel said, absently. 'What's your mother's maiden name?'

  'Black,' the girl said and Laurel detected a hint of affection when she remembered her mother. She'd taken to asking simple questions like that, to tease out some of Tamsin's old human feelings. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. What was important, however, was the it was working more often than it had. It was progress, the thing she'd been searching for most, some slither of light at the end of the tunnel. 'I wish I could go and see mummy dearest,' she followed up with, thinking about some foul torture. Tamsin seemed to understand why Laurel asked those questions and the nightmare lurking within wanted to convince itself that it wouldn't ever work even more than it wanted to convince Laurel that she was safe to release.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  She dropped off the girl's food and stayed to make sure she ate. Laurel was always wary that Tamsin might try to keep one of her victims alive and enlist his aid to break free but the thought never even seemed to occur to her. Whether that was good thing or a bad thing, she didn't really know. Tamsin hiccoughed cutely, with blood pouring down her chin, and thanked her with a smile. 'Love you,' Laurel said, despite herself, flying off before she could read her prisoner's reaction. She was back in time for the evening dance, which pleased her father, who took her aside once it was over.

  'There are rumours,' he said, telling her everything with his mind before uttering another word, 'that things are not going well at the wall.' He seemed to be looking for something in her eyes as he spoke. 'They need help,' he said.

  'I can help them,' she replied, telling him what he wanted to her.

  'Without being seen?'

  She nodded.

  'Well then, I've no reason to keep you any longer. Do not leave the palace until the guests have cleared out.'

  She did as she was told and then began her long flight to the wall, weaving around towns and villages, militia patrols and wandering torchlights. What she eventually found was a battle of epic proportions. Men had been sent to bolster the force at the wall but they had still been pushed back. The wall itself had large chunks blown out of it and elven warriors were bursting forth by the hundreds. 'Do not be seen,' she reminded herself, before removing her dress and tucking it away beneath a tree. There was only one way she could think of to fight without being seen at all. She split herself apart, over and over again, until her flesh and bones had entirely dissolved and she existed only as particulates of blood in the air. Her normal senses were replaced with nightmarish ones and she floated into the midst of the battle.

  The Virgo section had collapsed entirely by the time she reached it and yet she managed to plug the gap. She flew into the elven soldiers, through open wounds and orifices, and fully exsanguinated any that breached the threshold of the ruined wall. This allowed the men fighting at ground level, those in silver armour with the maiden on their shields, the knights from various local Houses and the peasant men armed only with scythes and forks, to hold the line. As her blood thickened, she widened her reach, flowing across in both directions. Night turned to day and back to night as she stretched out. Eventually, she managed to span the whole forty miles across the wall, or what little remained of it, and the battle drew to a close.

  In all, the dead were half a million elves and almost as many humans. She left the commanders on the ground to organise the prisoner exchange and began a task that seemed just as difficult as fighting. She rebuilt the worst affected sections of the wall, brick by brick. She wondered how it felt for the men observing the process. It must've seemed like magic. She assumed that it ultimately was magic. Her blood was well concealed by the red and black stains all across the ruins and she continued until she was satisfied that the elves could not simply resume combat once she'd left. Once she was out of sight, she resumed her true form and retrieved her dress.

  As she looked out at the bloody scene, a troubling thought struck her. In a sense, that bloody gush was her true form, and Laurel Blackheart was a costume she wore. To clear her mind and feel more human, she spent the first mile of her journey home on foot.

  'I am the blood,' she repeated to herself. As she walked, she couldn't help but reach out into the woods with particulates, killing fairies and gnomes and goblins and drinking their blood. She wondered whether she'd one day be powerful enough to protect the country. It seemed possible that she could one day be a drop of blood in every house, patrolling all the roads and rivers every hour, and keep her father's kingdom safe from nightmares forever. Her grandfather had believed her to be the ultimate weapon and was she? She imagined herself in an eldritch form, with tendrils spread out beneath the earth, covering the entire world. She could end the Nightmare War with a thought, she reasoned, but there must've been a catch.

  There were other dhampirs. She knew, she'd seen one, fought one, killed one. Why hadn't any of them done this?

  When she finally made her way back to the palace, her royal father rewarded her. He had something behind his back, though she knew what it was from reading his mind. Still, she saved the tears until after he showed it to her. It was the portrait of her mother. She'd long ago assumed it had been destroyed. 'Thank you, thank you, thank you,' she said, gushing with real emotion. For just a moment, he forgot she that she wasn't a nightmare, as she threw her arms around him. She had it hung up in her bedroom and hoped that it would help her pretend to sleep. She could imagine she was a human, that her whole terrible life had been a nightmare, and that her mother was singing her back to sleep.

  Eventually, she took her gushing to Tamsin. 'That sounds so wonderful,' she lied, 'you should show me your bedroom.'

  Laurel simply smiled at her, refusing to let her spoil things. 'When did you first meet your step-father?'

  That gave her prisoner pause, as she tried to recall the event. Flushes of real emotion coursed through her as she remembered. 'He passed through Bluestone one night, when we were there for a festival. Mum swooned over him all night and he told us stories about his life beyond the wall.' The vampire almost let herself become lost in her human memories but eventually snapped out of it. 'I wish he were still alive,' she said, as she imagined ripping out his throat and drinking his blood.

  Laurel slipped one of her hands through the bars and brushed the girl's cheek. 'You're so close to breaking through, Tamsin.'

  'I really am,' she said, 'I think it would be easier if I spent more time with you. We could go camping in the woods, just like old times.'

  'I'd like that, too,' she admitted. She felt a great temptation then, to let her out, but she stifled it. 'One day,' she said, imagining a grand future.