Three days passed in the capital before anyone acknowledged what had happened. It wasn't uncommon for a night to pass without a single death by nightmare but three nights in a row without a incident was unheard of. Over breakfast, which she now shared with her father, her sisters and the new Queen, the King alluded to the news and invited her to explain herself without saying anything explicit. 'It is as though someone was watching over the city and granting it their protection,' she said, and he smiled.

  'Like an angel,' Penelope said, with her twin nodding her head in agreement. They hadn't understood what she was saying but she liked to imagine they were still right. Most of the time, she thought of herself as a demon but, on rare occasions, she dared to imagine herself as an angel. A dark angel for a dark world. She thought back to Sarzoras, hovering above his fortress. It was painful to remember what she'd done there but it seemed to be a fitting parallel in her mind. Would a time come, long after her human family had passed away, when she would hover above the capital in a monstrous form as its guardian and suzerain? Perhaps that was the end stage of every dhampir.

  Her coterie, at least, seemed to understand that she was responsible. They said nothing of, course, but their thoughts were full of fear and nervous anticipation. 'It is a blessing,' Gabrielle dared to say, 'the heavens have granted us their favour at long last. They say the wall repaired itself by magic after the elves were repelled. That can only have been a miracle.'

  Isadora wanted to agree with her sister but feared the Laurel would be offended by the suggestion that she wasn't involved. 'One wonders why it took so long,' Laurel replied, darkly, causing the girl to shrink. Once she'd filled up on fear and anxiety, she diverted her friends with a few rounds of badminton. She never showed off her true abilities, of course, but she was too proud to ever lose. At first, she believed she was simply exhilarated by her victory but, when she started to hiccough, she realised that the fear that surrounded her had crashed through the roof. The court adjoined the royal wood and she turned to see her friends staring into it, frozen in fear.

  In the darkness, a pair of red eyes were glowing with considerable intensity. The nightmare must've emerged whilst she was away from the capital or else it must've migrated here. 'We should go,' Selene finally managed to see, tugging on the sleeve of Tiffany's dress. Laurel knew that she was expected to pretend to be afraid but she found their emotions practically intoxicating. Instead, she put herself between the nightmare and the other girls and sliced her wrist open, letting a slither of blood flow out and enter the woods. It was a vampire, she realised, as soon as its skin began to sizzle in contact with her blood. She dragged it out into the sunlight, where it crumbled to ash, its contorted face reminding her of her mother's.

  With its gaze disrupted, the other girls could come to their senses. They shrieked in terror. Tiffany wrapped herself in Selene's arms and sobbed, whilst the twins broke out into a sprint. She knew that she had to stop them, lest they panic and tell the staff who would, in turn, tell her father that she'd used her powers in front of them. 'Girls,' she called, as she caught up with them. 'Girls, it's alright.' They didn't listen, however, and she had to resort to grabbing them by the wrist. 'Stop, it's okay, it's alright. Everything's fine.'

  The ladies just cried out in response, now afraid she'd hurt them or even kill them. Were they wrong to be afraid? The nightmare in her blood was growling, raging from overexcitement and demanding that she make a meal of them. She calmed herself, suppressing those sick urges. After much coaxing and buttering up, they agreed to return with her. Selene was still holding her best friend tight and she dared to confront her. 'There are rules, Laurel.'

  Part of her wanted to respond with rage. She wanted to tell them about the hundreds of thousands she'd killed, how easily she could hurt them and how much she had to restrain herself to keep from doing so. Instead, she responded as she was supposed to. 'I forgot myself,' she said, frowning and bowing her head. She made her excuses once she was sure they wouldn't go blabbing to her father, and raced straight to her lair, picking up a poacher along the way. She dropped him into Tamsin's prison from too great a height and broke his leg. Laurel knew she'd regret doing so later but, right now, she was too distracted by her feelings. She fumed as Tamsin feasted, 'what was I supposed to do?!' The vampire didn't know or care what she was going on about. 'Something had to be done, so I did it. I saved their lives. I've said so many lives.'

  She could no longer confidently say that she'd saved more people than she'd killed, however. Once she was done, Tamsin came up with something to say. 'I would never judge you for being what you are.' She sensed no love in your words but kissed her all the same, drinking the blood that lingered on her lips. Tamsin returned her physical affection, if not her romantic feelings, and they spent the rest of the day together. Having Tamsin pretend to love and care for her did not feel too different from her so-called friends pretending to enjoy her company and she came very close to letting her out. 'Please, take me with you,' the girl said, and Laurel had to peel her away.

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  She returned to the palace too late, received a scolding from her father and had to spend the rest of the night alone, which only made her feel worse. Laurel wondered how Tamsin spent her nights and dared to imagine that she was plagued by human thoughts and feelings. She considered leaving the city to its fate that night but, in the end, her conscience got the better of her and she spread herself thin, placing a particulate of her blood in every house and alleyway. Her companions had awful dreams, which pleased her, and she had to save each of them from a nightmare. Once again, the city woke up to no reports of nightmares and considered itself blessed. 'If only this protection could extend across the country,' her father lamented at breakfast.

  'Perhaps it might strengthen over time,' she said, and he caught her meaning, taking her aside once their grapefruits were finished.

  'What would you need,' he asked, 'in order to become strong enough?'

  'I grow stronger every time I kill and eat a nightmare,' she said, sparking a feeling and look of disgust from him. She tried not to let him see how much it upset her.

  'So,' he said, thinking hard, 'you could accompany me on hunts and culls. Ladies are not typically allowed but some of the softer lords have been known to bring their boyish daughters, from time to time.'

  'I'd like that,' she said, giving her father a hug.

  The first cull she joined him for was organised just a few weeks later. The royal hounds were no moon beasts but they still proved equal to the task of tracking and flushing things like goblins and gremlins. Once she and her father were briefly left alone, with the rest of the party breaking away for a chase, she removed one of her riding gloves and cut deep into her wrist. He watched the blood flow out of her wound and seemingly evaporate. 'Are you hunting now?' he asked, greatly unnerved.

  'Uh huh,' she said, open-mouthed, as she tried to concentrate on finding and killing all of the more well-hidden nightmares. She hiccoughed a few times as she sated herself on werewolves, hags and manticores. 'All done,' she said with a smile, as the blood flowed back into her wound. Having grown in volume, most of it had to remain mingling with the particulates in the air around her. He shuddered at that but still managed to stroke her hair and kiss her before they returned to the palace. 'You must not ever do that in front of anyone,' he said, as they made their way to the parlour. She wasn't sure why he joined her and her friends for the next few hours but she didn't begrudge it.

  Tamsin was forced to have a late dinner and to hear her gush over the experience. 'I think I can do it,' Laurel said, 'I can stretch across this whole country and keep it safe.'

  'If you could keep the whole country safe from every little thing that goes bump in the night, then what do you have to fear from letting me out?'

  Laurel hoped she could get through to the human within. 'I have nothing to fear, Tamsin. I never have, I know that now more than ever. If I let you out, as you are, I'd be breaking the promise I made to you, to restrain you until your humanity returned, and you'd probably force me to kill you.' She remembered Liana. 'I can't go through that again.'

  Over the weeks and months that followed, Laurel attended culls more frequently and her powers grew, such that she could comfortably guard the capital city and all of its outlying towns and villages. Tamsin's human feelings also became more frequent and tended to last longer. At a certain point, however, news of her considerable growth in power must've reached far beyond the wall, or else the ruin she'd left there had been traced back to her, because reports began to reach the King of monsters flying over the countryside in the middle of the day, described most often as gigantic furless bats. 'Are they,' he asked her, not finishing the thought.

  'Dhampirs? I assume so.'

  'Are they not on our side?'

  'They're on their own side, if anything.'

  'Can you stop them?'

  'I think so.'

  'Whatever you have to do, then,' he said, 'but don't be seen.' She didn't know whether that would make it harder or easier but she did as she was told. This time, she left her clothes in bedroom. She flew across the skies and, wherever she found them, she burrowed her way into their flesh and ate them from the inside out. One of them tried to strengthen his blood with a massacre but she snatched every particulate out of the air and crushed him. By the time all was said and done, she'd devoured seven dhampirs in total and grown so immense in power that she could spread herself out across the entire country.

  She hadn't anticipated the hunger that would come along with such growth, however, and to her horror, she partook. Tamsin played with her food for too long and Laurel couldn't resist the urge to drink greedily, justifying it to herself as putting the poor sod out of his misery. 'What a cutie,' Tamsin said to her when she gurgled and hiccoughed. Once again, Laurel fell for her and they spent the rest of the day together.

  'What did you think of me, when you first saw me?' she remembered to ask.

  'I thought you were pretty,' Tamsin said, fondly remembering that day. When the girl turned to her, she expected such thoughts to darken or change but they remained. It was very hard for her, at first, and she wept for a long time but, eventually, the human being buried inside regained control of her mind. 'I did it,' she said, her tears of despair turning to tears of happiness. 'It actually worked.' Laurel dismantled the silver bars without a moment's hesitation.

  The King wondered who she was, of course, when she brought her along but he was grateful enough to hear that she now had the power to protect the whole country from nightmares that he agreed to trust her. That night, with Tamsin by her physical body as they both pretended to sleep, she seeded the land with particulates of blood. By the end of the month, Teardrop Island was a nightmare-free zone. As she grew in strength, she also grew in ambition. Laurel decided that she would join the Nightmare War, after all, and bring it to a decisive close.