“The knights are afraid of white dogs. There are many legends about the magical powers of white dogs. Vampire hunters have used them for centuries to find the graves of vampires. A lot of cultures, especially the Greeks, have always believed that dogs can foresee evil. And of course there’s the legend of the fetch dog.”

“The what? I keep hearing that word. What is it?”

She looked up, surprised. “I thought you knew about that. The Sabbatarians of legend had magical powers and they traveled with a dog called a ‘fetch’ who lived wholly or partly in the spirit world. The fetch dog could sniff out evil, which the Sabbatarians would then dispatch using various magical means. A white fetch dog would be exponentially more powerful than any other kind. This legend has been heavily reinforced over the years by Sabbatarian hit teams bringing trained attack dogs with them. The Upierczi—even the ones who do not believe themselves to be evil—know of many cases where a fetch dog was used to kill one of their kind.”

“So why didn’t the knight kill Ghost?”

“Oh,” she said, flexing her fingers in Ghost’s fur, “they can’t do that. Fetch dogs belong to God. They are to dogs what saints are to humans. To harm one is to incur the wrath of God and all his angels.”

I smiled. “Great, now that Ghost’s heard that he’ll be insufferable.”

Violin gave Ghost a final pat and stood up. The shadows around us seemed to create an opaque screen between us and the reality of what we were really facing. Or about to face.

“When this is over…” I said, and let it hang.

“Yes,” she said. “When it’s over.” She looked away, her eyes filled with sadness.

“No,” I said clumsily, “I meant when this thing tonight is over. Not the war. I don’t want to wait until the end of the war to get to know you.”

She took a tentative step toward me. And another. She was so beautiful, so powerful in the way that a woman can be powerful. I’d known her for less than a full day. Longest day of my life, but still less than a day. I wanted to know her for a lot of days, for years.

I looked into her eyes and saw—or thought I saw—my thoughts mirrored there. Can it be like that? Love at first sight is a romance novel myth. Isn’t it?

Violin took another step toward me and I moved to meet her. She was tall, almost tall enough to look me straight in the eyes. She touched my cheek with one strong, soft hand.

“Joseph,” she said and suddenly she was in my arms. I could feel the heat of her breath on my face as she went up onto her toes, and I bent toward her, our hearts hammering, mouths open.