“Someone’s here,” she whispered. “Someone …”

“Claire, get out,” Myrnin said, and took a step closer to the bed. “I’m here, Amelie. Myrnin. Right here.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered. Her voice was thin as silk, and just as soft. “Where is Oliver?”

“Gone, for the moment,” Myrnin said. “Oh, my dearest. You are far too pale. Let me get something for you to eat.” He meant blood, Claire thought. Amelie had no color under her skin. She looked almost translucent.

“Don’t you mean someone?” Amelie asked. It was nearly a joke, but it wasn’t funny. “I asked Oliver to end my suffering. I didn’t mean to make him so angry, but he really must face facts, soon. Will you do it for me, Myrnin? As my friend?”

“Not yet,” he said, and took her hand in his. “I am not quite ready to let you go. None of us are.”

“All things die, even vampires.” That same distant tone, as if none of it mattered any longer. “If it was only death I faced, I would go gladly. But I can feel it now, inside me. The pull of the sea. The tides. The hunger.” Amelie’s eyes focused on Myrnin again, and there was a strangely luminous glow to them. “The seas came first. All life flowed from them and must in the end return there. As I’m returning. As you will. I was a fool to believe the draug could be defeated. They are the tide. The sea. The beginning and end of us.” The glow intensified, and Claire found herself oddly … calmed by it. Amelie seemed so peaceful, lying there. And being around her seemed so safe. Myrnin must have felt the same; he sank to a sitting position on the edge of her bed. “There’s no escaping the tides, don’t you see? Not for me, or you, or Morganville. Because the tide always comes.”

Myrnin pulled in a sharp gasp, and looked down at his hand, held in hers. He tried to pull free, but couldn’t. “Stop,” he said, in a voice only half as strong as it should have been. “Amelie, stop. You must not do this.”

“I’m not,” she said, sounding very sad. “There’s so much inside that isn’t me any longer. You shouldn’t have come. Either of you.”

Her ice-pale gaze captured Claire’s, and Claire knew she was walking forward, drawn by forces she didn’t understand and couldn’t control. She couldn’t stop herself. Didn’t really want to stop herself.

And then she stretched out her hand and Amelie’s pale, strong fingers locked over hers.

She felt the tingle, and then the burning, like a million needles piercing her skin.

She watched the bitter cold of Amelie’s skin change, take on warmth.

Blood.

Blood drawn out of Claire. By a touch.

The same was happening to Myrnin, Claire realized. He was panting now, mumbling frantic pleas, trying to pry her hand free from his but failing.

Amelie no longer needed fangs to feed. Like the draug, she fed at a touch.