The pause had been enough to let Jack regain her composure. She opened her eyes and cleared her throat. “I hadn’t dared to even hope that Alexis would be alive when I came home. There were complications, of course—there are always complications—but she was alive, and I was in the Moors, and Jill could never become a vampire, because once a body dies, it forgets how to become immortal. We brought her back that same night, the three of us working together beneath the biggest, most glorious thunderstorm I’d ever seen, and it was paradise, it was everything the Moon could possibly have promised me, and it was mine. It was my happily ever after.”

“‘Ever after’ only ever comes at the end of the story, and your story isn’t over,” said Sumi. “What happened?”

It was such a small question. It shouldn’t have invoked such a large response. Jack laughed, a choked, mirthless sound that matched the tears in her eyes and the tremble in her black-gloved hands. She reached up like she was going to adjust her bowtie, and stopped when her fingers found only skin of her throat and the lacy edges of her peignoir.

“My sister has dreadful taste in clothing,” she murmured. “It’s a form of bravado and a sort of bragging at the same time. ‘Look at me, I’m so precious to the vampire lord, and he’s so very, very rich, that I can swan about a world filled with mudholes and monsters and not worry about staining my pretty pastel dresses or being supper for something made entirely of terrible teeth.’ It’s appalling.”

“Focus,” said Kade.

Jack sniffed. “I’d like to see you crammed into a body that isn’t yours, and see how focused you feel.”

Kade raised an eyebrow.

“That isn’t what I meant and you know it,” snapped Jack. She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. That was unkind of me. I … No, it wasn’t happily ever after, however much it felt like it at the time. It was merely a pause before the storm. The Master heard of our return, you see, and we’d been gone for long enough that the village had forgotten my sister’s transgressions. It doesn’t pay to have a long memory in the Moors. There’s always another monster sniffing at the gates, and dwelling on the ones that have already gone elsewhere can distract from the one at your door. Jill drew the first breath of her second life at midnight. The Master was on our doorstep before the storm could fade, demanding his daughter’s return.”