“They’re okay,” I said. “What is that smell?”

“Eggs, of course,” Reg said as the old man scooped food from the skillet onto plates.

Eggs. Right. I recognized the scent now, but it was much stronger—and more appealing—than I remembered it ever being.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Did our sense of smell get . . . better? I thought all our senses were superior to humans.”

“You are human,” the old man corrected. He dropped the skillet back on the stove and passed around the steaming plates. “And superior is a matter of opinion.”

Reg leaned over his plate and licked his lips. “She’s right though,” he said. “The aroma is much more powerful now.”

“Same as it ever was,” the old man said. He dropped into a chair across from us and dug a fork into his own pile of eggs. “It’s what you don’t smell now that makes it seem stronger.”

Reg and I shared a quizzical look, then I saw Reg’s black eyes—no, wait. More brown today than black. Odd—as he caught on first.

“Blood,” he said.

“Oh.” I sucked in a breath, tasting the air. He was right. Sitting this close to a human, we should have been overwhelmed by his scent. I couldn’t remember a time I’d been around food without humans. And the smell of their blood always eclipsed every other aroma.

“It feels as though we should recall a scent this strong from our time as humans,” Reg said. “Perhaps it was taken when our human memories were erased?”

I rolled my eyes. “They don’t take everything. We still know how to walk and talk and go to the bathroom.”

Our caretaker grinned. “Vamps don’t do that.”

“Well, no,” I said, an unfamiliar warm sensation in my cheeks. “But we remember how.”

“Good, because that’s a handy skill for humans.” He winked at Reg, who grimaced.

Clearly he hadn’t considered every aspect of our new lives.

The old guy scooped up a forkful of eggs. “Look, Charlotte—”

“Charlie.”

“Right.” He talked through a mouthful of food. “I don’t know if they actually erase your muscle memories or if that kind of thing just disappears over time, but I wouldn’t put it past them. Who knows what logic vamps have for what they’ve stolen from you.”

Stolen. I rolled the word around in my head. I hadn’t really thought of the memory fade as stealing—more of a courtesy to newborn vampires, to help them transition. If we remembered our humanity, we might fight the urge to feed, and without blood, vampires starved down to shells of themselves. Worse than dead; they were eternally dying. The fade was a gift, really.

Wasn’t it?

“Why did they not perform the fade on us, I wonder?” Reg said.