I stumbled through the custom of her adoption. It had been so long since I’d seen it done. I wrapped her in my parka and handed her a tarp, freshly patched, washed and folded. It would become her room, and annex to my home—our home. I gave her a trowel—my better one, with the smooth handle and less rust. I sprinkled her brow with water from the Last Drain.

Though it was Chev that had drawn my name, he was the one to protest. As soon as the ritual was complete, he stood, his reverence for the old customs the only thing that had kept him in his seat till then.

“Are you sure you’re up to this, Aemon? You are old in years but young to our kind. Perhaps the child should be placed with someone younger and with more experience in our ways.” He meant himself, of course. He’d been here since he was a tiny thing, born to the understreets to a Kindred mother long since washed away. But he still had youth in him. His hair still grew the color of shadows.

“I am no stranger to raising children, Chev.”

“Yes. I recall. I believe it is relevant for us to inquire as to the nature of your daughter’s death?”

Gasps echoed off the high stone walls of the meeting chamber. Chev raised his hands. “This is a rare moment where I feel a discussion of his life before coming to us as Kindred is not only prudent but necessary.”

I thought of not answering. This was a violation of my rights. As far as the Kindred are concerned, no one has a life before their life underground. Our lives start with the appreciation of small flowers, from the time we notice a spot of brightness and pause to take it in. When the city forgets us and we slip through the cracks. We are born again beneath the streets.

But Beth looked scared. Her cheeks, rosy with chill a moment before, had gone white. I couldn’t have that. For her sake, I let the fight fall from my shoulders.

“It was a car accident. My wife and daughter were driving home from the ballet. A drunk driver struck them. They both died.”

I felt Beth’s small hand then, inside my own. It was already taking on the cold of the underground, but it warmed me better than any sun that I remembered.

Chev’s gambit had worked against him, and the Kindred shot him troubled glances as they crept away into their tunnels, to their tarp homes to cultivate their small patches of flowers, in hope of catching a Beth of their own.

Beth clutched her tarp to her chest, her red sweater darkening in the damp air of the tunnels.