Chapter 1
Marienne
A fortnight has passed since I took in the six, terrified little vampires, and Bloomhill Manor holds its breath.
The staff is thinning. Not with a bang, but with a polite letter and a warm excuse.
“An opportunity elsewhere.”
“Family obligations.”
“Simply not suited to children,” Ruthen wrote.
I keep each letter in a velvet-lined box in my bedroom, tied with ribbon. It’s important to keep things lovely, even when they ache.
I’ve decided to believe it’s a coincidence.
Surely it is not me. Or the children.
The children are perfect darlings, especially if one considers their traumatic past…
There’s Imara, fourteen and sharp-eyed, who doesn’t speak unless she must and is prone to glaring.
Callen, twelve, gentle and soft-spoken, has taken to braiding everyone’s hair.
Yla, ten, who enjoys talking to the flowers and the bees that accompany them.
Siven, eight, has a concerning fondness for drawing symbols in chalk and enjoys wielding the kitchen spoons like swords.
Liri, six, cries at thunder and clings like ivy.
And Vess, sweet Vess, is two years old and an absolute angel.
Surely no one is quitting because Imara occasionally sleepwalks through the grounds to stare at the moon. Or because Siven left a particularly ominous chalk symbol on the linen closet door. Or because Vess bit Ruthen’s wrist after being offered a bottle of blood.
She’s two. Babies bite. It’s practically developmental.
I light rose-scented candles in every room. I play music. I say good morning to the portrait of Aunt Florencia. I wear my best gloves.
I am the picture of composure.
And still, they leave.
One by one.
The cook is still here, as are Mirelle and Margo, my housekeepers. Bless them. But the rest are fluttering off like startled birds.
There’s a crack in my smile…
So I smile wider.
So I brew stronger tea.
So I tie another ribbon on another goodbye.
Because what else is there to do, really, but soften the world where I can?
After all, the children will thrive with love and music. They just need a little time.
***
It’s day seventeen when Mirelle leaves.
It starts with socks.
Tiny socks tucked into the folds of a velvet chair. A child's nightdress—still damp, though no one will claim it—dangling from the chandelier like a warning. And a distinct smell clinging to the linens: ash, old milk, and something that reminds me faintly of fear.
Mirelle finds it all while gathering laundry.
She’s young, efficient, but overwhelmed.
“They won’t tell me what’s theirs,” Mirelle says, arms full of damp sheets. “They just… stare.”
“To be fair,” I say gently, “you do enter their room wielding tongs.”
She blinks. “One of them hisses when I knock, milady!”
“Yes, that would be Siven,” I say. “She’s just… expressive.”
Mirelle flattens a pillowcase with a sigh. “Baroness, I’m not trained for this. I don’t know how to… comfort them. Or read their moods. Or wash bloodfruit pulp out of curtains.”
“You don’t have to be perfect,” I tell her. “They’re children. Frightened ones. You already do more than you realize.”
She doesn’t meet my eyes.
“Callen braided your hair just yesterday,” I add, hopeful. “She said it was because you smelled kind.”
That makes her pause. “She did, didn’t she?”
I step closer. “She did. She likes you. And Yla left you a petal on your pillow, and Siven only hisses sometimes.”
Mirelle laughs, barely. It’s brittle at the edges.
“I could double your pay,” I say quickly. “Or reduce your hours. Or both, if that would help.”
She sighs and folds the pillowcase with practiced precision. At the doorway, she turns and curtsies low, but her voice is soft with guilt.
“I’m sorry, Baroness,” she says. “But I didn’t come here to work at an orphanage.”
And that’s that.
The next morning, the laundry is gone—folded neatly, arranged in perfect piles by bed size and fabric. Not a single thread out of place.
So is Mirelle.
Her room is bare. Her wardrobe emptied. The flower Yla gave her rots on her bedside table.
Her note is simple:
I’m not strong enough for this. Please tell Callen I’m sorry.
I do.
Callen nods once, solemn and quiet. Then she climbs onto the windowsill and braids her own hair in silence.
I excuse myself to the pantry.
There, with my forehead pressed to a shelf of preserves, I whisper into the quiet, “Fine. Who needs help with socks anyway?”
The jar of cherry preserves does not answer.
But I carry on…
Because someone must.
***
The first time I find batwing broth simmering over the kitchen hearth, I say nothing.
The second time, I offer to stir.
“I don’t need help stirring, Baroness,” grunts Eddy, the cook. “What I need is a reasonable menu and children who don’t think my pantry’s enchanted.”
I hum politely and pass him the salt.
The girls’ relationship to food is indeed… tenuous at best. The Garden fed them only blood, often measured chalices at dusk, sometimes from wrists of acolytes. No flavor, save for what their bodies demanded.
How sad. How cruel.
And how fascinating it is, now, to watch them experiment with curiosity and strange requests.
Callen once asked for “toast with teeth marks, but not mine.”
Yla wanted petal-jam. Made from the ones she steals from the garden and hides.
Siven asked if the sugar bowl could be served on its own, since “it talks at night anyway.”
The cook—gruff, gray-bearded, and long past his patience for whimsy—has done his best. Truly. He attempted candied petals, marrow pies, even something I perhaps too eagerly named “vampire pudding.” But this morning… this morning is the end.
Siven enters the kitchen at dawn, barefoot, solemn, holding her wooden spoon like a blade.
“The bowl told me not to eat you,” she informs the cook. “But I think it wants me to.”
The cook freezes, ladle halfway lifted.
He stares at her.
He stares at me.
Then very calmly, he sets the ladle down, wipes his hands, and removes his apron.
“I’ve prepared feasts for knights and nursed soldiers through famine,” he mutters. “I’ve roasted forest-born flank. I served at a necromancer’s wedding. But I draw the line at sentient sugar and children who wish to eat me.”
He walks out before I can reassure him or offer him a raise.
Breakfast is left half-finished. The scones—already in the bread oven—begin to emit a scent that could charitably be called adventurous.
I try to save them.
I do not succeed.
Imara still takes one. She does not flinch. She does not complain. That somehow makes it worse.
Siven watches me intently, as if measuring whether I’ll scold the sugar bowl or cry into my sleeves.
I do neither.
Instead, I adjust my lace cuffs, take a deep breath, and declare, “Next time, we shall attempt jam rolls.”
Siven tilts her head. “If it whispers again, I’ll tell you.”
I smile. “Perfect. You’re officially the assistant cook.”
Callen, perched on the hearth’s bench, snorts into her tea.
The sugar bowl remains perfectly still on its shelf, innocent as moonlight.
But I’m watching it now.
Just in case.
***
By the time the moon sets on the twentieth day of chaos, only Margot Thistlewhite is still here.
Brisk, sharp-eyed, and utterly unimpressed by dramatics, she wears her gray-streaked hair in a bun so tight it might double as a weapon.
She’s been with me longer than anyone else—first as an apprentice housekeeper in my parents’ estate, and then, without needing to be asked, as the first to help me unpack at Bloomhill Manor the day I inherited it.
Everyone else has left. But Margot? Margot remains.
She’s in the hallway now, tucking lavender sachets into the window corners, muttering under her breath.
“What are you saying?” I ask curiously, watching her wedge one just above the portrait of Aunt Florencia.
“Nothing for milady’s delicate ears,” she replies, voice dry as kindling. “Just telling the mildew and the moon spirits to mind their manners.”
She jams the sachet in place with a sharp little nod.
Margot is superstitious, frequently prickly, and prone to smacking errant ghosts with her broom. I wouldn’t trade her for anyone.
I lean against the wall, arms folded, and watch her smooth the curtains like she’s daring them to wrinkle again. Her bun is perfect. Her sleeves are rolled. She has not blinked since sunrise.
“You’re really not leaving?” I ask, too light to be casual.
Margot doesn’t answer right away. She adjusts a crooked candlestick. Taps it twice. Then finally turns to me with one arched brow.
“I’ve been with you since you started teething. And I stayed through the bleeding cake disaster. This? This is nothing.”
I blink. “Bleeding cake disaster?"
“When you had Eddy create a skull cake for the duke’s remembrance supper. You claimed it would encourage closure.”
I place a hand to my heart. “It sliced beautifully.”
“It oozed raspberry jam. Onto their heirloom linens.”
We fall into silence then—soft, creaky Bloomhill silence.
Finally, she says, “Besides, somebody’s got to keep this place in order.”
My throat tightens unexpectedly. “It won’t be easy.”
“Milady,” she says, placing both hands on her hips, “if I wanted easy, I wouldn’t be scrubbing candied bloodfruit out of the nursery rug.”
She turns, straightens a vase of dried roses, and marches toward the kitchens like a general facing war.
I watch her go, absurdly grateful.
Only Margot remains.
Thank the stars for that.
***
The next day, my heel sticks to the floor.
Not dramatically—just enough to tip the saucer sideways and slosh tea over the edge. I hiss through my teeth, clenching the handle tighter as I sidestep the puddle of jam slicking the walkway like something out of a fairy tale gone wrong.
Bloodfruit again. Always bloodfruit. Sweet, sticky rebellion in every corner of this house.
“Darling, come out,” I coax, nudging open the linen cupboard with the toe of my unstuck heel. “I promise the dust bunnies aren’t as comforting as they look.”
No answer. Just the faint, defiant rustle of a child cocooned in sheets, buried among linens and lavender sachets.