Chapter 14 Tamsin
Tamsin
How did this come up?
I lean against the arch of the manor’s front door, arms crossed, watching chaos unfold with the steady dread of a knight about to march into a battle she didn’t sign up for.
Marienne is gliding from child to child like a spring breeze armed with a scroll of parchment. Yes. A scroll.
She doesn’t even look at it—just waves it around like it’s a wand that bends the day to her will. Ribbons adorn her hair, and her pale pink skirts rustle like the world itself is applauding her madness.
It’s ridiculous. And it’s working… The children listen to her as they line up.
“I don’t remember agreeing to an outing,” I mutter, low.
“You didn’t,” Margot says beside me, dry as bone, arms full of cloaks and contempt. “She said you’d see reason once you’d had your morning tea.”
The children are bouncing. There is no other word for it. Vess is tugging at Liri’s braid. Imara has polished her boots so aggressively they gleam like mirrors. Callen clutches a list that I know she didn’t write.
Siven, quiet as ever, has tucked a ribbon behind her ear.
Yla spins in place, dizzy with excitement.
I inhale slowly through my nose. It doesn’t help.
Margot shifts her bundle. “And what will the Court say when they hear the Bloomhill baroness paraded six day-walkers through the village square?”
I don’t answer.
Because I’ve already thought of it. Already played the worst-case scenarios through my mind like a soldier rehearsing formations… The stares. The whispers. A flash of fang. A loud noise. A mistake. One slip is all it would take.
It’s too soon.
“Perhaps we postpone,” I say, voice flat.
“No!” Marienne calls, catching the tail end of the conversation as she approaches. “Please don’t do that. It’s just the market—hardly a parade. They need this, Tamsin.”
She steps before me, bright green eyes almost pleading as she continues.
“They’ve been cooped up,” she says. “The market’s in bloom. The bloodfruit vendor has the nice ones today. And we’re out of salt.”
I raise a brow. “You planned an entire outing for salt?”
“I planned this because they’re children,” Marienne says, still smiling, “and children should be allowed to touch flowers without permission. And maybe sample a tart or two.”
My jaw ticks.
The children are watching now—hopeful. Tense. Like this small, stupid thing might collapse if I say no.
I exhale. Long. Controlled.
“Fine.”
Marienne beams.
Margot mutters something like, “Gods, help us.”
***
We walk.
There’s no carriage. No escort.
“Fresh air is good for them,” Marienne says, like I hadn’t already warned her that taking six vampire children down an open road with no guard is a reckless, foolish idea.
But I’m outnumbered by joy.
So we walk.
Imara and Yla skip ahead, taking turns holding Vess. Callen tries to organize them with a sort of desperate authority that I respect, even if no one listens. Siven hovers just beside Marienne. Liri slips her small hand into mine without asking. I don’t shake her off.
Marienne laughs at something Siven says. It cuts through me. Light and golden and utterly unguarded.
I’m not prepared for how it feels in my chest.
The air is too warm. The road, too open. My sword, too light on my hip.
Something’s wrong.
I don’t know what, but my instincts haven’t rested since we left the gate. There’s a thrum in my spine, a buzzing behind my ribs that won’t go quiet.
Still…
I glance down at Liri, who’s trying to turn a crushed flower into a crown.
And I look up just as Marienne crouches to tie Imara’s bootlace. Her hair catches the sunlight like it was meant to be adored.
I tighten my grip on my sword hilt.
And I keep walking.
***
The village glows.
Sunlight drapes itself across the stalls like silk, all soft oranges and dusty golds. Fruit glistens in woven baskets. Perfume-sellers wave ribboned fans. A fiddler plays something light and foolish under a blooming awning of roses.
And in the middle of it all: her.
Marienne walks like she belongs in a painted mural. She laughs with the bread vendor, and accepts a bundle of sweet rolls like it’s a bouquet. It’s impossible not to watch her. The children dart around her like she’s made of sunlight.
Siven clings to her skirt. Imara walks two steps behind, feigning boredom, while her eyes scan every stall with open hunger. Yla barters poorly for a stuffed bat toy and then hugs it like a prize won in battle.
Callen’s asking a candle-maker where the lavender ones went.
Liri has already wandered off and back again, leaves in her hair.
And I—I stay on the edge of it all.
My hand rests on my sword hilt. Not drawn. Not yet. But ready. Always.
I scan the crowd. I count steps. I note exits. I watch hands and sleeves and too-sharp eyes.
And still… I see her.
Marienne. With a bloom-colored parasol tilted just so, catching the light like a halo. Her dress rustles at the hem, the pink just this side of ridiculous. Her hair’s tousled by the wind, lips still stained from tasting bloodfruit from an earlier stall.
She smiles like nothing weighs on her shoulders…
She looks happy.
And that—that tugs something deep and sharp in my chest. I don’t let it grow.
I push it down.
“Are those the baroness’s new… wards?” someone murmurs behind a flower cart.
“They say she took them in after the moon cult collapsed—”
“Bit odd, aren’t they? That one with the braid looked at me like she was starving.”
I glance—just once—and the gossipers flinch, turn, then scurry. As if they were never speaking at all.
Cowards.
Marienne catches my eye across the square.
She lifts the parasol slightly, tilts her head. The question on her face is clear: Is everything alright?
I nod.
She doesn’t believe me. She never does.
Still, she smiles softer at me. A flicker meant for me alone. As if to reassure me, which is absurd.
I’m the one with the blade. The armor. The duty.
I don’t need reassurance.
And yet… It gentles something in me I didn’t realize was braced for a blow.
And I wonder—only for a breath—if she knows it too.
Then I blink. And turn. And walk the perimeter again. Because someone has to keep watch. Because one wrong move could unravel it all…
And because the sun is shining far too brightly, much like Marienne’s smile, and I no longer trust what warmth does to me.
***
Eventually, the girls drift toward the flower stalls, drawn like moths to moonpetals.
Petals scatter underfoot, and Callen is sniffing everything. Yla is trying to convince Marienne to buy all of it. Vess holds a half-melted bloodfruit cube in one sticky hand, squinting upward at the sun like she’s about to duel it.
Marienne stands at the center like some unbothered deity of silk and sweetness. Her laughter curls like perfume in the air—bright, graceful, too loud for this quiet town.
She is magnetic. Which means danger sticks to her just as easily as attention.
I circle the edge of the square. My boots crunch against the gravel. My hand never leaves the hilt at my hip.
That’s when I hear them again.
“That’s her. The Bloom Baroness. Took in a whole nest of bloodborn, I heard.”
Two different women stand nearby, watching Marienne and the girls curiously. It’s the same gossip as before, but louder.
“Vampires, they say. From some cult. Can you imagine?”
“She always was eccentric. Lace and nonsense. But this is… dangerous.”
“I’d never let my children near that manor. You never know what those things might do.”
“That one looks half-feral. Is it even safe?”
Their words are wrapped in velvet, but underneath there’s fear and disdain. They’re eyeing Vess, of course.
And if I can hear them, so can Marienne. So can the girls.
A muscle ticks in my jaw.
They’re children. Small, strange, stubborn things, but children all the same. They don’t deserve to be spoken about like they’re monsters waiting to strike.
A slow heat rises beneath my skin. Enough’s enough. I step forward, but Marienne gets there first.
She turns, graceful, poised… and subtly terrifying. The smile on her face doesn’t reach her eyes. It’s cut-glass. Diamond-bright. Dangerous.
“Good morning,” she says, voice like sun-warmed honey. “I couldn’t help overhearing. You were wondering about my children?”
Her tone is pleasant. Perfectly civil. But I can hear a thread of steel beneath it. A thread that says: I heard you. Try again.
The women freeze. One nearly drops her basket. The other stammers, “Oh—we didn’t mean—”
“But you did,” Marienne replies, gently. Her smile doesn’t waver. “It’s all right. Curiosity is natural. Cruelty, less so.”
Yla is watching. Big-eyed, solemn. Siven stands beside her, silent and pale, shoulders drawn tight like a bowstring. Listening.
They heard every word.
My hand drifts toward the hilt at my side. Not because I intend to draw it—gods, not here—but because I wish I could. To slice the tension from the air. To cut the ugliness from their voices before it can reach the girls again.
Marienne turns slightly, enough for the women to see Yla tucked behind her skirts. “Would you like to say good morning?”
Yla blinks. Then nods, slowly. “Good morning,” she says in a small, clear voice.
The older woman—the louder one—manages a tight smile. “Good morning, dear.”
It’s thin. Insincere.
But Marienne beams like it’s been the kindest greeting in the world.
“There now,” she says, voice pleasant as a parlor bell. “Lucky for you, most ignorance is curable. Cruelty, though—takes a bit more work.”
The women flinch. Marienne does not. She tilts her head. A vision in pale pink and sunlight, all while smiling like a guillotine.
“Have a blessed day,” she says to the women, serene as dawn.
Then, turning toward the girls, her voice softens. “Yla, my dear—remind me which flowers you wanted again?”
Yla blinks up at her, then starts pointing with earnest precision to every bloom in sight. Siven hovers close behind, eyes darting curiously between petals and people.