Chapter 31
The company office was a three hour journey from the capital, in a town called Vík í Myrdal. The only convenient way to get there was by car, and—neither of them eager to drive—Sylvia booked them two last minute seats on a tour bus heading south.
Sylvia clearly had a lot on her mind during the trip, refusing Aster’s many attempts at chit-chat as she scrawled notes down in a notebook that said Live, laugh, love in Icelandic.
Aster would have been offended at being so abjectly ignored, but she knew that Sylvia’s best moves always came together minutes before the recital. So, leaving her to her reading, she spent the whole drive there glued to the window, eager to swallow the scenery.
It wasn’t a difficult thing to focus on. Unlike Sylvia, who preferred turning into a ripe orange under the sun of an Italian beach, Aster had always held an affection for the northern parts of the world. If there was ever a place to die, she thought, it would be Iceland in the summer.
It was almost too perfect a place, in the same way an apple shines most when it’s hiding a worm inside.
Like one vast Elysium Field, like Homer described in the Odyssey — “the Elysium Fields, where the deathless ones will sweep you off to the world’s end, where life glides on in immortal ease for mortal man” — that’s how she felt now, gazing out the window — like she was crossing over the river Styx, into green fields dusted with gaggles of white sheep, flocks of puffins.
Had Homer traveled here, she wondered? Had he met the Council himself, thousands of years ago? Had he been a vampire? Is that why he was so concerned about the afterlife? Did he want to imagine a place where even monsters like him could exist somewhere pleasant and pretty?
Were vampires just like humans, constantly desperate for a place to belong?
Aster traced her finger on the foggy window. It was a weird idea to digest, that she had been alive hundreds of years, but many vampires had been around for much, much longer.
She had never met a vampire older than her, not besides the Maroven family, and she could hardly count that encounter as much of a meet and greet.
She certainly hadn’t arranged time to shake hands and ask questions about the long and elaborate history of their species before shredding them to pieces.
She sort of wished she had, now.
It was just — she had never been curious before, about vampires outside her and Sylvia. About their lives. Their history.
It wasn’t an accidental cluelessness. For a very long time, she had been brimming with so much resentment and anger and fury at being forcibly turned, that it felt like ignoring the species she’d turned into was an act of rebellion. An ignorance that kept her closer to her humanity.
That’s why she never befriended any other vampires. That’s why, when Sylvia would offer to teach her about their history, Aster would gently refuse. Eventually, Sylvia had stopped offering.
But now there was nothing Aster wanted more than for Sylvia to ask again.
Suddenly, she wanted to know all of it.
She wanted to know all the stupid rituals.
She wanted to know how to court Sylvia like the ancient deathless Elysians would have.
What flowers to pick and lay at her beside.
What goat or chicken or vegan-imitation-steak to sacrifice by the fire.
Because, at the end of the day, loving Sylvia meant loving a vampire.
There was no pretending otherwise. And Aster didn’t have to forgive the man who ruined her to want to understand the woman who made her feel whole.
She wanted—she realized with a quiet, desperate breath—to marry like vampires do.
She wanted to bite Sylvia. She wanted Sylvia to bite her back.
The bus went over a bump in the dirt road, and Sylvia’s pencil sprung from between her fingers, rolling onto the ground.
The vampire groaned, rising from her seat to go searching for it, but Aster intercepted her, pressing her hand softly — well, soft by Aster’s standards — into Sylvia’s lap, and forcing her back down into the seat.
Sylvia looked at her, startled. It quickly morphed into something softer. Concern.
“What is it?” she whispered. “Are you okay?”
Aster stared at her speechlessly.
No. Yes. I want to spend Eternity with you, would you be interested?
But Aster kept her trap shut tight. A bus they were sharing with a handful of American tourists and their crying babies was hardly the place for this conversation.
“I’m fine,” she breathed shakily. She turned her attention to Sylvia’s silly little notebook and tapped on it with a fingernail. “What are you scheming, Macbeth?”
Sylvia stared at her for a second, quizzically—not quite believing her, but also not quite sure what to accuse her of—before finally reaching down beneath her seat and stuffing the notebook into the handbag they’d stolen from the hotel concierge.
“Nothing too fancy,” Sylvia said. “Just a few backup plans.”
“Care to enlighten me?”
“No,” Sylvia said rudely, then grinned at her.
“Trust me, you always do better with improvisation. Plus, we won’t need them.
I have every reason to believe we’ll receive a very warm welcome.
The Maroven name still means something to these people.
I met a few of them at Catrina’s galas back in the day, pre-you-know.
” She shrugged. “Old friends of my mother.”
Aster stilled, eyebrows furrowing. “Er, not to sound dense, but won’t these old friends of your mother have an issue with the person who, I don’t know, murdered the entire Maroven clan?”
Sylvia licked her lips. “Not if they don’t know who you are.”
Aster laughed in disbelief.
“I know I’m not exactly a social butterfly, Sylvia, but people know the story. They’ve heard of me. Yasmine said so herself.”
Sylvia rolled her eyes.
“Sure they’ve heard of you. You’re famous,” she said, making Aster’s entire body turn to fire when she pressed a quick peck to the side of Aster’s face, as if she couldn’t help but kiss her.
“But they wouldn’t be able to put a name to the face.
It’s not like you’ve been widely photographed.
You’re way more camera shy than me. Why would anyone recognize you? ”
Sylvia had a fair point. They’d steered clear of high-ranking bloodsuckers for as long as they possibly could, and when collision was unavoidable, they made sure no one left the encounter breathing. Still, she was skeptical. Especially after what Yasmine had said back at the funeral.
“I don’t know. Yasmine seemed to think that the whole vampire community has had a word to say about us. About how we… travel together. They’d probably put two and two together.”
She trailed off, not wanting to send Sylvia into a spiral, but Sylvia clearly got the message quick enough. She huffed out a laugh, then reached into her bag for a cigarette.
“A word about how they think you’re my thrall-slash-concubine, you mean?”
Aster startled at Sylvia’s straightforwardness. A few days ago, Sylvia quite literally accused herself of that very thing. Now she was cracking jokes about it. Was the fear in her fading?
“Yes, that’s what I mean,” Aster said carefully, watching Sylvia fish for a lighter. “You can’t smoke in here, you know. We’re on a bus, and the windows don’t roll down.”
Sylvia rolled her eyes, putting the cigarette between her lips, “I admit with great hesitance that you might have a point.”
“About the smoking?”
“No.” She clicked the lighter several times, but no flame came out. She groaned. “About them recognizing you. You’re right. I’ve let the rumor mill spin around too many times. This is why I wanted you to kill Yasmine in the first place. She’s got a terribly big mouth.”
Aster’s chest lit up in a way it shouldn’t have at actually being able to help sort out part of Sylvia’s grand plan for once. Feeling emboldened, she rolled her eyes, and chided dramatically, “Thank you, master. It means a lot for you to consider my input.”
She expected Sylvia to yell at her for that jab, or perhaps stop talking to her entirely, but instead she hit her on the arm, her eyes wide as if she’d realized something.
“Wait. That’s perfect.”
Aster laughed, feeling her chest hurt from how much she enjoyed the face this woman made when she thought of an idea. “What did you just think of?”
“My thrall. That’s what they think you are. We’ll let them think that.”
Aster frowned. “How will that help?”
Sylvia looked at her as if it was obvious. “They’ll just assume I enthralled you as retribution for killing my family. It makes me look like a dutiful little daughter, and it makes you a lot less intimidating. They won’t be scared you’ll do anything to them unless I tell you to.”
Aster considered it. Something about it moved her the wrong way, but at the same time, she sort of enjoyed the idea of being Sylvia’s mindless eye-candy.
Something is seriously wrong with me.
“But it will require you keeping your mouth shut for a few hours,” Sylvia teased. “No talking unless talked to. That sort of thing. If that’s possible for you.”
“Possible for me,” Aster laughed. “Oh that is truly, disgustingly rich coming from you.”
“I never said I’d be good at it. That’s why it’s your job.”
They shared a long, intense look—equivalent to a game of Chicken—before Aster broke.
“Fine, I can play a little pretend,” Aster said.
And because she couldn’t resist but get a rise out of Sylvia, she reached her arm behind her head and scratched lightly at her nape.
“How will you refer to me in front of them, then? I presume you won’t use my name.
They’d probably look down on a vampire for being on a first name basis with their thrall. ”
Aster could feel Sylvia’s pulse skip a beat in her neck. She looked at Aster’s lips, then her eyes, then slowly removed the cigarette from her mouth, and placed it back in the purse. She flexed her hand in her lap, as if it was desperate to touch something, but it clawed at nothing but air.