The new handmaiden, Rosemary thought, heart boiling with guilt, was already doomed. She should not have asked for a new companion. She should not have forced such a beautiful creature to come here. Now, Miss Agnes would be all alone, surrounded by vampires and all manner of night creatures, and would not be able to leave.

“What have I done?” she moaned, pressing her face into her hands.

Currently, Rosemary was settled on the veranda of the cloister, staring out into the garden. She had hid in her room until night had fallen and she was certain that Miss Agnes had gone to bed. Then, leaving her veil behind, she had sneaked back out and knelt before the glowing rows of flowers.

This was the only place in the castle that she could still see the stars, ever since her old tower had become forbidden to her.

“I wonder what you think of me now,” she asked, looking up at the sky. Above, the silver stars blinked eerily at her, perhaps in hatred. Tonight, the moon was new, the starlight barely interceding in the darkness. “I am not nearly so impressive as I once was.” Then she sighed. “Or perhaps I was never impressive, and we simply never knew it.”

The stars, as always, were silent. They had not spoken to her in centuries. Rosemary wondered, as she often did, what she had done to win their apathy.

“I hope that Miss Agnes is happy here,” Rosemary said. “I hope that I do not scare her. There must be a reason why she came.”

Ah, but she had smelled so good. Whatever blood flowed in her, it probably tasted divine.

Rosemary shook her head. She mustn’t think about the new maid that way! She wasn’t a monster.

Oh, but Miss Agnes had been so, so pretty. Rosemary, unused to humans, felt as though she had been hit in the gut. She had not expected Agnes to be so lanky, so elegant. What beautiful, silver eyes! What poise, she carried herself with! What gentleness in her fingers, when she had lifted the veil! 

Rosemary wanted to run her fingers through that glossy, black hair, to pinch those wolven ears atop her head, to feel the soft, dark skin of her cheeks. 

She had expected the stink of a dog, but Agnes smelled like moonlight.

Oh, this had been such a bad idea.

Rosemary ought to have stuck to her coffin. She ought to have let herself lie back and bleed away any feeling over the long centuries. Not to call in some... some mortal and endanger her! 

“You must hate me,” Rosemary said, to the stars. “There can be no other conclusion.”

“Lady Rosemary?”

The voice did not belong to Aster, nor any of the servants who kept the castle relatively clean. Rosemary turned.

There, standing before the door to their shared hall, was Miss Agnes. She was still dressed in her uniform, the belt of her apron cinched tight at her waist.

“Oh, Miss Agnes,” Rosemary said. “I... had not realized you were there.”

What sort of vampire was she, that she couldn’t even see one person sneaking up on her!

“None of that, now, Rosemary. You said there were to be no titles between us.” Agnes drew close, holding something between her hands.

“My apologies... Agnes.” 

“Very good.” Agnes sat beside her. Warmth radiated off her mortal body. For a living dead thing like Rosemary, it was already too much. She willed herself not to grow flustered and run off a second time. “Now, you must tell me about yourself. I came all this way for you, after all.”

Rosemary frowned, staring out at the flowers. A starlit garden, just for her. Somehow, the light never covered the constellations above. “There is not much to say. I am very old.”

“You must be powerful, then.”

“Perhaps once,” Rosemary agreed, “in a separate life. But I have lived here so long, and I have not hunted in centuries.”

“Why not?” Agnes asked. “Should not the progenitor of vampire kind be the most powerful?”

Rosemary shook her head. “It is not that simple. And I am not the progenitor.”

“Oh?” Agnes leaned forward, eyes glittering like crystals in the starlight. “Then who is? And where did you come from?”

“Are you sure you aren’t a were-cat, Agnes?” Rosemary smiled. What a sweet and gentle and curious woman. She had been nervous, at first, at her decision to hire an outsider. But now she saw that Agnes had few pretenses about the sort of being Rosemary ought to be. How kind, to take interest in her. 

“I remember the wolf who turned me very clearly,” Agnes said. Her expression darkened.

“Oh...” Rosemary sighed. “So it was not a happy turning, then.”

“Are any?”

“Mine was,” Rosemary said, with a sigh.

“How could it have been happy?”

Rosemary thought of the moon, and her kind embrace, and closed her eyes. “I do not wish to speak of it.”

“Then it wasn’t very happy, was it?”

Rosemary bit her lip with one of her fangs. “You would not understand. It was very long ago, and Cordis was nothing like it is today.”

“And you?” Agnes asked. “What were you like?”

“I was young,” Rosemary said. “And naive. There was much I did not understand about the world. And so many secrets that I was desperate to uncover.”

“Like what?”

“Do you ever wonder, Agnes, where werewolves came from?”

“I presume,” Agnes responded, staring out into the flowerbeds, “we came from the same place where the other night beasts did.”

At the term ‘night beast,’ Rosemary winced. “Oh, you poor thing,” she cooed.

“What?”

Agnes made an intriguing face. Her skin flushed, the slightest bit. Her eyebrows furrowed.

“It must have been so difficult for you, hiding from hunters all these years.”

Now her eyebrows rose. “They are... quite efficient. Night beasts like us must hide in odd places to avoid them.”

“Oh, there you go again. Calling yourself a night beast. What a cruel term. You mustn’t call yourself such a thing, Agnes. Night creatures are no more beastly than hunters!”

Agnes huffed. “Tell that to the humans who have their blood drunk and their flesh torn. You have not been in Cordis in some time, Rosemary. How should you know what it’s like?”

Rosemary could not help but frown. “You have spent your life hiding, Agnes. You should not have to be called a beast.”

Agnes glared at her claws. “And what if I am beastly? What if I think we werewolves are nothing but night beasts, harming those around us?”

“Then I would be very sad,” Rosemary said, honestly. “But happy too, that I have rescued you from such a place.”

For a moment, Agnes flinched, her eyes wide. She turned back to Rosemary, shoulders hunched, silver eyes gleaming with... something odd. Then, her expression smoothed. Calmness traveled across her in a gentle wave. “Thank you, my lady, for that.”
Rosemary smiled. “You need not thank you. You are the one providing me with the service, after all.”

“I suppose I am.” Agnes stood. “It is getting late for me, and I have spent the whole day awake.”

“Oh?” Rosemary turned. “My apologies for leaving you. I hope you did not spend the day poorly?”

Agnes smiled. “No, no, my lady. I was introduced to the rest of the staff.”

Rosemary stood as well. “I hope they were not too strange. Vampires are not always the most socially adept of creatures.”

“They were perfectly lovely,” Agnes said. Her voice had become agreeable, now. Perhaps the prior oddness had merely been Rosemary’s perception. The creature before her was young, after all. What did Rosemary know of the way these new beings expressed themselves?

“Then I shall see for you tomorrow.”

“Call for me whenever you wish,” Agnes said. “I will be there.”

With that, she was off to bed.

Rosemary stood alone once more on the veranda, pressing a hand to her heart. She felt as though something strange had come over her. This was perhaps what it was to meet a new creature. She had not done this in hundreds of years. 

The woman who came to take her blood, her head butler, the host of servants, and her guardian, had all gone unchanged for centuries. Wasn’t this why she had demanded a new lady’s  maid, one who did not know her? 

She would master this emotion. She would treat Agnes with respect and kindness. The woman was still clearly coping with so much, believing the lies that the hunters had told her about her kind.

Then again, Agnes thought, strolling now through the halls of the castle, she did not truly know the state of Cordis anymore. All of these vampires, who her blood would help to create and empower, were they receiving any help with their new existences? Were they being taught how to manage the sun, how to find someone to drink from, how to take only what blood they needed and drink without turning?

Were they being taught to cope with possible centuries of existence?

Rosemary... did not know. 

Perhaps she could find out, through Agnes, how the outside world looked these days.

Without thinking, Rosemary had walked to the entrance to the library. A maid, her horns betraying her demonic status, was washing a window, bathing in the light of the moon. When Rosemary came by, the maid’s eyes drew away from her work, and then returned, without a hint of acknowledgement.

Oh well. Rosemary had made no effort to get to know the staff when it had counted. Now it was too late. 

Entering the library, she retrieved an old book from its place on the shelf. It was an ancient, illuminated thing, barely alive anymore. But it contained old songs of yearning and love. In one quiet corner, drenched in moonlight, she began to read.

In another part of the castle, Agnes slept with one eye open.