The woods were peculiar, deeper than Agnes remembered, their darkness velvety and inviting. It made her wrists ache to look out into the black forest at night. It made her teeth hurt.

But Rosemary’s face had been harrowing all alone, and it must have been overwhelming to enter the woods, following centuries trapped in the castle. So for the next few weeks, Agnes did not push her there again. Rosemary did not ask.

Life move forward with a gentle slowness. Agnes dressed Rosemary each day, followed her, tended to her needs. She brought her blood when she thirsted, conversation when she wished it. She tried, as best she could, to be closer.

Aster shuffled in and out, his presence... comforting. When they had returned from the woods that night, he had taken Rosemary into his arms and wrapped her in a blanket. Over the next few days he had barely left her side, hovering about her just as Agnes did.

Eventually, Rosemary smiled softly once more.

Not long after, the moon turned full. Nyx was due to arrive once more. At the thought, Agnes frowned. Rosemary was only just now feeling better. For Nyx to come and steal away those soft smiles... the thought made Agnes’ stomach turn. Ignoring this inappropriate feeling, Agnes allowed herself the luxury of worry for her target.

She found Rosemary at sunset, still in her nightgown, veil folded on the table beside her. She was reading a book in the library, one of the old ones with unparsable script and scribbles across the margins.

“Rosemary,” Agnes breathed. “Would you like to go out tonight?”

Rosemary looked up at her, eyes wide. “What do you mean?”

“Nyx comes tonight.”

Rosemary nodded. “As she has for centuries.” 

Agnes shook her head. “What if you simply didn’t allow her to take your blood?”

Rosemary looked at the book in her lap, then shook her head. “You don’t understand. She must. I owe it to her. I owe it to every vampire, for the trouble I’ve caused them.”

“Trouble?” Agnes asked. These vampires caused nothing but trouble–

“Because of me, they exist,” Rosemary said. “My blood helps them. Why shouldn’t I give it?”

Agnes sighed. “Why don’t you just take this month off then, hm?”

“Why? I haven’t before.”

“That’s why you should.” Agnes urged. “Come; Nyx can’t find us if we’re in the woods. She doesn’t know you can follow me.”

Rosemary blinked up at her. Slowly, she shut the book.

Spurred on, Agnes continued. “You’ve given them your blood for centuries. They can wait a month.”

Rosemary lifted her hand. Agnes took it. Together, the two of them began to walk toward the door. 

Aster stopped them, when they reached the cloister. “There you two are. Nyx is here.”

Rosemary frowned. Agnes thought a moment. “Can you distract her?’

Aster raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“So we can go out.” Agnes explained. “Doesn’t she deserve a break?”

Aster look at Rosemary, shutting his eyes a moment. Then he nodded. “You do, Rosemary. Go to the kitchen. Exit through the staff door. I’ll bring Nyx to the library and keep her there as long as I can.”

“How?” Rosemary asked. 

“She’s my sister,” Aster said. “I’m sure I can think of something.”

Agnes grasped Rosemary’s hand and pulled her down the hall. They turned towards the kitchen, rushed through the cellar with its shelves of bottles, wandered past Eileen and Minerva, chatting quietly in a dusty hallway, and burst out the side entrance. 

The forest invited them closer and closer. Agnes noticed that they had begun to run, the wind rustling through their hair, the moon rising to its zenith above, beckoning them further and further into the dark of the woods.

There was the scent of pine, the call of an owl in the distance. Rosemary cried out, but not in pain. She was, Agnes realized, as they jumped over ancient roots and ducked beneath drooping branches, laughing. 

The smile on her face, Agnes thought, turning, was enrapturing. Her soft lips had curled outward, revealing a hint of her fangs. Her blood-red eyes glittered like the petals of a flower, draped in frost. The moonlight seemed to caress her, its silver rays curling about her like ribbons.

The moon seemed to love her. Did Rosemary know, she wondered? 

Did Rosemary know that she was loved?

Agnes tripped and fell. Her face ground into the dirt and she lay there a moment, groaning. The pain did not matter. Her mind, it seemed, was burning.

She did not love Rosemary, she reminded herself. She barely knew Rosemary, except that she was alone, and often hurt, and unable to function alone, and unable to perceive the world around her, and unable to perceive herself. She was powerless. She was the most powerful vampire that existed. And she was small and delicate when Agnes held her, and she seemed to feel so deeply and not even know it.

She was nothing like the monster that Agnes had come to kill.

Reminding herself of her goal, Agnes pulled herself upright.

Rosemary was beside her. “Agnes! Are you hurt?”

Agnes wiped at the blood on her cheek. Rosemary’s eyes tracked the movement. See? Agnes reminded herself, even though the focus on Rosemary’s face made her feel strange. “Only a little bit.”

“I am sorry,” Rosemary said, still sounding breathless. “You have done so much for me, and I have done so little for you.”

“All I have done is be your maid.” And care far, far too much for your well being. 

“For one night,” Rosemary breathed, “you have freed me.”

“You could do this every full moon,” Agnes said. “Then Nyx would not be able to take your blood ever.” The thought rushed through her– do this, and half the problems plaguing Cordis would disappear.

“She may come on a different day,” said Rosemary, holding out her hand. Her claws seemed silver.

Agnes took it. “I am not so sure. When last we went to the tower, I caught a glimpse of her diagrams. Why bring you to some place so high, on such a specific date, if she could simply take your blood whenever?”

Rosemary blinked. “I suppose that makes sense. But then why not take my blood from the cloister?”

Agnes shrugged. “That, I do not know.”

They began to stroll, leisurely, through the woods. The smile did not leave Rosemary’s face. Her silver hair seemed to glow. Agnes was filled with the unearthly urge to touch it. 

“Perhaps she simply does not like it,” Rosemary said. “I remember she found the moon’s flowers hateful, long ago.”

“Why is that?” Agnes asked.

Rosemary’s smile faded. “It is my own fault, I am afraid. I do not wish to speak of those days.”

A question came to Agnes’ tongue. “What are those flowers, exactly?”

Rosemary looked at her. “Teardrops. Moments in time. I cannot show you out here, except...” She closed her eyes a moment, then snapped them open. “Follow me.”

“Where are we going?” Agnes asked. “I thought you hadn’t been here in centuries.”

“I can always find this place,” Rosemary said. “It is only that I could not reach it. Until you.”

Her finger brushed against Agnes’ then. And Agnes followed, feeling spellbound. The woods were a dark canopy above her, curling like a cathedral. The shell of Rosemary’s pointed ear also curled, she noticed. Why weren’t her ears pierced? She would look beautiful with silver stones dangling from them, or perhaps red, or perhaps the black that Agnes favored.

They walked through the darkness for some time. The trees grew taller, thicker, their bark knotted and gnarled, their branches curling down like hands, ready to greet them. And then, abruptly, they stopped.

Agnes and Rosemary stood in a clearing. In its center was a silver pond, round as a coin. The silver circle of the moon was perfectly reflected within. Around it grew a ring of glowing, silver flowers, dripping with moonlight.

Rosemary approached the pond. Her voice was soft and wondrous. “I have not seen this place in so long. I cannot believe it’s still here.”

“Where is this?” Agnes asked.

“It is the beginning,” Rosemary said. “It is where the moon changed me.”

Holding up her skirt, she placed one bare foot into the water, then another, then another. As she descended into the basin, towards the moon, her fingers brushed against the glowing petals.

Then she turned to Agnes, water up to her waist. “Come,” she said. “Do you feel her?”

“I don’t understand,” Agnes said.

“Look up and behold!” Rosemary’s voice was barely a whisper. It was as loud as a church bell. “Behold the eternal reflection! Behold the moon!”

Against her better judgment, Agnes allowed her gaze to drift up. The moon was a perfect circle above, as mundane as it always seemed to be. But when she blinked, it seemed there was a flash of silver there.

Something in her growled. Her wrists burned.

Rosemary waded to the pond’s edge and lifted a delicate hand. “Of course. Agnes, it is the full moon. How many years have you avoided transforming?”

“Many,” Agnes said, lowering her hand so Rosemary could hold it. Her soft fingers traveled towards the silver bracelets, gleaming in the moonlight.

“The moon misses you,” Rosemary said. “Agnes… for one night, you have freed me. For one night, can I do the same?” Hooking her claws around each bracelet, she began to pull. Agnes did not stop her.

Rosemary’s face, moon-bathed and intent, was ethereal. Agnes could not even breathe. She would make no move to shatter this strange, fleeting moment with its warm feeling.

 Rosemary gave one final tug, and the bracelets slipped off her wrists, revealing burns beneath. Agnes felt, in that moment, a strange sense of panic.

“I do not know what I will do as a wolf,” she warned. “I may try to hunt you. I may hurt you.”

Rosemary smiled. There was no fear in it. “Let go.”

Agnes’ teeth hurt. 

Her bracelets dropped into the grass.

Agnes let go.