The receiving hall of the vampire courts had been carved out of grey slate.  Not built, carved.  The walls were smooth, but Karhi could see the fine marks where a tool had cut into stone. 

The woman who had led them here had called it a hall, but it wasn’t nearly large enough to constitute a true hall.  It was a receiving room at best. 

A portion of the floor was raised, taking up half of the room.  There were a handful chairs meant to be small thrones—mid-eighteenth-century wood, carved with the ornate detail expected from their time, upholstered with richly coloured chintz and silk.  A single woman sat at the front on a dark wood chair with birds carved into the legs.

Her hair was a glossy dark walnut, bound to her head.  An enormous gold Byzantine crown sat atop her hair, gems glittering from the sides and top.  Long earrings made of green gemstones and gold hung from her ears.  A gold neck piece sat on her shoulders, from which a green and gold gown flowed. 

The woman herself was gorgeous, with honey-coloured eyes and flawless olive skin.  She had crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes and deep dimples at the corners of her mouth.  Even though she was close to fifteen hundred years old, she looked to be in her mid-fifties.  She held herself with the grace expected from an empress, head high and back straight.

“Sloane Briallen Emelyn,” Empress Theodora said, looking Sloane up and down.

Karhi felt Sloane’s annoyance at the use of Briallen as her middle name.  She hated the tradition of calling fledglings by their sire’s last names. 

Outwardly, she didn’t react.  She curtsied, as Karhi had been teaching her, and said, “Your Grace.” 

Sloane wore a charcoal grey suit, not a dress, but the curtsy still worked to show deference.  This was the woman who would sentence her (read: Karhi) for her violation of the Samhain covenant.  She needed to make a good impression so her (read: Karhi’s) sentence wouldn’t be too bad.

“You understand of what you have been accused?”

“Yes, ma’am.  I broke the Samhain covenant.”  She made sure to pronounce Samhain as sow-in like Karhi had told her to.  It was the traditional Irish pronunciation.  It wouldn’t ingratiate her, but it wouldn’t hurt her, either, like pronouncing it sam-hane would.

However, she didn’t say Your Grace.  That would hurt them if she kept it up.

The empress looked annoyed.  “It is ‘your Grace’, not ‘ma’am’.”

“Yes, ma—your Grace.”  She caught herself that time.

She eyed Sloane but didn’t comment.  “Yes, you broke the Samhain covenant.  You used your soulsilver on Ilona Muire Emelyn.” 

She didn’t say that Sloane had killed Ilona.  No one was quite sure where Ilona was or what had become of her, but they all knew she was still alive.  Karhi would know if she was dead.

“I did, your Grace,” Sloane replied.

“But you are not yet twenty, nor have you yet met your year mark.  As such, the punishment will go to your sire, Karhi Emelyn.”

Karhi felt Sloane’s annoyance when his middle name was not used.  She glanced at him, but he didn’t meet her eyes as she said, “Yes, your Grace.”  He didn’t want to explain why the courts didn’t use his human surname as his middle name.

The empress looked at Karhi, and he met her gaze.  He was old enough that he didn’t need to show quite as much deference.  “Your punishment has been determined.  You will return to your home to receive the decision.”

He allowed his confusion to show.  This was weird.  And the empress knew that.  “Your Grace?” he asked.

Annoyance coloured the empress’s features.  “A special request has been made for your punishment.  The requestor wants to inform you of their wishes to you and only you.”  Her eyes were narrowed as she said, “They also wished to reveal themselves to you and only you.”

With each word out of Empress Theodora’s mouth, Karhi’s confusion only grew.  “Your Grace, do you know the identity of my requestor?”

“I do,” she said stiffly.  Karhi’s question seemed to push her annoyance closer into anger territory. 

Karhi’s confusion wasn’t cleared by the answer.  But it was best not to invoke her ire.

He bowed.  “Your Grace.”

Sloane took that as her cue to curtsy again.

Empress Theodora nodded and made a motion best described as her shooing them out.  It was still an elegant gesture.

Karhi had been to the courts a few times over the years.  He knew the way back to the double doors through which they would exit the courts.

The doors were four times taller than Karhi and as wide as his full wingspan.  One door was pale wood, the colour of peeled almonds.  The other was dark wood, the colour of shelled cocoa.  Where handles should have been, were twin shafts of light the length and width of his forearms.  The light bled out into the doors, swirling through carvings that covered the door, the light dimming the closer it got to the edges.

Next to the door stood a figure draped in a long white cloak with a hood.  A thin black line started at the top of the hood and swirled around the cloak, thickening until it enveloped the bottom hem that touched the floor.

The figure’s face was beautiful but unsettling.  Their eyes were flooded with the same bright light as on the door, and it cast strange shadows on their face.  Their cheekbones were sharp, their jaw cast in shadow that almost melted it into their neck.

They turned to regard Karhi and Sloane, blinking, projecting the curious air of a cat watching for a mouse.

“Location?” they asked.  Their voice was pleasant.

“Mortal Realm.  St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.”

They nodded, moving to the light door and putting their hand on it.  They closed their eyes and as they did, the shadows on their face receded, giving them normal features.  A button nose and small ears.

They opened their eyes, and the illusion of humanity shattered, the shadows returning.  “Make sure to jump when you arrive to help with the dizziness.” 

They opened the door and beyond it was the alley through which they had come to the vampire courts.

“Thanks,” Sloane murmured.

Sloane disappeared through the door. 

Karhi followed her, and his world lurched.

Everything around him rolled, a conflagration of colours spinning in his vision.  He shut his eyes, but the feeling made his stomach rise.  Stupid old human reactions.  He couldn’t even throw up.

Karhi opened his eyes to find himself back in the alley.  The brick wall behind them showed no sign of the portal that ejected them.

He brought his hand to his head as everything continued to spin.  He made a noise of annoyance.

“Jump,” Sloane told him.

He ignored her and stepped forward, immediately stumbling.  Sloane stepped aside to avoid him falling on her. 

He cursed as he barely caught himself on one knee, glaring up at Sloane.

“I told you to jump.  You didn’t.  This is all on you.”

He replied with something vulgar as he got up, sneering at her.

“You go find a horse’s vagina,” she snapped back, moving to exit the alley.

Karhi followed her to the street, surging forward to catch up to her. “What?”

She jumped, not expecting him to be right at her side.  “What?” she shot back defensively, continuing down the street.  They had exited onto Kellogg Boulevard, which ran parallel to the river.  There was a black Town Car parallel parked just outside of the alley, motor running.  Plumes of white vapor puffed off the muffler.

Normally, they could have just walked back to their apartment.  But Sloane was in heels, and Karhi was in loafers—Minnesota in the middle of winter was not conducive to dress shoes.  The snowbanks came up to their hips.

Sloane climbed into the backseat of the car.  “Welcome back, ma’am,” he heard the chauffer say.

“Thanks.”

Karhi climbed into the car, shoving Sloane over as he did.  She glared at him, but he ignored her.  “Swanskin’s,” he told the driver.

“Yes, sir.”

“Swanskin’s?” Sloane asked as the car pulled out of the spot.  “Aren’t we supposed to go home and wait?”

Karhi waved off the question, making a face of annoyance.  “Ilona doesn’t hold any sway over me anymore.  I’m not going to allow anyone else to make me wait on them.  They can see me when they see me.”

Sloane shrugged.  He could feel that she thought it was a dumb decision, but she also didn’t feel the need to argue.  She would have likely done the same.

But that didn’t matter.  He wanted to know something else.

 “Sloane—you understand Finnish?” 

She looked up, green eyes meeting his.  Confusion coloured her features.  “What?”

“I said, ‘Painu hevon vittuun’.”

She blinked in confusion.  “You . . . didn’t say that English?”

“I did not.”

English didn’t really have swears that involved horses.  And while the sentiment behind his curse had meant, “fuck off”, it translated more to, “go find a horse’s vagina” or “go climb up a horse’s vagina”. 

Sloane ran her fingers through her hair and looked back out the window.  “Uh . . . yeah.  I do.”

“How?”

She bit her lip, and he could feel her contemplating how to answer before finally saying, “I had a mummi and an ukki.” 

Those were the terms for grandmother and grandfather in Finnish.

She had learned it from her grandmother and grandfather.

He had questions, but he found the wind out of his sails.  He didn’t want to know anymore.  She had only grown up with one set of grandparents, having never known her father or his family.

They pulled up in front of Swanskin’s, and Karhi got out.  It took him a split second to realize that Sloane wasn’t moving to get out on his side.  She stayed in place.

He stuck his head back in through the door.  “You coming?”

“Bell and Mickey are waiting for me in the lobby at the apartment.”

“I thought that was later.  All right, I’ll see you in four days.”  He didn’t let his relief that she was leaving show on his face.  She could probably feel it anyway.

“Yup.”

He closed the car door and heard Sloane direct the chauffeur back to their apartment.

The car left, and he went inside.

The room was a dark wood that gave it a slick, clean look.  Tables made of pale wood popped against the darkness.  They broke up the monotony of the colours while tying the room together nicely with accents of the pale wood in the floors.  The walls were painted a muted sage green.  Paintings and prints for purchase by local Indigenous artists adorned the walls. 

The most notable aspect of the interior was the pillars that held up the room.  The owner of the bar came from an Indigenous family that had both O’odham and Tlingit roots.  The pillars were covered in traditional carvings, lacquered for preservation.  His favourite was a black bear with mountains jutting out from its back.

The owner of the place, Niquita Swanskin, stood behind the bar, mixing a drink with blood and alcohol.  The top of her head came up to his chest.  She was slim, corded with lean muscle.  Her jawline was sharp, but her short hair framed her face in such a way as to soften it.  She had warm, tawny skin, still dark despite the winter.

She glanced up as he approached the bar and nodded to him.  “Isn’t it early for you?”

“Unfortunately.  A certain fledgling had court.”  Sloane’s case was especially well known amongst the magical community in Minnesota.  A fledgling, not even at her year mark, attacking and winning against a millennium-old vampire?  Who was also her grandsire?  She was already making a name for herself.

Niqui smirked, a glint in her dark eyes.  “And what did you get punished with?”  She scooped ice into the shaker she’d poured alcohol and blood into.  “Hopefully nothing too fun.”

He snorted but it didn’t have much in it.  “I still don’t know.”

Niqui raised an eyebrow.  “What?  Don’t your courts pass judgement quickly?”  She capped the shaker and shook it.

“And they did.  But they didn’t tell me what it was.  Just that my requestor ‘wanted to talk to me face to face’.”  He used air quotes as he said that.  “Whatever that means.”

She grimaced sympathetically, grabbing a glass from under the bar and setting it down.  “Where’s she now?”

“Dealing with more family stuff.”

“Never ends with that girl, does it?”

“It does not.  Can I get a bloody screwdriver?”

“Anything for you,” she said, winking at him and putting the shaker into the sink.  “Bloody old fashioned!” she called out.

“Hey, when are you off?” he asked watching her press the shaker down on the glass rinser.

“In an hour,” she replied.  She looked up from the shaker.  “Unfortunately for you, I will remain forbidden fruit.”

“Oh?”  He arched an eyebrow.  “My fledgling doesn’t work for you anymore, and I don’t have the whole sire-will-kill-you-for-messing-around-with-me thing anymore.”

“Still trying to sleep with anyone with a pulse?”

Karhi had not expected to hear that voice.  He turned to see the owner of the bloody old-fashioned order.

A woman with shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair stood next to him at the bar.  She wore jeans with heeled black combat boots and a dark red cashmere sweater.  There was a neat look to her—pressed clothes, no make-up, and her nails were manicured with no polish. 

She looked up at him with big blue eyes, barely coming up to his chest.  She was a petite woman.

She was also one of the most fearsome vampires in the world.

“Aoife?”  He stared at her, eyes wide with surprise.

“I knew you wouldn’t go back to your apartment like you were supposed to.  I knew you would be petty and come here.”

His eyes couldn’t get any bigger, but his confusion didn’t get any smaller.  “Wait . . . you’re my requestor?”

“On behalf of my house.”

He stared at her.

“Bloody screwdriver.”  Niqui set Karhi’s drink down.

Aoife took his drink and moved over to one of the booths.  Karhi saw that she had a backpack already there, propped against the wall. 

“Where’s your fledgling?” she asked, sitting down in the booth.  “I assumed she would be with you.”

“She does her own shit,” he shrugged, sliding in across from her. 

Aoife passed his drink to him, and he took a sip.  Orange juice and blood was always a strange combination, but it was one he had found himself developing a taste for over the years.

“She’s not here?” she asked, reaching for her backpack.

“No.  She has a family thing to deal with.  She’ll be back in four days.”  He wasn’t going to tell her that Sloane was probably still here.  Sloane had been obsessing about going to Port Orchard ever since she had agreed to it.  And her anxiety had put him so on edge all week that he had been relieved when it turned out she was leaving earlier in the day.

Aoife’s hand was on her backpack, and it stilled.  She looked at Karhi.  “Four days?”  Her expression was unreadable.

“Yes . . .”  He took another sip of his drink.  Why would Aoife be interested in this?

“You didn’t make her stay with you until you knew your sentence?”

Her voice was curiously devoid of emotion, and it made Karhi’s hair stand on end.  He had just spent the better part of five hundred years terrified of a vampire who was much older than him.  And Aoife was also much older than him.  That coupled with the ride he had been put through in October with Sloane had instilled a certain distrust of anyone who questioned how he handled his fledgling.

“And why would it matter if my fledgling was involved?” he asked through a sharp smile.  “It is illegal to force a fledgling to pay a court’s punishment.”

Aoife’s even expression turned to annoyance.  “Calm down, Cujo.  I was asked to speak with both of you about this.  I’m not asking because my Queen is asking for her head.”

Karhi’s brow furrowed.  “Why?”

“It’s a sensitive matter,” she replied.  “Her Majesty wants me to speak only to you two.  And you have the right to refuse.”

Karhi blinked.

What the fuck could Hazel want so bad that she would involve Sloane?  And was willing to allow them to walk away from?

What could Hazel want from a fledgling?