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impulses I’d had back in the hallway
were those of a murderer, and they had nearly overwhelmed me. If I
had someone waiting in the wings for me to drink, I didn’t
think I’d be able to help but kill them.
    “I
apologize,” Julian said, chagrined. “I shouldn’t
have brought it up. I’m sure you’d prefer to be alone. I
can have Aya bring you back to your quarters in just a moment.”
    I nodded.
    “First,
though, you should eat something.”
    “I’m
not hungry,” I lied.
    “I
understand your reticence. The concept is gruesome,” he said.
“Come. I’m not going to ask you to assault anyone.”
    “You’re
not?”
    “No, of
course not. Come with me.”
    I followed Julian
past several rows of bookcases to a study, far less congested and
much brighter than the main library. The room was outfitted with a
large drafting table with a black amphora at its center.
Amber-colored stained glass panels lined the ceiling, filtering in
what seemed like sunlight through elaborate iron filigrees.
    “We must
consume blood almost daily if we wish to function normally,”
Julian said, propping the door to the study open. “That being
said, we can choose to drink from either a still or a living vessel.”
    He pulled a chair
out from the table and gestured for me to sit.
    I stood in the
doorway, repulsed by the idea despite the compression and pain
overtaking my chest. “What if I refuse?”
    “That’d
be unwise.” He walked over to a cabinet against the back wall
and pulled out a single glass, crystal clear and shaped like a
teardrop. “Hunger manifests differently in each of us, but it’s
never pleasant.”
    I swallowed hard,
thinking back to my reaction in the hallway.
    He leaned across
the table to fill the glass with blood from the amphora. “In
the case of our family, the House of Mnemosyne, hunger results in the
temporary inability to form short-term memories. Acute anterograde
amnesia, in other words.”
    He walked across
the study and handed me the glass. The liquid inside was room
temperature, neither cold nor hot. I forced myself to imagine it was
red wine.
    He smiled. “If
you won’t sit, you must at least drink.”
    I shook my head
no. I thought of throwing the glass against the far wall, letting the
blood splatter all over the books and papers.
    The humor drained
from Julian’s face and voice as he closed in on me. “You
will drink on your own or I will force you to drink.” He placed
his hand on my right shoulder. “The choice is yours.”
    I suddenly felt it
wasn’t a choice at all.
    Refusing to look
at him, I brought the glass to my mouth. I refused to inhale as I
closed my eyes and poured the first few drops past my lips. I tried
to refuse to taste anything as it slid across my tongue; but as soon
as the first drop entered my throat I was already knocking the rest
of the glass back as if I couldn’t possibly drink it quickly
enough. For a moment, my mind felt perfectly clear; my body felt
buoyant. The blood was all I could imagine wanting. It was both
longing and release.
    Julian released
his hold on my shoulder. He took the glass from me, refilled it from
the amphora, and handed it back to me with a satisfied smile.
    “This is
your blood,” I remarked as I came to the realization, after the
last sip of the last glass.
    Julian raised an
eyebrow. “How could you tell?”
    “I... don’t
know.” I handed him the empty vessel.
    As I swallowed the
last of it, I felt a rush of emotions all tangled into themselves:
grief, fear, anger, despair, and a potent, piercing self-loathing.
The blood confirmed everything. I was dead, and Alison was dead, and
if those facts weren’t hideous enough on their own, this effete
rich kid had turned me into some sort of hemophagic monster without
my consent. What had he called it? An immortal. A revenant. Not that
it mattered, now that she was gone.
    The back of my
throat prickled. Tears welled up in my eyes, started to blur my
vision, but I choked them back.