She’d learned this from the single candle that Freyja had left burning in a silver holder on the dressing table. The undulating light and the darkness at the heart of the flame were mesmerizing. Phoebe had begged for more candles, wanting to surround herself with the pinpricks of brightness that dazzled and dipped.
“One is enough,” Freyja said. “We don’t want you light-struck on your first day.”
So long as Phoebe was fed regularly, sensory assault was the greatest danger to her as a newly made vampire. To prevent any mishaps, Freyja and Miriam carefully controlled Phoebe’s environment, minimizing her chances of getting lost in feeling.
Immediately after her transformation, for example, Phoebe had wanted a shower. Freyja judged the needlelike fall of water too severe, so Fran?oise drew her a warm bath instead—strictly timed so that Phoebe didn’t become consumed by the soft slip of water against her skin. And all the windows in the house, not just those in Phoebe’s bedroom, were locked against the alluring scents of warmbloods, the neighbors’ pets, and pollution.
“I’m sorry, Phoebe, but an infant male went mad in the Paris Metro last year,” Freyja explained when she asked if one window might be opened just a crack to let in the breezes. “The fumes from the old braking system were irresistible to him, and we lost him along Line Eight. It caused no end of delays for morning commuters and made the mayor very cross. Baldwin, too.”
Phoebe knew she could break the glass with ease, along with the window frames, and even punch a hole in the wall if escape became necessary. But resisting these temptations was a test of her control, her obedience, and her suitability as Marcus’s mate. Phoebe was determined to pass the test, so she sat in the airless room and watched the colors flicker and drift as a cloud crossed the moon, or a faraway star died in the heavens, or the turning of the earth brought the sun fractionally closer.
“I would like some paint.” Phoebe said it in a whisper, but the sound echoed in her ears. “And brushes.”
“I’ll ask Miriam.” Freyja’s reply came from far away. She was, based on the endless scratching that tickled Phoebe’s nerves ever so slightly, writing in her journal with a fountain pen. Occasionally, Freyja’s heart gave a slow thump.
Even farther away, in the kitchens, Charles was smoking a cigar and reading the newspaper. Rustle. Puff. Silence. Thump. Rustle. Puff. Silence. Just as a Paris night had its own colorscape, so every creature had his or her own rhythmic accompaniment—like the song Phoebe’s heart had made when she first drank from Miriam.
“Do you need something else, Phoebe?” Freyja’s pen paused. In the kitchen, Charles stubbed out his cigar in a metal ashtray. Both waited attentively for Phoebe’s response. It would take her some time to get used to holding conversations with people in different rooms, never mind entirely separate floors of a large house.
“Only Marcus,” replied Phoebe, wistful. She had grown accustomed to thinking of herself as part of a we, not as a solitary me. There was so much she wanted to tell him, so much she wanted to share about her first day of being reborn. Instead, they were separated by hundreds of miles.
“Why not practice walking?” Freyja asked, capping her pen. Moments later, Marcus’s aunt was at the door, the key turning smoothly in the lock. “Let me help you.”
Phoebe blinked at the change in the room’s atmosphere as the soft glow of the candlelit house seeped across the threshold.
“The light is a living thing,” Phoebe said, awed by the realization.
“Both wave and particle. It is astonishing it took warmbloods so long to figure that out.” Freyja stood before Phoebe, hands outstretched in a gesture of assistance. “Now, remember not to push on the chair with your hands, or against the floor with your feet. Getting up is simply a matter of unfolding for a draugr. It is not necessary to exert oneself.”
Phoebe had been a vampire less than twenty-four hours and had already broken several chairs and put a sizable dent in the tub.
“Float up. Just think up and rise. Steady. Good.” Freyja gave constant feedback, like Phoebe’s childhood ballet mistress, a similarly draconian figure though only a fraction of Freyja’s Valkyric height. It was Madame Olga who had helped Phoebe understand that size has nothing to do with stature.
The memory of Madame Olga snapped Phoebe’s spine straight, and she instinctively took hold of Freyja’s hands as if they were a wooden barre. She heard a crack and felt something give way.