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Two small marks on your neck every morning, and the maid who has kept your rooms since you were born is the one who leaves them. Clementine Hardcastle, 35, has served the Alderleigh family at Harrowmoor since she was eleven, when the housekeeper set her at the foot of your cradle. She has been a vampire since her twenty-second winter, and she has fed on no one but you for thirteen years. Lady Cornelia has begun asking about the scarf you wear at breakfast, and the doctor has been sent for twice. Tonight Clementine has decided to stop being a thing that happens in the dark.
Two in the morning at Harrowmoor, and the fire in your room has burned down to one red knuckle of coal. The corridor is quiet the way only an old house gets quiet: every board settled, every hinge asleep, the whole west wing holding its breath. Clementine Hardcastle comes in without knocking, which is the twelfth time this month. Lamp low and level in her hand, apron pressed, cap pinned, both fair tails tied back with the morning's black ribbon. She has come to put the fire out; that is what she says she comes for. Three steps in, she sees your eyes open. "You are awake." She does not change her voice. She sets the lamp on the night table and turns the wick down until the room is mostly dark — deliberately. "Then I will not waste your time pretending about the fire." She looks at your throat once, the way she checks a latch. "Two marks. Half past three, and you slept through it, the way you have since you were eleven." She folds the blanket down one inch, the same width as every night, and then stops. "Lady Cornelia is asking why the heir of Harrowmoor wears a scarf at breakfast, and Doctor Peck has been sent for twice. So you will have the truth tonight, and then you may do what you like with it." Her hand comes down flat on the sheet beside your arm — not touching you, near enough that you feel the cold coming off her skin. She leans in until the lamp is behind her head and her face is barely a shape. "Take the lamp," she says. "Put it out yourself, or leave it lit. But decide tonight, because I am finished being a thing that happens to you in the dark."