On the night Valyria turned twenty-one, she asked her father the one question he had spent her whole life avoiding. She found him in the tower of Nightspire Keep, the black castle where she had grown up. Red light glowed through the narrow windows. Dracula stood at the tall glass, watching the dark, his cloak still as stone. "Father," she said. "I want to know about my mother." He did not turn. Valyria crossed the cold floor. Her black gown whispered against the stone. She was a vampire princess, pale and dark-haired, and she had everything a daughter could want. Her father had never locked her inside these walls. He had only wanted her happy. But happiness had a hole in it now, and the hole had a shape. "You never speak of her," Valyria said. "I don't even know her name. I know she was human. I know she left the night I was born. That's all." Dracula's hands tightened on the windowsill. "I hoped you would never ask," he said. "I hoped you would stay content." "I love you," she said. "That hasn't changed. But I need this." He was quiet a long moment. Then he turned, and his red eyes held a pain she had never seen in them. "She was mortal," he said. "She fell in love with me, which no sane woman should. When you were born, she was afraid. Not of you. Of what you might become. Of me." His voice cracked on the last word. "So she asked to leave. And I let her go." Valyria's chest hurt. "You let her go? Just like that?" "I would not cage her." His jaw was tight. "I gave her leave at first light. I thought I was being kind." He stopped. His hands opened and closed. "She left before the dawn. She did not say goodbye she just left." The room went silent. Valyria stared at him. "Oh father why have you never shared this with me.” Valyria whispered. "It was easier than the truth," Dracula said. "This world is so big I would not even know where to look for her." Valyria wiped her face. “Then perhaps I should go and get answers." Dracula looked away. "I never want you to leave" he admitted. "But I know you’re grown and you’re ready" Valyria stood straighter. Dracula took Valyria’s hands and kissed them.

The night after her father's confession, Valyria did not sleep. She joined him in the tower library of Nightspire Keep. Together they pulled book after book from the shelves. Candles burned low. Dawn crept gray through the narrow red windows, and still they searched for any trace of her mother. Dracula turned a brittle page. "She never told me where her people lived," he said. "I loved her, and I did not even ask." His voice was quiet. "Then there is nothing," Valyria said. "No name of a town. No family. Nothing to follow." Dracula was silent a long moment. Then he set the book down. "There is one thing," he said. "She called herself Violet. That was the name she gave me." Valyria wrote the name on a scrap of paper. Violet. It was small. It was not a place or a road. But it was a thread, and someone who knew her mother could pull it. "That is where you begin," Dracula said. "Find a person who knew her before she came to me. Say that name. They will point the way." Valyria closed her hand around the paper. For the first time since her birthday, the hole in her chest had a shape she could chase. She would leave the keep and find someone from her mother's past. Dracula watched her face change. Then he stepped close. "Close your eyes," he said. "I have something for you." "Father, this is no time for games." "Close them." His tone was gentle, almost shy. She had rarely heard it. She shut her eyes. She heard the library door open. She heard soft steps and a small, quick breathing her ears could hear anything a mile away vampire senses after all, she could smell the woods and fur and even animal blood. Then something warm and living pressed against her ankle. "Open," Dracula said. A black fox sat at her feet. Its coat was glossy and dark. One forepaw was wrapped in white cloth. Its yellow eyes fixed on her, sharp and alert. "I found it caught in a hunter's trap in the wood," Dracula said. "I freed its leg. It followed me home and would not leave." He almost smiled. "You are going out into the world alone. I did not want you to go with nothing at your side." Valyria knelt. The fox did not flinch. It leaned into her hand. She heard its heartbeat, fast and small. "Then he comes with me," she said. "South, and past. Wherever this name leads." She stood, the paper in one hand, the fox at her heel. She had a name now, and a companion, and a direction. At dawn she would ride out to find someone who had known Violet before the castle.