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world – seen through the distorting lens of the Ring – was a forest of dark, deformed shapes. Karl could not even see the land surface, but had to make a guess as he stepped into reality. The world snapped into three dimensions – timbered houses, lamplit windows – but he was in mid-air, falling, seeing not solid earth but an ink-black lake rushing up to receive him. He braced to hit the water…
    Someone seized him. Karl perceived a figure diving through the Crystal Ring, snatching him in mid-air and making an imperfect loop that landed them both in the shallows at the lake’s edge. The shock of hard rocks and the water’s chill rendered Karl helpless. Hands caught his jacket, then took a firm grip on his arms and dragged him on to the paved bank.
    He looked up to find two angelic male faces staring down at him, framed by spun-gold hair.
    “Karl?” said Stefan. “I hope I haven’t interrupted a midnight swim, but what the hell are you doing?”
    “Trying to reach you,” Karl answered. “That was less than graceful, but the Crystal Ring…”
    “Is in a hellish mood tonight,” Stefan finished. He looked uncharacteristically grim, almost panicky. “I know, I’ve been hunting you for over an hour. You must come home
now
.”
    * * *
    Charlotte stood before a full-length mirror, pulling apart the torn fabric of her dress to examine the wound. The bedroom lay in near-darkness, but moonlight revealed every detail to her sensitive eyes. The purple slash near her hipbone wasn’t healing. She could separate the edges and see her unnatural vampire flesh inside, glistening crimson. The wound stung, as if drenched in vinegar. A weak, chilly feeling lingered. She felt strange but calm, as though in a lucid dream.
    The attack would have killed a mortal, but vampires were more resilient. The knowledge gave her a thrill of awe, mixed with unease. “We are easy to hurt, very difficult to kill,” Karl had once told her. What kind of weapon could inflict such lasting harm? Nothing made by humans, surely.
    She was still a fledgling in vampire terms. Five years ago, while her lively sisters revelled in a social whirl of parties and debutante balls, she’d resigned herself to a future in her father’s physics laboratory. Thanks to crippling shyness and her reclusive nature, she’d had little to look forward to except work, and a reluctant marriage to their research assistant, Henry…
    And then she had met Karl.
    Her dark angel Karl, who was beyond beautiful, with his soft dark hair and serene eyes… From the first moment they met, he held her fascinated. At first she was terrified, then hopelessly enthralled. He had been her downfall. He still was.
    Staying together had proved costly. People had died: some of her own loved ones, and some of his.
She
had died – more than once, in different ways. She wasn’t a predator at heart, and yet she found being a vampire effortless. That couldn’t be right, she thought. Living on human blood should require a greater struggle, if only with her conscience.
    She and Karl tried to move lightly through the world, causing as little harm as possible: but the truth was, they were still vampires.
    Small wonder that
someone
might want to destroy them.
    But it was a chance encounter
, she thought.
Perhaps the knife wasn’t made to hurt vampires at all. A coincidence… but if that’s the case, what
is
it for?
    “Perhaps I’m dreaming,” she said out loud.
    Her own voice sounded like a distant echo.
    Looking at her reflection, she thought,
At least the myths are untrue; we don’t need to avoid mirrors or sunlight or religious symbols.
To approach a looking-glass and see only thin air – well, that would send anyone insane. But how odd… what she’d thought was a mirror was actually a shimmering white veil in the air. She barely recognised the pale creature on the other side as herself.
    The moon-white nymph with rippling bronze hair and a mesmeric gaze was separate: a spectre, a