Tuscany, Italy, 1804

The air was rich with the smell of mint and tarragon, fennel and rosemary, still warm from the sun that had only just gone down.

Ysanne Moreau leaned forward tossed some more wood onto the brazier, watching the flames flicker and jump, then she reclined on the heap of tasselled cushions that they'd dragged out from the stone cottage behind them.

Adele Desmoulins lay next to her, looking up at the stars.

The scent in the air wasn't the same as the pine and herbs and flowers smell that Ysanne had grown up with in Carcassonne, but it reminded her of her birthplace nonetheless, of a time when she had known what had her future held, a time when she had constant friends, and a constant family, albeit a dissatisfying one.

Those constants were all gone now.

A decade had passed since Giovanni had sacrificed himself to save her from a furious mob in Paris, and his loss was still a fresh, aching wound. For much of that time, she'd had Edmond, her dearest friend, and they had travelled Europe together, slowly trying to heal from everything they had seen and suffered. But eventually they had reached a crossroads. Edmond felt it was time to return to France. Ysanne still had no intention of ever going back.

A year ago, they had parted ways once more.

Ysanne had no idea how long it would be until she saw him again.

Alone in the world alone, she had travelled to Italy, seeing all the sights that Giovanni had told her about. Many of them she had already seen in her long life, but she wanted to see them again, as if through his eyes.

Finally she had settled in Tuscany, in a small stone cottage a few miles from the rugged line of the Apennines. It was remote enough that she wouldn't be bothered by other people, but close enough to surrounding villages and towns that she was never short of people to drink from.

She hadn't expected to meet another vampire here.

They all travelled around so much that they were lucky to ever run into each other.

Adele had also fled from Paris during the bleakest days of the Revolution, and she and Ysanne had quickly bonded, until Adele had finally moved into the cottage with Ysanne a few weeks ago.

"This day, two hundred and eleven years ago, I'd just have got married," Adele said, folding her hands under her head.

Ysanne stared at the fire.

Unlike most vampires, Adele had had a husband and three children when she was turned, and even more unlike most vampires, she had managed to stay with them. She continued to raise her children, even as they aged and she didn't, and when her husband, Alain, succumbed to the ravages of time, Adele had taken care of him, like Ysanne had once done for Artus. It was one of the earliest things they had bonded over. They both knew how it felt to watch the person you love wither and die, and be helpless to stop it.

"Do you still miss him?" she asked.

"I'll always miss him. He was my first great love, and even though there have been others since him, he was the one who gave me children," Adele said.

Ysanne picked at the tassels on the corners of her cushion. It had been so long since her own husbands had died, and she had suffered so much heartbreak since then. Did she still miss them? It was hard to think about them when her heart was still in pieces over Giovanni.

"Sometimes I think that being a vampire is a curse," Ysanne.

Adele twisted her head on her own pile of cushions, her forehead furrowed.

"I know I chose it, but sometimes I feel like a fool. This is what Agnes warned me about. She told me that vampires often had hard lives, and I was arrogant enough to think that I could handle it, but sometimes I wonder if I really can," Ysanne continued.

It wasn't often that she would admit to such fear and uncertainty, but parting from Edmond again had left her vulnerable in a way she wasn't used to. Adele had become such a dear friend, but they had known each other less than a year. They didn't have the history that Ysanne and Edmond had. And yet, Ysanne found that she couldn't shield her vulnerabilities from Adele. Maybe it was Adele was always so open and unguarded with how she felt.

"Have you ever known a vampire to take their own life?" Adele asked.

"I don't know. Agnes was so old and so strong, it seems impossible that anyone could have got the better of her."

"How old was she?" Adele asked.

"I'm not entirely sure. I'm not sure even she remembered, but she spoke sometimes of life under the Carolingian Dynasty, so she was certainly around at some point during the 8th, 9th, or 10th centuries."

Adele shook her head. "I was born in 1580, and sometimes I marvel at how old I am, but to have lived as long as her?"

"She spoke to me of vampires who were even older. She knew vampires who had been druids before the Romans, she knew vampires who had been Romans themselves, she knew vampires who had sailed with Vikings."

"But where are they now? You're the oldest vampire I've ever met."

"Maybe none of them are still around. Agnes says a lot of vampires died during the Crusades, and many more had died during wars that had become before and after. This world is a cruel and violent place."

"I heard that some vampires were convicted of witchcraft during the witch trials. If their accusers tried hanging them, those vampires would have survived. But if they burned them . . ."

They lay in silence for a while.

"You don't know that Agnes took her own life, though, do you?" Adele said, rolling over and propping her chin on her elbow.

"Not for sure," Ysanne admitted, "but like I said, I can't imagine anyone getting the better of her."

"But you don't actually know for sure that she's dead."

"It feels like she is. Maybe that doesn't make sense, but from the moment I found her house empty, I was sure she had left this world. I still believe that." Ysanne sat up to toss more wood on the fire. "She didn't want to travel with me because she said she had seen the world and it was always the same – people killing each other, war, suffering, death, and the older I get, the more I recognise the truth in her words."

"But . . . that's not all there is."

"Isn't it?"

Adele sat up and shuffled closer to Ysanne. "No," she said firmly. "I know the pain that you are feeling, but I will never believe there is not hope in this world. I will never stop looking for the beauty that makes that pain worthwhile."

Tears stung Ysanne's eyes and she tried to look away but Adele put a hand to her cheek and held her there.

"I know how much you're hurting now. I've felt that pain, when Alain died, when my children and grandchildren died, but I'm still here, and I'm glad to be."

"I miss him so much," Ysanne said.

"I know, and you will feel that way for as long as you need to."

"You'd think I'd be used to it by now. I've lost enough people."

"I'm glad you're not used to it. I don't think we should ever get used to something like that. The fact that this hurts so much is because you loved him so much, and if his death didn't hurt, would you really have had that love?"

A tear escaped before Ysanne could stop it. Adele gently wiped it away with her thumb.

Ysanne didn't mean to kiss her.

From the moment they met, there had never been anything romantic between them, but Ysanne kissed her anyway and she didn't know why, but she couldn't stop, and then Adele was kissing her back, and the kissing became more. It became bare skin under moonlight, gentle touches and urgent mouths, and the silver stars looked down as two lonely vampire women found something away from the grief they both carried in their old hearts.

The sun was only just starting to rise when Ysanne opened her eyes. Adele's arm lay across her chest, and Ysanne carefully eased out from under it. Adele looked beautiful, her hair spilled across the nest of cushions they had built last night, and Ysanne felt a wave of soft affection for her, but things between them hadn't changed.

Naked, she walked away from the cottage, to the where the land dropped away, and there she sat, looking out over the countryside of Tuscany, bathed in dreamy dawn-light.

It didn't take long for Adele to join her. She'd wrapped a blanket around herself.

She sat beside Ysanne, and they shared a smile, wry and rueful.

"That wasn't supposed to happen," she said.

"No," Ysanne agreed.

"It was fun, though," Adele said, and Ysanne laughed.

"Do you regret it?" Adele said.

"No. Do you?"

Adele shook her head. "But –"

"I know." Ysanne gave her hand a quick squeeze.

It wouldn't happen again.

Last night they had needed each other in a way that they never had before, but neither of them felt that way about each other, and sleeping together hadn't changed anything.

It would only ever be friendship between them.

Still, they held hands as they watched the sun come up.

Tuscany, Italy, 1809

Everything changed when they met Anthoine.

Ysanne had been surprised enough to run into one other vampire, so she was completely unprepared for a second one to come to their little corner of Italy.

But Anthoine was kind and gentle, and since he had only been a vampire for ten years, Adele was quick to take him under her wing.

Eventually he came to live with them at the cottage, and though they lived happily as friends for a while, Ysanne soon noticed the lingering looks between Adele and Anthoine, the way they always stood a little closer to each other than they needed to, the way their faces lit up when the other one came into a room, the way they found little ways to touch each other, as though they couldn't bear not to do it, the way each of them would watch the other when they thought they weren't looking.

When she returned from a hunt one day, and accidentally interrupted them passionately kissing in the kitchen, it was actually a relief because now they didn't have to pretend anymore.

They all knew where they stood with each other.

At first it wasn't awkward.

They all worked out ways of giving each other space and privacy, but as the months passed, Ysanne became more and more aware that this wouldn't last forever. Adele and Anthoine were falling in love in front of her. Soon enough they would want their own home, and Ysanne wasn't sure it would be in Italy.

Adele had never made any secret of the fact that she wanted to return to France one day, and it seemed that Anthoine shared that desire.

So Ysanne wasn't surprised when, one evening, Adele sat her down and said they needed to talk

"You're going back to France, aren't you?" Ysanne said, before Adele had a chance to speak.

"Was it that obvious?" Adele said.

Ysanne gave a little shrug. "I've always known you want to."

"Anthoine and I think it's time. But we'd like you to come with us."

"No," said Ysanne abruptly.

"Ysanne, please, let's talk about this –"

"There's nothing to talk about. France isn't my home anymore and it never again will be. There's nothing for me there."

"There's us," said Adele quietly.

Ysanne sank her teeth into her lip.

"Please, I don't want to lose you," Adele said.

Ysanne gazed back at her.

The five years that they'd known each other was the blink of an eye to a vampire, but it felt like longer.

Adele's friendship had helped heal the cracks in Ysanne's heart. She'd reminded Ysanne that the world wasn't all bad, that there was still hope, and Ysanne hated the thought of a future without her.

But she could not go back to France.

Not even for Adele.

"I'm sorry," she said, and Adele's face crumpled.

"Then we won't go to France," she said.

"Absolutely not. You're not giving up what you both want because of me."

"But –"

"No. Ever since I met you, you've talked about going back. I will not allow you to throw that away, and it wouldn't be fair on Anthoine. You both want this."

"But we also want you."

Ysanne smiled sadly and placed a hand on Adele's shoulder. "We don't always get what we want. You and I know that better than anyone."

"Is this it, then? Is this goodbye?" Adele's voice was ragged.

"For now, I think it must be. But not forever."

"Will you stay here? Alone?"

Ysanne looked back at the little stone cottage where they had spent so many happy years. "I think perhaps my time in Italy has drawn to an end."

"Where will you go?"

"I don't know. England, maybe."

She still had good memories of that country, from the years that she and Edmond had spent there as lovers.

"You have a new chance at love, Adele, and you cannot give that up, not for me or anyone else," Ysanne said.

Anthoine chose that moment to come out of the cottage. He stood a short distance away, watching them, and Adele smiled at him. There was so much love in that simple expression, and it made Ysanne's heart ache – partly because she didn't know if she would ever smile at someone like that again, but mostly because she was happy that Adele had found someone.

Early the next morning, while Adele and Anthoine still slept, Ysanne crept out of the cottage and stood on that crest of land that overlooked the countryside. The sun wasn't up yet and the Apennines were grey shapes against a pinkish sky. Ysanne closed her eyes as the wind rippled through her hair, like ghostly fingers, and inhaled the smell of fresh herbs.

She would miss this place, but she didn't want to stay without Adele.

For a flicker of time, she considered sneaking off while her friends slept, avoiding the pain of a big goodbye, like she had done to Edmond so very long ago. But it hadn't been fair to Edmond then and it wouldn't be fair to Adele now.

Ysanne would look them in the eyes when she said her goodbyes, however painful it would be. This wasn't necessarily the end.

She and Edmond had found each other, time and again over the course of their lives, and though she had no idea when it would be, she was sure she would see him again.

She had to have faith that she would see Adele again too.

Quietly, Ysanne went back to the cottage.