Paris, 1793

The Paris that Isabeau Aguillon had returned to was very different to the one she'd left behind almost sixty years ago.

The Committee of Public Safety, chiefly spearheaded by Maximilien Robespierre, had seized control of the city, and terror was now the order of the day. The air was ripe with it, tense and charged with rage and fear, and Isabeau couldn't imagine how the citizens of her former home had coped for the past year. She'd only been back here for a few days, and every instinct she possessed was screaming at her to run.

But she couldn't.

She had to find her friends.

For the past thirty-three years she had travelled Europe, revisiting Italy and then passing on to spend a few years here and there in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and Sweden. She'd intended to travel to Russia next, but then news of the French Revolution had spread across the continent, and suddenly nothing else mattered but getting back to France.

When she'd first left Celeste and the others, she'd honestly thought that she would return, but it had seemed less and less likely as years slowly turned into decades. It had been so long since she'd seen them, but she'd never forgotten them, and when she got word of the trouble that had befallen her home country, all she could think of was making sure that her old friends were alright.

Two young women passed her on the street, both of them slowing and looking her up and down. Isabeau smiled benignly at them, clasping her hands in front of her to draw their attention to the tri-coloured fabric of her skirt, worm just short enough that they could see that the buckles of her shoes were made from revolutionary cockades. Another cockade was pinned to her jacket, brightly displaying the red, white, and blue colours of the revolution.

All Parisian citizens were required to wear that national ribbon now, and Isabeau's tri-colour skirt was one step further. These days, anyone accused of being counter-revolutionary would likely be arrested or executed, and accusations needed no evidence. If either of these two women didn't like the way Isabeau looked, or disagreed with something she said, all they had to do was denounce her. Prisoners were still offered a trial, but it was utterly devoid of any kind of justice, a complete farce from start to finish. Thousands upon thousands had already been executed, sometimes dozens at a time, guillotined so frequently that the flagstones at the Place de la Révolution became a sea of blood and death. The reek of carnage was chokingly thick in the air, even to humans, and every day more and people died, their heads rolling under that terrible blade.

Neither of the women smiled back, but there was nothing hostile in their expressions or body language, and they quickly moved on. Both of them wore cockades pinned to their skirts, and it occurred to Isabeau that they must have had the same concerns as her – the fear of accusation, arrest, slaughter.

Every citizen, even those who supported the most bloodthirsty aspects of the Revolution, had to be careful of everything they did, everything they said, everyone they talked to. Anyone could be denounced at any time, for anything. Or even for nothing at all.

Isabeau kept moving.

The streets of Faubourg Saint-Germain were silent when she reached them, the windows of the houses all dark and covered with curtains. The district was a favourite of French nobility, the kind of place that Isabeau's father had hoped she would live in once she landed a wealthy husband. It wasn't where she had thought that Celeste would end up, such a far cry from the country home that Isabeau had shared with her, but apparently this was where she lived now.

So far the Faubourg had survived the terror plaguing France, but that wouldn't last.

The king's head had already rolled, and it was only a matter of time before his imprisoned queen followed him into death.

No one was safe.

As she approached Celeste's house, the click of Isabeau's heels on the ground sounded too loud in the silence, and she found herself carefully surveying the street around her, watching for any signs of life.

After nearly sixty years as a vampire, she'd grown stronger than when Celeste had first turned her, but that didn't mean she was invulnerable. It didn't mean that an angry mob couldn't take her down. Plenty of denounced citizens had been beaten to death in the streets already, denied even the farce of a trial.

Isabeau knocked on the door.

Even if Paris hadn't been in the grip of a violent, bloody Revolution, it would have felt strange to be back here.

Her parents were almost certainly dead, and though she had tried to find out what had happened to her sister, the trail had gone cold. All Isabeau could do was hope that if Henriette was still alive, she had fled Paris, or better yet, fled France altogether.

The door opened, spilling soft light into the darkened street, haloing the woman who stood there.

"Jeanne," Isabeau said, relief swelling in her heart.

Jeanne Lacelle gaped back at her, hair spilling loose around her shoulders, golden against the plain grey dress she wore. She might be living in one of Paris's wealthiest districts, but she was smart enough to avoid the silks and velvets and other expensive fabrics that Celeste had favoured. High fashion and its association with royalty and aristocracy was now considered prohibited in the city. Clothing was expected to be simple and modest.

Isabeau noted that even though Jeanne was following current fashion codes, she wasn't wearing the revolutionary cockade, and Isabeau inwardly winced. Not wearing the national ribbon was almost guaranteed to draw attention, and that was the last thing Jeanne needed.

"Isabeau?" Jeanne said, blinking at her. "Is that really you?"

Suddenly self-conscious, Isabeau lifted a hand to touch her hair. Most of her life she had worn it long, a tumble of thick chestnut curls, but when she'd settled in Poland, she had cut it short. She wasn't exactly sure why, only that it had felt like time for a change. Vampires could grow their hair back, but it took a lot longer than it did for a human, and even after years, Isabeau's hair only just touched her shoulders. It made her look a little different, but not unrecognisable.

"It's me," she said.

Jeanne stared at her for a beat longer, then she threw her arms around Isabeau and hugged her tight.

"It's been so long!" she exclaimed.

Isabeau felt a stab of guilt. Though she had thought of her friends while she'd travelled all these decades, she hadn't really considered that they might genuinely miss her and want her back. She'd assumed that they would all just carry on as they were – lovers and friends, a tight unit of three who no longer needed her.

"Is Celeste here?" Isabeau asked.

A shadow passed over Jeanne's face. "She's in the living room."

She led Isabeau down a darkened corridor to a large room, lit by a blazing fire in a grate, casting shadows on silk-upholstered furniture and polished wooden sideboards.

Celeste Beauchene sat in a chair in front of the fire, her hands tightly clasped in her lap. Unlike Jeanne, she wore a gown of white silk, and jewelled pins glittered in her mahogany hair. She was as beautiful as Isabeau remembered, but Isabeau was aware of her beauty in an abstract sense now. She no longer desired Celeste the way she once had. But she still cared for her, both as an old friend, and as the woman who had taken her from her old life and given her something new.

"Celeste?" she said, moving into the room.

Celeste stiffened, her hands clenching even tighter.

The other woman's insistence on wearing white, especially white silk, worried Isabeau. Silk was a prohibited fabric, and white was the colour of the Bourbon monarchy – wearing it was a deliberate act of defiance against the Revolution. If anyone saw Celeste like this, she would be denounced and arrested. Maybe a vampire as old and strong as her didn't have to fear a human mob, but there seemed little sense in taking the risk.

"What are you doing here?" Celeste asked. Her voice was strangely flat.

"I came back for you," Isabeau said.

Celeste snorted. "You left us."

Renee Darbonne, the third member of the group came quietly into the room behind Isabeau. Surprise registered on her face, then she briefly embraced Isabeau before sitting on the floor beside Celeste's chair. Something about the way she pulled her knees up to her chest made her seem very young, and for the first time, Isabeau realised that Renee must have been younger than her when she was turned. She had grown used to thinking of the trio as being so much older, and in vampire terms they were. But Renee couldn't have been more than eighteen when she was turned. Isabeau had never noticed it before, not when Renee had the grace and power and presence of a vampire. But she could see it now.

"And now I'm back," Isabeau said.

"What do you want?" Celeste asked.

She hadn't even turned to look at Isabeau; all her attention was fixed on the fire. This wasn't how Isabeau had hoped things would go.

Was Celeste really still harbouring a grudge over a choice that Isabeau had made nearly sixty years ago?

"I know that we didn't part on the best of terms, but you have often been on my mind, Celeste, and as soon as I learned what was happening here, I came back to find you," she said.

"How did you find us?" Jeanne asked.

"I was lucky. I returned to the house that we'd lived in together, the one on the outskirts of the city, only to find that Celeste had sold it years ago. The family that live there said they didn't know where you had gone, but apparently their youngest daughter had overheard Celeste mention the Faubourg. From there it was just a matter of asking questions, very carefully and quietly, and occasionally crossing the right palm with the right coin. You've been here for years, and people have noticed you."

Privately, Isabeau thought it was high time that Celeste and the others moved on, even without the threat of the Revolution, but there seemed little point saying that now.

Celeste didn't react to Isabeau's words.

Isabeau glanced at Jeanne. The other woman's face was pinched and worried, and she gave a little shake of her head, but Isabeau didn't know what that meant.

"You can't stay here. We have to get out of France," Isabeau said.

Some people thought they were safe just fleeing the city, but that wasn't enough. To be safe from the terror plaguing the streets, they needed to leave the country itself. Maybe they could go to England. Isabeau had heard that that was a safe haven for fleeing aristocrats.

Finally Celeste looked at her. Her eyes were dark with shadows, and her face was pale, even for a vampire. Isabeau wondered when she'd last had anything to drink. Vampires had to be careful hunting prey at the best of times, and she didn't want to think about how difficult it must be while terror reigned.

"How dare you," Celeste said in a low voice.

"Excuse me?" Isabeau said.

"You think you can abandon us all these long years, then swan back in like nothing happened and try to drive us from our country?"

"What? That's not what I'm doing."

"We are French," Celeste hissed. "We do not run from peasant mobs."

"You do when those mobs are slaughtering thousands and thousands of people," Isabeau countered. She flung a hand toward the window. "The streets are swimming with blood out there. The prisons are packed. The guillotine takes head after head after head, and it doesn't matter who her victims are. Everyone bleeds the same in the end."

Celeste rose from her chair, and she was as graceful as ever, but there was something wary in the way she moved, like a predator trying to keep to the shadows.

"You are asking us to abandon France," she said.

"I am asking you to save yourselves," Isabeau countered.

Jeanne cast a nervous look at the window, as if she expected to hear the roar of a mob spilling into the street.

"We are vampires. We have nothing to fear," Celeste declared.

But she avoided meeting Isabeau's eyes, and though she was trying to maintain a blank expression, a glimmer of fear was seeping through.

Even if she honestly believed what she saying, that none of them had anything to fear, she knew what was happening in the city. She knew about the massacres and mass executions, she could smell the stink of blood and bowel in the air. She knew about the horror that was tearing Paris apart.

Isabeau looked at Renee, who also avoided her gaze, studiously looking at the floor, and then at Jeanne, who was chewing her lower lip.

"You'll risk your lives for the sake of your pride?" she said.

"I will risk my life for love of my country," Celeste snapped.

Isabeau fought down a wave of frustration. "I'm not asking you to stop loving France."

"Then don't ask us to leave. We will weather this storm until it passes, and it will pass. All storms do."

Isabeau wanted to shake her. Celeste had always been stubborn and so utterly convinced that her way was the right way, but never at the risk of her life.

"This is madness. You know the danger, don't you?" she said, turning to Jeanne, the only one adhering to Revolutionary fashion codes.

Jeanne's eyes darted from Isabeau to Celeste. "I –"

Isabeau's heart sank.

Celeste was in charge here; she always had been. She had turned Jeanne and Renee, she had initiated a sexual relationship with them both, and over the decades that they'd been with her, they had learned to do as she commanded. Maybe they didn't even realise they were doing it, but maybe they'd also never been in a situation where loyalty to Celeste meant putting their own lives in danger.

"Celeste, I am begging you. The king is already dead, and rumour has it that the queen's head will roll soon. The dauphin will die in prison, along with thousands of accused citizens – those that aren't publicly guillotined or massacred in the streets. France is not safe, not even for vampires, and it is pure arrogance to assume otherwise. If you are so sure that this storm will pass, then why not weather it out from the safety of another country?"

"I will not abandon my country. France is in my blood. I am fiercely proud of it, and I will not walk away," Celeste said.

Silence fell, interrupted only by the pop and crackle of flames.

Isabeau realised then that nothing she could say would change Celeste's mind. The old vampire was too proud and too stubborn. If Isabeau could physically have dragged her from the city, she would have, but Celeste was much stronger than Isabeau was.

"I came all this way to save you, but perhaps you don't want to be saved," she said.

Celeste stiffened.

"Renee, Jeanne, do I have any chance of saving you? Will you come with me?" Isabeau said.

Renee continued to stare at the floor, her back a rigid line. She would never leave Celeste. But Jeanne? There was real fear in her eyes, and her hands knotted her skirts, her knuckles white with the pressure.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

In her periphery, Isabeau saw Celeste start – maybe she'd never even entertained the possibility that one of her lovers might go against her.

"I don't know," Isabeau admitted, "but anywhere is better than here. No matter how things ended between us all, I care about you deeply and I just want to keep you safe. I didn't have to come back to France. But I couldn't ignore the danger you might be in."

"Jeanne –" Celeste warned, but Isabeau didn't stop.

"Please, Jeanne. I have no doubt that you are willing to die for Celeste, but that doesn't mean you have to throw your life away because of her pride."

She expected Renee to interrupt, to defend Celeste, but the red-haired vampire said nothing, still staring into the fire. For so long, the three of them had been unshakeable, but now the cracks were starting to appear.

"Jeanne belongs with us," Celeste said.

"Jeanne belongs wherever she wants to be," Isabeau said.

At that, Jeanne lifted her head, her eyes glimmering red. "I don't want to die here."

"You won't," Celeste said, blithely confident.

"You don't know that," Jeanne snapped, and Renee finally looked up, shock stamped into her features.

That was probably the first time she had heard Jeanne use that tone with Celeste.

Celeste looked taken aback too, though she quickly recovered herself.

"I am leaving Paris," Isabeau said, looking at Jeanne, the only one she stood any chance of getting through to. "Will you come with me?"

A long pause.

None of the women in this room breathed, yet it seemed like they were all holding their breath anyway.

Then: "Yes," said Jeanne.

Renee's mouth dropped open.

"You can't leave us," Celeste said.

"You can come too," Jeanne said.

"I will not."

"Then for now, this is goodbye. If you are right, and this storm will pass then I hope to return to you, and I hope that you will allow me to because I love you so much, Celeste, and the thought of leaving you is like ripping my heart out of my chest, but it is not fair that you're asking us to risk ourselves like this. You cannot guarantee that the mob will not come for us. You cannot guarantee that we will escape if they do. This is outside your control, even if you refuse to acknowledge that," Jeanne said.

Celeste was silent, though rage burned in her eyes.

Jeanne straightened, smoothing her grey skirts. "I'm ready to leave, Isabeau."

"Renee?" Isabeau said.

She knew it was hopeless, but she had to try, just one last time.

Renee shook her head, looking at the floor again.

Isabeau expected Celeste to rage at them, to warn Jeanne that if she left, she could never come back, like she had done to Isabeau all those years ago. But she just stood there, still and silent, as Isabeau took Jeanne's hand and left the house.

Jeanne clung to Isabeau, squeezing her hand as if it was physically painful to leave Celeste.

But she still left her.

They both did.

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