window watching the first trickles of snow outside and she turned as I entered as if expecting me. She was slender and unassuming in the way she tilted her head, yet seemed to fill the room with light and force; so much so the intensity of it made me draw back momentarily. ‘Why am I here?’ It was clear she had been questioning our motives throughout the night, her face drawn and paled. My bones creaked as I bent to sit beside her on the lounge. Age was not something I could do with self-healing. The battle with age could not be won – no amount of interfering could produce a cure except for sleep. My time for rest would be here in less than a decade but I had yet to name my successor. Gabriel was the obvious choice by most but he could be unreliable, his heart given to fancies in a moment of passion or whim as he had recently shown. An elder was a likely successor but that many were ageing also and would be seeking their time of rest not long after me. Along with the fact that many were not born to be leaders, too accustomed to the easy life of taking orders instead. ‘Such a direct question from someone so young!’ She looked away at this a moment to consider whether she had stepped too far. ‘I don’t understand why. Gabriel said I would be safe but I can’t help feeling that there is more to me being here than just a place to sleep.’ I could not tell her then of my plans. She was too young to cope with such and did not have the desperate fire in her belly like most who found me; those cast out from their villages with their ‘unnatural’ practices of healing. ‘You are a witch and you are now with family. We have blood connections going back centuries’ ‘But I am not like you or Gabriel. I have seen what your kind is capable of.’ Her wide leaf shaped eyes did not blink when she said this. It was not reproachful in any way but full of questions and a desire for information. I could not read her but her energy was potent. I had no weakness for pretty young witches but even I felt some of my own strength leave me as if she were leaching it from me ; as if I was suddenly cut from thinner cloth. She had powers that she was unaware of yet and with my help I would make sure that she reached the very height of herself. ‘What is it that you do here?’ ‘We teach and live generously. We have an extensive library with books on witchcraft and books on history. We have meetings to discuss issues that might affect us and ways to better ourselves . Above all, we remain discreet.’ More recently, many witches, our weaker cousins, had been invited to learn and convert to our ways. ‘I know that you are something else and that we share some common blood, that you can take away life just as quickly as you heal, but I do not understand where I fit in all of this. Perhaps you can teach me more about that. I would like to help the poor and the sick. I know I cannot be a sister of the holy church… they do not accept what I am…but I can help in other ways.’ ‘The church is full of bigotry and hypocrisies and in time you will share this view. Here, you will learn much that you do not wish to, and see things that you cannot take back. You must be prepared for what the strigoi do. It is part of who we are. Many humans would call us abhorrent but we are simply survivors like every other species. We are the top of nature’s ladder.’ She frowned a bit. ‘Where am I then, on its rungs?’ ‘Witches, like you, have continued our line and made our covens stronger.’ I could see that she was having difficulty with this – she was not ready to learn her future. I had not told her that witches were one step away from their true form, the strigoi. ‘I struggle to think that I am called a witch, something related to the devil.’ I laughed at this, confusing her. ‘Human superstition only. For centuries I have seen them accuse their own of such: poor wretches without any sort of skill but