"Kin," says the Brucolac, standing in front of her, where a moment before there had been only darkness. He spreads his hands and gives a calm smile which acknowledges its own incongruity with a hint of wryness. "Forgive me if I alarmed you."

Tall, handsome and androgynous, the only thing about him that seems out of place is the wild tumble of his dark hair and, perhaps, the rasping quality of his voice. Like nails scrabbling at a coffin lid from the inside. He is very, very dead, and he smells it, too. Not rotting—thankfully—but old, dusty, with a hint of something bitter and unnervingly organic.