"The tunnel? Yes. He likes using his power for building things. He used to belong to a coven whose leader wanted him to use it in combat a lot; he's happier with us."

"I'd imagine so. Freya would much rather use her power to chat with random folks instead of coordinaing Neuroi fights, but sometimes you have to fight anyway."

"Yes, but the Golden Coven has enough witches with combat-applicable powers that we don't need to use Benjamin, whose options are mostly too lethal for our tastes anyway."

"Good for Benjamin and good for you, I suppose."

"Anyway, if a wolf imprints on you that one will be your guide by default, but if no one does, you'll probably be escorted by Beatrice or Kelly. Also, you'll notice that almost no one in the village looks like they're between the ages of twelve and twenty-five, nor do many look older than twenty-five, even though there are plenty of children. That's because wolves activate when they're about twelve or thirteen, and then they mature physically very fast. They don't grow mentally any faster than humans, though, so you should be aware that people who look like adults could be children."

"I suppose your magic system isn't any weirder than mine. Witches all get their magic during puberty, and lose it sharply as they age. At age 20, you're still close to full. At age 25, you're significantly weaker. By age 35, you have so little as to be useless in combat."

"Half-vampires stop aging when they turn - turning children has terrible results - and hybrids grow up very fast. I've stopped growing but I'm actually eight years old."

"Maybe I should turn. I wouldn't put it past the world for that to not actually preserve my magic, though."

"Well, Alice should be able to see, and I imagine your application would look pretty appealing."

"I mostly want to go home. But that seems unlikely... If I manage it, no reason not to try and come back stronger."

"...There would be a problem with turning you and then you going home, in the sense that you'd probably find it very tempting to turn lots of people for increased durability in the fight with the Neuroi and Mama would not like an uncontrolled explosion of vampires in a world she couldn't monitor and enforce important vampire-related laws in."

"The Neuroi need to die, one way or another. They regularly turned cities to ash before the UDF got itself organized."

"Vampires, unchecked, eat several people a week until someone manages to kill them, and they are hard to kill."

"Neuroi, unchecked, kill thousands a day and spawn scheduled hurricanes that likely starve a similar number due to crop damage. The total death toll from direct Neuroi attack or the fires or floods they cause last year was an estimated 483,000. We still lose ground steadily. If you won't give us vampires, at least give us weapons tech or something."

"That's probably more negotiable. It isn't that Mama doesn't care about forms of death and destruction that aren't vampire-related, it's just that the size of the vampire project is already a little ambitious and she doesn't want to spread thin. The ideal would probably be for there to be sufficiently reliable interworld transit that she could just have jurisdiction over both worlds' worth of vampires."

"I just want the damn war to be over already. Then everyone could go home. Not that I don't like my squad, but it's a bit sad that a common enemy is all that holds us together."

"I understand. But if you add vampires to the world it might just make things worse if it were done clumsily. Morphine doesn't work on turning, vampires are overwhelmingly stronger and faster than humans, new ones have little self-control and at any age human blood is much more appetizing than the alternatives, some people acquire witchcraft on turning even if they didn't already have it, and because it's contagious it can't just be a handful of trustworthy people. Vampires also do a thing sort of like werewolf imprinting that under unpoliced circumstances usually results in non-consensual turning."

"Ironically, as much as I hate not being able to fight Neuroi, I think I could use a few days where I can't help but not fight Neuroi. This is a long tunnel, isn't it? Do you mind going into a run?"

"I don't mind. I could also pick you up if you want to go faster."

"I'll just run, I won't get tired unless it's more than ten miles." She runs, only about half again as fast as a quick human.

Elspeth keeps up with her easily, long braid bouncing after her.

"Don't, hah, suppose you can make me a half, hah, half-vampire?"

"Sorry, no. If you start human, it's full vampirism or nothing."