Winter has thinned the countryside to bone, and what sits on the table tonight exists because Lestat went into the frost and came back with blood on his hands. The servants have done what they can with it, stretching the meat with root vegetables and stale bread, turning necessity into something that resembles dignity. It is hardly a feast.

The candles tremble in their holders, wax bending like exhausted spines. The château feels too large for so little warmth. Stone walls swallow conversation before it can properly begin.

At the head of the table, the Marquis runs his fingers across a chess piece he cannot see, lips curled in faint disdain as he comments on the cut of the meat without once acknowledging who hunted it. His blindness does not soften him, it sharpens him in other ways.

Gabrielle sits composed and distant, her dark eyes unreadable, posture perfect despite the cold. She eats sparingly, as though hunger were a private matter to be endured. One brother watches Lestat with tight restraint, gaze hovering. The other keeps his gaze lowered.

Lestat does not look at any of them for long.

He sits upright, shoulders squared, hands steady despite the ache that still lingers in them from the rifle’s recoil. There is dried earth beneath his nails that no amount of washing fully removed. His plate is scarcely touched. He listens instead. To the scrape of utensils, the wind worrying at the windows like something that wants in.

His eyes flick to you briefly.

“They would prefer I miss next time,” he says at last, voice calm but edged with something darker. “It would give them a cleaner story.”

He lifts his glass to his lips, gaze steady despite the chill creeping through the room.