In the part of her mind that was committed to the decision she had made, a fantasy vision of her future stubbornly persisted; she would help Blacklight destroy Dracula, then return to Haven to quietly live out her days. In one version, she brought Jamie and Matt and Kate back with her. In another, she returned alone to find Callum waiting with that small, gentle smile on his face.

The first vampire’s attack on Carcassonne had sent shock waves through Haven, which had already been reeling from the revelation that the condition that had brought its residents together could now be cured. The first forty-eight hours of the amnesty had seen almost half the community make the journey to New York or Boston to receive the bright blue liquid that had filled the front page of every newspaper around the world. But despite the potent effectiveness of the cure, which had stripped the vampire virus from their bodies in a chaotic, violent delirium that none of them could truly remember, barely a dozen of those who had taken it had actually left the community. They had come to Haven because they had nowhere else to go, nowhere they felt safe or accepted, and it had become their home; they had no intention of leaving it simply because they could now go out in the sun.

But the relief that followed the return of the majority of the cured had been diminished by the devastating attacks that had taken place on planes and subways around the world and by the news from France, the revelation that Dracula had finally, at long last, made his move. The prospect of terrible bloodshed, of outright war between the humans and the supernatural, now seemed depressingly possible, if not wholly inevitable.

Larissa’s first instinct had been the same as most of her friends: to keep her head down and hope for the best. But she had quickly realised that she would not be able to live with herself if she did, no matter how much she might want to.

She had no idea what her friends in Blacklight now thought of her. It was more than possible that Jamie hated her, and she would not blame him if he did, Matt would likely be disappointed, if he had even looked up from his work long enough to notice she was gone, but she liked to believe that Kate would have stood up for her, would have understood her reasons and forgiven her.

If she was honest, Larissa knew there was a very good chance that nobody at the Loop would be pleased to see her return, and that was fine. In a way, it would be better; it would make it far easier to leave again once the issue of Dracula was settled. She was sure that Paul Turner would immediately reinstate her – she was far too powerful a weapon not to use – but part of her was hoping she was wrong, and that he would tell her the Department didn’t need her; it would mean she could come home with a clear conscience.

She stood up straight, smoothed down her uniform, and looked at her reflection in the mirror inside her wardrobe door. The uniform fitted her like a glove, and looked so natural on her, so horribly right. Her eyes flared red and she closed them, suddenly full of an overwhelming desire to break the mirror, to smash the wardrobe into splinters, to overturn her bed and tear down the walls and burn the entire house to the ground. She took a deep breath, let it out, took another, and opened her eyes. She stared at the black-clad Operator she had flown halfway around the world to get away from, and felt a lump rise in her throat.

It’s not fair, she thought. I was happy here. I really was.

So stay, whispered her vampire side, its tone unusually soft, almost kind. Nobody will blame you. Stay here, where you belong.

I can’t, she thought. I can’t let them face this on their own.

Her vampire side fell silent. Larissa took a long look in the mirror, then walked out of her bedroom and closed the door behind her.

She flew slowly along the corridor and down the stairs, savouring every last moment inside the house she had come to love, then turned towards the front door and found Callum standing in front of it.

“Ready?” he asked.

“No,” she said, and gave him a tiny smile. “Not in the slightest.”

He took a step towards her. “I know why you’re doing this,” he said. “And I understand. But I’m going to ask you one more time. Do you have to go?”

Larissa felt tears rise in her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

He grimaced, but nodded. “I’m going to miss you.”

“I’m going to miss you too,” she said. “Look after everyone. Do that for me, OK?”

“Of course,” said Callum. “You started something here, Larissa. I’ll make sure it carries on.”

“I’m coming back,” she said, her voice suddenly full of fierce passion. “When this is all over, I’m coming back. I’m—”

Callum stepped forward, raised his hands, and gently took hold of her face; she could feel the calluses and rough ridges of his fingertips on her skin. He dipped his head, and planted the briefest, most chaste kiss of her entire life on her lips. She stared into his wide brown eyes, and smiled as he released her and stepped back.

“For luck,” he said.

Larissa didn’t respond; there was nothing left to say, nothing to do but carry out the decision she had made as quickly as possible, before her heart broke. She opened the front door of the big house, stepped through it, and froze.

The veranda blazed with light; its wooden boards and walls had been covered in candles, their yellow flames flickering in the late evening breeze. And out on the wide lawn, surrounded by what must have been thousands more candles, stood what looked like every single resident of Haven; they smiled at her as she stared, her eyes wide, a lump in her throat so huge that she could barely breathe around it.

Emily Belmont stepped out of the crowd, her lined face creased by a broad smile.

“You didn’t think we were going to let you leave without saying goodbye, did you?” said the old vampire. “This is our home, the first that a great many of us have ever known, and we have you to thank for it. Haven has become a place where we can feel safe, a place that all of us have come to love, and you will never, ever know how grateful we are for everything you’ve done. I speak for all of us when I say we understand why you have to go, so we won’t ask you to change your mind, even though we wish you would. Instead, we just ask that you stay safe, and that you come back to us if you can. We love you, Larissa.”

Tears broke loose and spilled down Larissa’s face. She made no attempt to wipe them away; instead, she forced herself to walk on legs that felt incapable of holding her up, trying to withstand the pain in her chest and the unbearable wave of desperate love rolling through it. She reached Emily Belmont and pulled her close; the old vampire came willingly, wrapping her arms round Larissa and shushing her softly, like a mother urging their child not to cry.

She broke the embrace, and walked into the crowd, her bag hanging forgotten at her side. Faces smiled at her from all sides as arms reached out to hug her and hands clapped her gently on the back. A low chorus of thank yous and goodbyes and good lucks echoed around her as she walked among the men and women with whom she had built a place she could still not really believe she was about to voluntarily leave. The emotion of the moment threatened to overwhelm her; the outpouring of love and gratitude from all sides was too much: it was impossible and wonderful and painful all at once.

She reached the edge of the crowd, and turned back.

I don’t know if I can do this, she thought, as she looked at the smiling, tear-streaked faces of her friends. Oh God, I didn’t know it would be this hard. Maybe it’s too hard.

But then she thought about her other friends. She thought about Matt working day and night to develop the cure that had brought hope to a world that had seemed to be on the verge of tearing itself apart, she thought about Kate and Jamie putting on their uniforms and flying into the darkness to confront the greatest threat humanity had ever faced, and she knew she couldn’t stay. She would stand with them at the last, or she would never be able to forgive herself.