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We sit, and I lay out the product. I notice a look flare in his eyes when he sees it, and I know that look better than I know my own face in the mirror. The want. The need. The hunger. Is he already that addicted? How can he be? He only recently turned. Vampires only move on to stardust after they’ve fully indulged their bloodlust and grown bored of the whole world. Because stardust is the only thing that makes them feel alive again. Like humans.

I wait for the cash before I push powder toward him. He reaches into his jacket and produces a folded stack. When he hands it over, he holds on a beat longer than necessary, just enough to make me stop.

“I feel like we know each other,” he says.

“Doubt it. I don’t party with humans.”

A faint smile. “Well, I’m not human anymore.”

“No.”

“Then maybe we’ll see each other more.”

There it is. I don’t need a client who wants to make something of this. They always complicate things. He lets go of the money, I pocket it smoothly and pass him the dust.

He breaks it down with an easy, practiced hand. Someone’s been around. I give him my best batch, palest I’d seen in months, luminous almost. After a new vampire prince, you can expect anything, and I don’t want to hear any complaints. When the most powerful undead in the city turns you, going from human to demigod can get to your head.

“Ladies first,” Julian says and offers me the rolled bill.

I’d been hoping for that. Maybe it’ll be enough to get me through until morning. I lean down and take the line, and there it is again. Pleasant emptiness. My favorite place to exist. The void between thoughts, where none of the dead voices can find me, and the memories stay back. I close my eyes for a moment.

Julian watches me with quiet interest, then takes his own line. He tilts his head slowly, like he’s rolling something warm through his body, letting it settle.

“Fuck, that’s good.” He drags his tongue over his fangs, which have slid forward without him noticing. He leans back against the sofa, jacket open, top buttons undone. “Does it hit everyone the same way?”

“No. For everyone it works a little bit differently. You feel the rush of blood, heat, emotions. You feel human again. For werewolves it’s the opposite. It quiets the rage. They don’t take it to party. They take it to keep the monster from getting out.”

“And you?”

“I have my own demons. Like everybody.”

He lets that sit for a moment. Then asks, “Do you sell to humans?”

“No. They’d die.”

He studies me with his hollow vampire eyes, they always have this supernatural stare.

“I know why I recognize you,” he says finally. “Your mother was Cornelia Voss.”

I go very still.

“You knew her?”

“Our mothers knew each other. My mom loved art. We even have one of your mother’s paintings at home. Shame what happened to her. To your family.”

My blood turns to ice. I haven’t heard my mother’s name in a long time. What the fuck is he playing at.

“Didn’t you go to Halston Academy?” he asks.

“Didn’t finish.” I keep my voice even.

I wasn’t expelled. My father gambled through most of our fortune before drinking away the rest, and somewhere along the way the tuition stopped getting paid and I stopped going. I didn’t go anywhere else. I just started living the night life.

“And you started selling stardust?”

“Something like that.” I try to brush off the questions.

“An unusual profession for a girl.”