The White City by Elizabeth Bear

then, Phoebe’s professional qualifications—while better-known to the general public than those of either Abby Irene or Sebastien—were not so obviously applicable to providing satisfactory resolution to a sudden and bloody homicide.
    “I knew the woman whose studio it was,” Sebastien admitted. “It was she I meant to visit.”
    “A courtesan?” Phoebe asked, her voice level and interested. It surprised him that it was Abby Irene who continued to prickle when Sebastien relied on other sources to meet his needs, while Phoebe had adapted to the realities of paying court on a wampyr most easily. Or maybe, he admitted, she was merely still in shock over Jack’s death, and her jealousy would flare when she had healed a little.
    If she chose to stay with him at all.
    “A courtier, yes, but not mine. And when last I knew her, Irina Stephanova had been abandoned by her patron.”
    He felt the women’s reactions in the different ways the muscles of their arms tightened, detected them on changing scents. He bulled on. Some things, if they must be done, were best done at speed. “She and Jack were lovers, though. Six and a half years ago, now.”
    Abby Irene snapped a glance across Sebastien at Phoebe. Sebastien flattered himself that he was a little more subtle, but he didn’t miss the moment of agony that twisted her mouth. No jealousy, that. Loss .
    None of the pain Sebastien knew she felt as well colored Abby Irene’s voice. “So you went to break the news to this namesake of mine?”
    “I thought also to throw myself upon her mercy,” Sebastien admitted. “But had she not offered, I would have found something at the club.”
    When Phoebe winced this time, it was for him. In sympathy—which made him in his own turn burn with sympathy for her. For one of the blood, feeding was an intimate experience. A joining, a kind of communion. And it did, Sebastien thought, give the courtesan involved a certain diaphanous link to or control over the wampyr in question. So most of Sebastien’s kin chose their courts with care, either out of the pretense or reality of a calculated tolerance for those they dined upon—most of the blood would not admit or demonstrate a fondness for living men—or professionally and with a coldly maintained distance.
    If he were rogue, a wampyr might kill, erasing the intimacy with the life. Sebastien knew many who might prefer it that way, but few were willing to risk the retaliatory wrath of humans and of their own kind. Those who did not restrain themselves did not last long, once the evidence began to accrue—and they left a poisoned well for others who chose to coexist more harmoniously with the living.
    “So how long since you last dined?” Abby Irene asked in a voice that would have had Sebastien blanching, if he were not blanched already. He had to pause and think, which was never a good sign. If she’d asked, he’d lay odds that Abby Irene knew better than he did.
    A cab awaited them in the cracking mud of the street. After helping Abby Irene and Phoebe across, Sebastien handed them up into its chamber.
    “Nine days,” he admitted.
    Phoebe hissed between her teeth. “Take me,” she said. “It’s been a month. I’ll be well.”
    “You should rely on me to adjudge your wellness—”
    Phoebe shrugged. “Oh, yes. You’d starve between us like a donkey between two bales of hay, and then what’s a girl to do?”
    “Touché,” the wampyr said. “It’s very hard to argue with such reasoning.”
    Phoebe smiled and rapped on the carriage roof to start the cab forward. A rattle of reins and the snort of horses came from outside as she began to unbutton the high collar of her dress.
    Hiding her scowl, Abby Irene leaned across to draw the curtains. Dawn was indeed coming. Sebastien could smell it.
    “Curious,” he said, as Phoebe tilted her head back. “The last time I got involved with Irina Stephanova, a murder occurred then also.”

Moscow
    Kitai Gorod
    January