Charlotte narrates the happiness and blur of her first years as a vampire under Sabine’s tutelage. Sabine teaches Charlotte how to kill and how to live on the move or settle briefly, how to stretch the hunt or compress it into a night, and how not to dwell on the aftermath. Their nights are filled with revelry and intimacy; by day they sleep behind heavy curtains, Charlotte feeling safe in Sabine’s arms.

In an abandoned German castle, Sabine shows Charlotte how to claim a space by will alone. During a playful chase, Charlotte declares a room hers and successfully bars Sabine at the threshold. When Sabine asks to be let in, Charlotte refuses as a joke; Sabine’s demeanor flashes to cold anger, frightening Charlotte. Charlotte immediately dissolves the claim and invites Sabine in, and Sabine’s good humor returns as she pins Charlotte playfully, but the moment marks the first visible crack in their balance.

They continue living in stolen houses, Charlotte mourning daylight and hoarding books from each place they pass through. Charlotte’s restless mind contrasts with Sabine’s guardedness; Sabine offers only sparse hints about her past—Seville, Venice, a church, a painter, a friend—and dismisses deeper questions. In Spain, Sabine calls a view an “echo,” implying a life from before her turning that she refuses to discuss.

While walking in Paris, Sabine notes she is twenty and has been that age for three hundred years. Charlotte responds with delight about the books Sabine could have read, and they decide to celebrate. Charlotte’s curiosity is generally indulged until she asks whether there are other vampires; Sabine goes rigid, asks if she is not enough, and the light in her eyes goes out. Charlotte drops the subject to avoid Sabine’s anger.

With time, killing becomes easier for Charlotte, though guilt still comes and fades quickly. Charlotte vows to feed only on men and seeks out those with violent intent, telling herself it is a kind of virtue. Sabine teases that women taste sweeter, but Charlotte persists, recognizing that fear is the victims’ final feeling and that she causes it. She admits she does take some pleasure: the rush of blood and the power, and especially the feeling of holding men when they are weak and she is strong, when they are trapped and she is free.