Integra pulls the black leather saddle over, and yanks up a strap, so that she can scrawl the horse's name inside it. Now it's done, and as official as it will ever be, as there's no registry in Baedal, only the passing of favors and marks and old ledgers in farmhouses. Perhaps months ago, this might have felt as a coffin-nail; permanence, to name something, to make it hers, as when the small things fit in along the edges she knows she's well and truly trapped. She doesn't care.

For a long time, she says nothing, and thinks of Dracula.