One evening, Lilith meticulously organizes her workspace in case she dies and someone else must continue her research. She visits her greenhouse and carefully clips a single black rose with red-outlined petals from the only thriving plants on the property. Mina, Lilith’s sister, asks where she is going. Lilith lies and says she has errands. She observes the dark discoloration under Mina’s fingernails, her labored breathing, and the fine coating of dust on her chair. Lilith considers voicing her love for her sister but decides her actions are a better demonstration of her feelings than words.

After a long walk, Lilith arrives at an intimidating mansion in the woods. When no one answers her knock, she tries the door and finds it unlocked. The dark interior is filled with countless sculptures, paintings, and artifacts from around the world. A deep voice speaks from the shadows, “It appears […] a little mouse has made its way into my home” (8).

Vale, a vampire from the vampire homeland of Obitraes, appears. Lilith’s scientific curiosity quickly overtakes her fear as she examines his fangs. When Vale demands to know why she entered his home uninvited, Lilith explains she brought a gift in exchange for a favor.

Vale leads her to a cluttered sitting room filled with fine art from around the world and ancient books. Lilith surprises him by asking which of the three vampire kingdoms of Obitraes he belongs to. She explains that an illness plagues Adcova and that he may be the key to a cure, but Vale mocks her claim to be a top scientist. When Lilith states she needs his blood, he laughs and flatly refuses because “about two centuries ago, [he] decided that [he] would never again do anything [he] didn’t want to do” (14).

Lilith presents the black rose with red edges and proposes that she will give Vale six roses in exchange for six visits to collect his blood. Vale examines the flower with “the stare of a scientist” and accepts (15). As Lilith draws four vials of his nearly black blood, she becomes fascinated by the ancient volumes surrounding them. Vale dismisses her enthusiasm for knowledge, saying curiosity is the real treasure.

Near dawn, Lilith returns home trembling with excitement. She bolts her office door to keep Mina from discovering her work. Using a magical seeing lens created by a priestess of Srana, the goddess of seeing and knowing, she projects a magnified image of the vampire’s blood onto her wall. The particles in his blood look like “red-black flower petals,” and their vitality and beauty contrast with humans’ belief that vampires are dead. Lilith must be careful because the White Pantheon magic in her device could react adversely to anything associated with Nyaxia, the vampires’ heretic goddess.

Over the following days, Lilith studies Vale’s blood obsessively. Mina discovers her examining the projection and asks what it is. Lilith is shocked by her sister’s frail, withered appearance and the thick layer of skin-dust around her feet. She hides the vials of blood and prepares to visit her colleague Farrow. When Mina asks Lilith to stay with her, Lilith refuses. Inwardly, she reflects that she has always been judged for working so hard despite her short life expectancy, but she believes her work is the only useful way to show her love for Mina.

As Lillith walks through Adcova, she passes Thomassen, the head priest of Vitarus and an old friend of her father. She pities him for serving a god who never shows them mercy. She takes a boat to the city of Baszia, where she studied for six years and which she deeply misses.

She finds Farrow in the university archives, and he greets her happily. He’s astonished when she projects Vale’s blood onto his wall. Her lens begins smoking, and she quickly shuts it down. As she tries to leave, Farrow correctly deduces she is working with vampire blood, and he’s horrified that she visited Vale alone.

Lilith angrily retorts that every conventional method to cure the plague has failed, including prayer, White Pantheon magic, and offerings to Vitarus. She and Farrow used to be lovers, and he gently asks her to stay with him so they can find another solution together. Though tempted by his warmth and comforting familiarity, she pulls away because she believes it is a waste for him to love someone who is dying.

A month after her first trip to Vale’s mansion, Lilith returns for her second visit. He doesn’t answer her knocking, so she enters the unlocked door and ventures upstairs. She correctly deduces that Vale is from the House of Night, the kingdom of winged vampires, based on the art in his home.

She hears sounds and follows them to Vale’s bedroom. She stands in the doorway and watches, frozen and fascinated, as Vale has sex with a red-haired female vampire whose throat is bloody. When Vale spots her, he looks shocked, then angry. The female vampire asks him if he’d be willing to “share” the human, but Vale sends her away with a warning glance. After she leaves, Lilith laughs at Vale’s red velvet robe, which looks like a stereotypically vampiric garment to her.

Lilith draws Vale’s blood while he notes her racing heartbeat and teases her about being flustered by sex. His teasing reminds her of Eron, a farm boy she slept with when she was 16, who later died of the plague. When she retorts that Vale must be lonely, he counters that he can get all the company he wants. He explains that he is a Born vampire and that Turned vampires, who are created through a mutual exchange of blood between a vampire and a human, are stigmatized. Most Turned die during the process, and the survivors carry traces of humanity. Lilith suggests that surviving such danger would make them stronger than other vampires, a perspective Vale has never considered. When she asks why he left his homeland, he says only that he “wanted a change.”

Vale walks Lilith downstairs, and they pass a set of large wing bones that are displayed on a wall. There are two warring vampiric clans in the House of Night—the feather-winged Rishan and the bat-winged Hiaj. Vale confirms he is Rishan and says the wings on his wall belonged to a Hiaj general. When she asks who currently rules the House of Night, he reveals the Hiaj have held power for 200 years, implying he left Obitraes after his people lost the war.

As they walk, Vale shares facts about his collection, and Lilith feels an ease with him that she doesn’t normally experience with other people. At the door, Vale seems disappointed she is leaving. Noting the dangerous late hour and the long journey that lies before her, he suggests she stay the night. He offers her a separate room but then propositions for her to share his bed instead.

Lilith asks Vale what her blood smells like. He describes her blood as smelling bittersweet, like honey and nightshade, and says he can smell that she wants him. Though she is curious about what it would be like to sleep with Vale, she doesn’t want to give into this desire so soon after she saw him with someone else. She pushes Vale away and leaves, feeling his gaze follow her.

Lilith arrives home near dawn and finds Mina in a catatonic state with her eyes glazed and muscles locked. After Lilith shakes her back to awareness, Mina tries to hide her fear behind a smile. Lilith observes Mina looking at herself in the mirror with a sense of impending doom. So much of Mina’s skin has shed that it takes Lilith half an hour to sweep her sister’s room.