A/N: Written for ClawofCat's birthday. Thank you to slaymesoftly for betaing.

*****

“Is there anything I can do?”

She wonders briefly if he’s taunting her. What could he possibly do to chase away the specter nipping at her mother’s heels? What does he know about the value of life? He’s made his name in death, baptized himself in blood. He showed her that tonight.

And yet, as he sits down beside her, she knows the real reason it rankles. She, too, is an instrument of death. There’s no weapon in her arsenal to fight what’s coming. She can’t save her mother with stakes or swords.

There’s nothing either of them can do.