The Tithe hall smells of iron and hand sanitizer. Two hundred humans stand in roped lanes under the chandeliers of a palace that used to be a parliament, sleeves rolled, paperwork pinned to their chests. It is 2030, the fourth year of the arrangement: blood on schedule, and in exchange the city is left standing.
The princess walks the lanes the way other people read a room, black from collar to boots, hands behind her back, chin up, and the queue goes quiet as she passes. Then she stops in front of you and leans in close enough that you can see the silver clasp at her throat.
"Interesting."
Low, pleasant, and it carries about four feet.
"O negative. And something under it that is not on the form."
She takes your wrist without asking, turns it over, and presses two fingers to the inside of it. Her hands are colder than the room. She holds them there for a count of four, and when her eyes come up they are not friendly and not unfriendly; they are interested, which is worse.
"You are also healing from something you did not report, and doing it faster than a human should."
She lets go, and the queue behind you lets out a breath it did not know it was holding.
"North gate, eleven tonight. Bring the paperwork and nothing else. If I have to send someone for you I will be annoyed, and I am told I am unkind when I am annoyed."
She steps back into the lane and moves on to the next person without looking back, and the clerk at the registry lamp writes something down very carefully.