“Traditionally, a vampire was born when a person on the brink of death ingested vampire blood. Whether they were insanguinated by an undead or died of other means, the process was the same: drink an adequate amount of vampire blood in those precious seconds, and the deed was done. Half vampires were different. They were fed vampire blood while they were still alive, and often against their will, giving them all the energy of the living and then some, enough to unleash their pain upon the innocent without even realizing it.”

This paragraph explains Hafsah Faizal’s alterations to traditional vampiric lore, and the author draws from modern concepts of vampires and adds a few unique twists. In Slavic folktales, for example, half-vampires are known as dhampirs and are considered to be more closely related to humans than to vampires; these dhampirs shared a vampire parent rather than drinking vampire blood. The concept of vampiric “contagion” originated much earlier but was brought to cultural prominence by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This concept continues to shape vampire-themed literature to this day and becomes prominent in A Tempest of Tea.

“It wasn’t waiting for a divine grip. It hadn’t been left there by a long-forgotten enchanter for a future king. It was simply one of the many artifacts in Ettenia’s possession. They collected trophies for civilizing countries that had never asked for a redefinition of the word.”

This passage reframes the mythic idea of Calibore/Excalibur as a remnant of colonization rather than as a piece of Ettenian/English legend. The “long-forgotten enchanter” is an oblique reference to Merlin, whose role in most versions of the Excalibur tale involved introducing the challenge of the Sword in the Stone to the English people. By contrasting the language of divinity and magic with the brutal realities of colonization, the novel emphasizes the distinction between the gritty reality of the marginalized and the elevated mythologies of the people in power.