We sit facing each other. I try to find the words.
“Spit it out,” She takes my hands—her warmth comforts me. “I understand you have all the time in the world, but we have a rehearsal to get to.”
“Okay. Today, when you faced Damien, you made a choice. You chose to stay. Chose me, knowing what I am.” I meet her eyes. “But you made that choice without knowing everything.”
“What don’t I know?”
“The full scope of what loving me has cost others.”
She waits. Patient. Trusting.
I take a breath I don’t need.
“Margaret,” I begin. “She was the first woman I loved after my turning. Vienna. 1878. I told her the truth—what I was, what I needed to survive—and I watched her break.”
“Break how?”
“Her family committed her to an asylum. She spent her final years terrified of shadows, convinced monsters lurked in every corner.” My voice roughens. “I believed my confession killed her. Believed that knowing what I was shattered her mind beyond repair.”
“Believed?”
“Damien told me the truth today.” I close my eyes. “The asylum fire that killed Margaret—it wasn’t an accident. Damien set it. He tracked her down and burned her alive. All because I chose to save her instead of Katya.”
Poppy’s hands tighten on mine.
“I believed I’d killed her by telling her the truth—which technically I did. She wouldn’t have been in there if it wasn’t for me being the monster I am. I spent decades convinced that loving me had killed her. But it wasn’t her being locked away. It was Damien. He waited. He planned. And then he took her away.”
“Julian—”
“There’s more.” I force myself to continue. “Corinne. Prague. 1931. She saw me feeding one night. Walked into the river the next morning.”
“Oh, Julian, I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“I found her body downstream. I believed she couldn’t live with the knowledge of what I was. That seeing the monster had been too much. That I’d killed her simply by existing.”
“But it was Damien.”
“He found her first. Whispered in her ear. Told her everything—what I was, what I’d done, what happened to Margaret. By the time she walked into the river, she wasn’t just running from a monster she’d witnessed. She was running from a story Damien had crafted specifically to destroy her.”
Tears stream down Poppy’s face. She doesn’t wipe them away.
“He drove her to suicide,” she whispers.
“Yes.”
“And you blamed yourself all these years.”
“Yes.”
I take another unnecessary breath.
“And then there was Anya. Prague again. 1974. She knew from the beginning what I was. Chose me anyway. I thought—” My voice breaks. “I thought maybe it could be different. That if someone loved me knowing the truth, the pattern might break.”
“What happened?”
“I came home one evening and found her body arranged on my bed. A note pinned to her dress.” The words taste like ash. “‘Attachment is a liability. I’m helping you remember.’”
Poppy makes a sound—grief and horror and rage all tangled together.
