More than I expected.
That makes two of us.
I type back without letting myself overthink it:
ME: Same. When do I get to see you again.
JULIAN: I will be out of town on business for the next couple of weeks. How about when I get back?
ME: It’s a date
It’s a date!?! What the heck was that?
JULIAN: I’ll be counting down the days.
Three dots. Then:
JULIAN: Sleep well, Poppy.
No one has told me to sleep well since my grandmother. The formality of it should feel strange. Instead, it feels like something else.
Something that might be the beginning of a very bad idea.
I turn off my phone. Finish my wine. Go to bed.
I don’t sleep well at all.
CHAPTER 6
JULIAN
The first rule of surviving two and a half centuries: don’t get attached.
I’ve broken it three times. Each one ended in ways I still dream about—and vampires don’t dream often. When we do, it’s usually memories. The brain processing centuries of moments it can’t quite let go of.
Corinne in the river. Margaret in the fire. Anya in Prague.
I should add Poppy to the list of mistakes I’m making. Instead, I’m reading her text for the fourth time.
POPPY: Can’t sleep. Wedding stress. Tell me something boring about finance to knock me out.
It’s 11:58 AM in Geneva—which means it’s in the middle of the night for Poppy.
I’m in a conference room that costs more per hour than most people’s monthly rent, reviewing acquisition documents for a tech company that won’t exist in ten years. The work is necessary—maintaining wealth requires attention, even immortal wealth—but today it feels like punishment.
I type back without thinking.
ME: Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn’t, pays it.
POPPY: Did you just quote Einstein at me?
ME: You asked for boring.
POPPY: That’s not boring, that’s depressing. Now I’m stressed AND thinking about my credit card debt.
POPPY: Also how do you know Einstein quotes off the top of your head at 3am?
I pause. The truth—that I met Einstein at a lecture he gave back in 1921—is obviously not an option.
