POPPY: Nervous about all of it. The wedding. My family. Four days of pretending.
POPPY: Is it still pretending? For you?
I close my eyes. This is the moment—the fork in the road. I could end this now. Tell her the arrangement is off, refund her money, disappear back into the shadows I’ve inhabited for two centuries.
Protect her by leaving.
It’s what I should do. What any responsible immortal would do when an enemy from their past surfaces with violent intentions.
ME: No. It’s not pretending anymore.
POPPY: Same.
POPPY: That’s terrifying, right? It should be terrifying.
ME: It’s the most terrifying thing I’ve done in a very long time.
POPPY: How long? What’s a “very long time” for you?
I almost tell her. Almost type out the truth—two hundred and fifty years, give or take. Almost explain that the last time I felt this way, it ended with a woman turning to ash in my arms.
ME: Long enough that I’d forgotten what it felt like.
POPPY: And now?
ME: Now I’m remembering.
She sends an emoji—a single heart. Simple. Human. Devastating.
POPPY: Seven more days. Then we don’t have to pretend anymore.
ME: Seven more days.
POPPY: Get some sleep, Julian. You’re always awake when I text you.
ME: I told you. I don’t sleep much.
POPPY: Everyone sleeps.
ME: Not everyone.
POPPY: See, you say things like that, and I add them to my list of suspicious observations.
ME: You have a list?
POPPY: I have several lists. I’m a very organized person.
Despite everything—the photograph, the threat, the enemy circling closer—I smile.
ME: What’s on these lists?
POPPY: Nice try. You’ll see them when you come clean about all the things you’re hiding.
ME: That might take a while.
POPPY: I’m patient.
ME: Are you?
