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I FOUND ALASTAIR ALONE in his room, his attention completely absorbed by the polished marble at his feet. After a second, he extracted something from his pocket and uncurled his fingers from around it. My breath caught in my throat. He was studying his watch, as if it would start spilling its guts after all these years. He had kept this memento because it reminded him of the night he had been turned. All of his horrific memories were being dredged up all over again.
“I wish there was something I could do to make the pain go away—you don’t have to face this alone, you know.”
Without taking his eyes off the timepiece, Alastair said, “You know who Sarah is?”
I nodded, finding my voice had fled me.
His eyes met mine briefly before locking back on the pocket watch. “Where’s Corinth?” he asked softly.
I inched my way into the rest of his room through Corinth’s connecting doorway. It slid closed behind me. “He’s resting.” I traced a finger on the end table and then turned to face him, but this time he wouldn’t look me in the eye.
“Want to talk about it?” I asked slowly, gently.
I caught the flicker of something in his eyes and I sucked in a breath and held it. He looked so forlorn—as if he were dealing with the recent loss of a loved one. I wanted to comfort him and take away that pain. It was why I found myself standing beside him to lightly brush a knuckle down his arm. When he looked back up, he regarded me in silence. I reached out and pulled him into a tight embrace, his arms hanging down by his sides. It was like the first time I’d ever hugged him—as if he were confused by the thought of being comforted.
And I thought he might push me away, but then he was winding his strong arms tightly around my waist, hanging on as if I were his only lifeline that threatened to blow away in the wind. We sat like that for a long time, neither of us saying anything.
Eventually, he spoke. “Do you remember me telling you about Wrentmore?”
I nodded against his chest, listening to the strong, solid thump of his heart beating against my cheek.
“Sarah was—is the green-eyed girl… the one I told you about. The one I couldn’t save on the night he turned me …” His voice faltered, and he gritted his teeth as if forcing himself to get it out. “I thought he had killed her, all this time, but it turns out he had turned her like he turned me. I just never knew.”
I nodded in understanding. “Alastair… what it must have been like to see her again after all this time. I don’t even know where to begin.” I drew back from him, consumed by a surge of emotions. “When my dad disappeared without so much as a goodbye, there were times when I thought he was dead. For years, I came up with all sorts of scenarios in my head on how he could have died. Like maybe he went hiking in mountainous terrain and slipped and fell to his death. Maybe he messed with the wrong people and they shot him, or maybe he witnessed a murder and he was shut up. But when I saw him again after all those years—having never aged since the day he disappeared—it shocked me to my very core.” I laughed softly at the memory. “You were there… I passed out. After you imagine someone being dead for so long—well, you must have thought she was a ghost.”
He pulled my hand into his, kissing the backs of my knuckles, and as he came to some realization, said, “You do know what I’m going through.”
I wondered how many times he had pictured her over the course of the last century, torturing himself over her death. If that didn’t mess with your head, nothing would.
“You should talk to her—when you’re ready. Find out what really happened,” I said, catching the sliver of light glinting off the watch still clutched in his grasp.