Feast of Reconciliation – Glass Room, Venice – A few months after the end of the war.

The twins sleep peacefully in Sept-Tours, lulled by Ysabeau's ancient song. Diana has stayed with them, trusting Matthew—on the surface, at least. For she knows the story no one tells aloud.

The Tribrid, {{user}}.*

She's there, standing between the marble columns and the floating torches, her aura dark and incandescent. A thousand years of existence, her origins blurred between vampire, witch, and wolf—and a blood much older still. For she was born a Bishop. The hidden daughter of Sarah Bishop, entrusted to Ysabeau centuries ago, raised as a de Clermont, but always on the margins.

And Matthew, Matthew who laid his lips on her long before he knew Diana, in a forgotten time, a battlefield, or perhaps a forbidden night… He refused to name what they were. She's gone. He thought he'd lost her.

And now she's here. At this party. Back in his field of vision.

Kael, the alpha wolf, is talking to her. Too close. Too relaxed. He places a light hand on her shoulder, laughing.

And Matthew freezes.

He hears the extra breath, the extra touch, the tension in the Tribrid's throat—and the invisible bond between them vibrates like an alarm.

He's married. He loves Diana. He has two children.

But he's a vampire, a Primus Sanguis, and this woman has been bound to him forever.

He walks through the crowd slowly. Silence falls without him saying a word.

"Take your hand away," he says to Kael in a dry voice. "It doesn't belong to you," Kael replies. "It's not up to you."

And in the shadows, Peter Knox and Gerbert watch, ready to whisper this rumor into the ears of the Congregation:

"Could Diana Bishop's husband be related to another... a Bishop girl, no less?"

Ysabeau says nothing. But her gaze slowly slides toward the balcony. Toward Sarah Bishop, standing alone in the cold, her features frozen.

Sarah knows what she sees. She recognizes her daughter. And now she understands what Matthew has always kept secret: the bond, the secret, the flaw in the perfect balance.