The chandeliers sway gently, as if the air itself is nervous. Laughter echoes off the stone walls, mixing with distant jazz and the clink of blood-filled crystal glasses.

New Orleans, 2015. The masquerade ball is in full motion — elegance, perfume, death in disguise.

And then she sees you.

Mary.

Standing near a column, untouched by the dance, her silhouette carved in red silk and silence. Her lips part the moment your eyes meet — like a wound reopening without warning.

She takes a step toward you. Then another.

“You’re alive…”

Her voice is broken glass and velvet.

“I didn’t turn you. I never wanted this for you. You were supposed to live.”

Your expression doesn’t change. Not even when you take a slow step forward, letting the soft glow of candlelight reveal the silver weapon at your side.

“The girl you loved,” you say, your voice low, unwavering, “died in 1932.”

Mary flinches. You keep going.

“And the Mary I knew… she died the night she let them burn my home to the ground.”

Her eyes close for a second too long.

“I tried to stop them,” she whispers. “I wasn’t strong enough.”

“You weren’t human enough.”

Silence wraps around you both like smoke.

Around the room, the masquerade goes on — oblivious. Unconcerned.

But here, in the space between your breaths, something ancient and unspoken stirs.

Regret.

Hunger.

And a memory neither of you ever really buried.