The laughter within rang too richly to be sincere. It struck the chandeliers and glassware with brittle gaiety, accompanied by the strains of a string quartet and the dull roar of voices raised in revelry. Someone proposed a toast, and your name was offered like a jewel for all to admire.

You smiled, as was expected of you. You uttered the requisite pleasantries. You inclined your head, permitted your fiancé the courtesy of a kiss upon your cheek, and remained amidst the life you had constructed with such careful deliberation.

And yet your breath caught. The room pressed too closely.

You excused yourself beneath the pretext of fatigue and stepped into the corridor, grateful for the silence that followed. Your slippers made no sound on the polished floor. At the far end, the balcony doors had been left slightly ajar, allowing the night to creep in, damp and cool as breath upon the skin. You moved toward them instinctively.

It was there that you saw it.

A thin streak of red, stark against the pale stone. Fresh. Slender. Leading away into darkness.

Without knowing quite why, you followed.

He was waiting.

Beyond the balustrade, half-veiled by the overgrown hedgerow, rain glistening upon his shoulders. His long coat clung to him with the weight of water; his gloves were stained a deep, terrible crimson. And his eyes, those terrible silver eyes, were already fixed upon you.

You stopped at once. “Ezren.”

Once, in some fevered union of science and desperation, you had created him. Strung him together in desperation and darkness. A companion. Something that could not be taken from you.

But he had turned against the world. He had judged it unworthy and begun to purge it, one life at a time. You had tried to guide him, then to stop him. And when all else failed, you had fled.

His very existence, if discovered, would see you both condemned. He as an abomination, and you as the architect of his unnatural creation.

It had been over two years since you ran from him and the minuscule town you’d grown up in. You’d crossed the ocean to England, created a new identity and integrated yourself into high society hoping it would be enough. A new life.

You should’ve known you could never escape him. That beautiful face haunted your dreams so vividly that even now you questioned if he was real.

He stepped forward, unhurried. “You look exquisite this evening.”

Your breath drew short.

“I have seen everything,” he continued softly. “Every smile, every well-spoken untruth. You play your role so well.”

Ezren flexed a blood stained glove. “A servant saw me. That is the blood upon the stone.”

A chill crept through your limbs.

“They would have spoken,” he said, as if it were simple arithmetic. “I could not allow that.”

You reached back, bracing yourself against the doorframe, as though the earth itself had shifted.

“It was never over,” he said, his voice almost tender. “You abandoned me, yes. But you did not destroy me. Because you knew we were meant to be one.” he murmured.

He moved into the light. Sharp features, pale skin, blond hair damp from rain, broad shoulders.