"Good evening, book-polisher."

"Oh! Hello--uhm--Chauccery, right?"

"Yes, dear. Tell me--I'm wondering--are you down?"

"Down? Uhm, am I, sad--"

"To fuck, seedling."

"Oh! Oh! Uh! Ah! Uh. You're--the mayor's... girlfriend?"

"Mmhmm. If you haven't noticed--she's a vampire now."

"I--I have noticed that."

"Well, what they don't tell you about vampires--they don't really do that anymore."

"Oh. Uh. Oh."

"You know, before this all--before this all. Oh, honeysuckle it was different. We were, before she was this powerful mage-lord, we were treasure hunters. You follow? You understand what I mean when I say treasure hunters, yes?'

"Uhm--I'm not, I'm not sure, no, I am not, I do not follow."

"Thieves, seedling, thieves. I suppose that was... after she fled her coven, and before she got involved in the Sdederak. The sweet spot, yes, that was the sweet spot. Well you know how it is around here, everyone's signed up to some... big... thing. And well when someone had something very nice that someone else wanted... there were, there still are mind you, there were people you could talk to. And they'd get you that very nice thing that you wanted. Even if someone else already had it."

"I--I see. You were. Okay."

"Imagine the romance of it, honey-lick. Thick as thieves, well they have that saying for a reason don't they, thick as thieves. Sneaking off in the closing of Argent and by the time Ardent had traded... curled around another in bed... oh and even when she got tied up in the Sdederak she still made time, pea, she made time. I'd come home and there she'd be... bed covered in, flowers, maybe, or with some, glittery something she stole from another wizard."

"Mhm. I. Okay."

"That was the thing about her, you know? She was full of surprises like that. She'd do something and you'd think, well, she just did that on a whim, but no, you get to know her, you know she'd think it all out. Think it all out for weeks ahead. She made everything look easy because she never let on she had a plan. Imagine the night she showed up... eyes glowing, teeth past her chin... imagine how long, how long she'd been planning it and not said a word. How long she'd been planning what to say to me. Oh she'd covered eeeevery objection. Who... was I? To say no? You ever been in love, seedling?"

"N--no, ma'am, I haven't, I--"

"She always made it seem so easy, she was always strong, but a stupid idiot too. That, that, oh dictionary, give me the word."

"Uhm. Dichot--"

"Dichotomy, thank you, dear, yes. I still don't know if she's the idiot or the mastermind, you know? Every time I think it's one... but well, maybe in her research she didn't find out, or maybe she didn't mind, but it turns out. Vampires are not... terribly... Apatic."

"Ah. I--I see, okay. Yes. But. However--"

"And I still let her feed on me, well someone has to, can't feed on the townsfolk can she? Can't let on she's a vampire, the mysterious wizard-mayor of Crakkedfald. Of course every Sdederak wizard has their tricks. No one who's anything can be called mortal now can they, no not here at least. She needed a shortcut to immortality, you know, too much competition, not enough time to catch up. But now she has it and well, I can see it in her eyes, she knows it now. She's going to live forever, and I... am not."

"Oh. Yes. That. Oh. Does she. So has she--no longer interested in--"

"And you'd think that'd make her look at me and go, hah, pathetic mortal. She's only been immortal a few years but she has it in her now, so she can look at us mortals and she knows, knows we've only got years in this world, and if her schemes all come to fruit, and they have, so far, always have, she has centuries at the least. You'd think she'd look down on us, proud wizard she is, but oh, no, it's worse, honey-suckle, it's worse, it's worse, she looks at me, and I've known her, yes? And I can see that panic. You know what she thinks?"

"I--I do not think I ever know what she--"

"Fuck, she thinks, well, fuck. I've built a barrier between me and Chauccery now, that's what she thinks. She can't relate to me like she used to, this thing she once had, this life she once had, amputated, well, it's gone now, rotting there right in front of her, day after day, rotting before her immortal eyes. I'm... a mortal. Full of feelings and desires and short-lived. She's going to see me die someday, and she knows she'll have enough time to get over it, to move on, forget me even, and not enough time's passed she planned a way to cope with it, so how could she possibly cope with it now, this early on? Do you know how she does? Her terrible secret?"

"I'm not sure I should speak--listen--poorly about--"

"She fled her coven. Joined the gang, make connections to protect her from the witches, yes? Well, being a thief gets you enemies, but she had magic, so she hires on as a Sdederak goon, well, now she has connections, now she's safe, yes? But oh, how vicious, competitive you see, that it is under the Sdederak employ, so she must simply advance in it to protect herself from her new colleagues. No, now she's gone too high, she needs to enter the political wing, oh, she must rise up higher, to save her from her ever-rising water. Now she's a wizard-lord, and her peers are centuries old, so what is there to do but become immortal herself? Where next, where next, she'll flee upwards until there's nothing to threaten her."

"I--"

"And me, myself, I! Well I am the terror of everything she's given up, now, aren't I, I'm the life she once had, before she became a walking curse, and oh, oh, sweetpea, beansprout, little flower bud, immortal wizard rivals are one thing, but I've become what she fears the most I think. I'm something she used to feel, something she used to have, that lingers and lingers and you know when a vampire feeds on you the curse enters you, don't you? You become cursed, soak up the curse, and I'm dripping in it, and she feels it in me, her self-made bane! She dreads me and each time she drinks my blood that terror enters into me and she fears me even more, that's the nature of curses you see. She'll kill me someday, did you know. She hasn't said, but I know she's planning it silently like she does with everything. She'll look at me and say, best to get it over with now."

"Do you--should I--"

"You should run very far away and live out a simple life without any aspirations whatsoever. Do you think you can do that?"

"N--No, I mean, just, just because--"

"Then, if you aren't going to throw me a pity-fuck, and you aren't going to flee in terror from the immortal mistress of the night that rules us--get me a wet cloth to mop the blood off my neck, be a dear, yes? Thank you."