[Carillon]

Jaelle looks deep into Trouble's eyes, gaging his reaction. She runs a hand through her black hair and sigh softly, then finally speaks.

You will think what you will of me, I am certain, but I did not betray them. For all my sins, I did not give her the names. It was a web of lies and intrigue at that point, dearest, and we were all caught in it. Many believed she had enthralled me. Others believed I was working willingly for her, and still others that I was merely a victim and insensible to what I was doing. Some suspected she wanted the last urn so she could raise the demon and others thought she was going to compel me to kill the child of one of the women who had been involved in her sisters' deaths.

What your uncle thought, I'm not certain. At that point, there was too much going on. I didn't care what he thought of me, or how he felt. I had used his affections to protect myself and had deceived him in the process, and for that he will not forgive me. There were no tomatoes, not that it makes any difference. And sometime in that mess of lies and deceit and dangerous games he went away to meditate for a long time, and I barely noticed, except to be relieved I no longer had to play the role of the submissive, tame pretty decoration he had tried to make me into.

Despite her calm, a hint of bitterness seeps through as she speaks the words. It is fairly clear there's still bad blood between Jaelle and Trouble's uncle, and that she deeply resents how she feels he treated her during the facade of their relationship. She takes a deep breath and continues.

In the end I defied her, again and again, finding ways to delay giving her the names she wanted, and all the while they grew more suspicious of me. She came to me in the square under the guise of an Ilsaran cleric but it was well known I sympathized with the Storm Goddess, and they thought it odd that an Ilsaran would spend so much time converting me and were wary and watchful. And for my part, I tried to curtail her impulse to kill. So many times she spared the lives of people who walked by merely because I asked and it pleased her to indulge me. You see, that is the ironic part. She never hurt me. She hurt everyone around me, but never me. She indulged me because she saw too much of herself in me and was fond of me, and her affection made them even more suspicious.

Razeriem ... you met him, the blond one who rushes into battle like he has a death wish ... he's the one who changed things, I suppose. He came up one day when I was with her, wanting to talk to me. She whispered in my ear to get rid of him or he would die, but curse his stubbornness, he wouldn't go. And so she killed him, right there in the square, and all hell broke loose.

Our audience, who had been watching from a distance, were in an uproar and they came down on us like a lightning strike, trying to kill her and perhaps me as well. We both took grave wounds and they would have killed her and likely me, but she cast a death spell and killed them all ... dozens of people in the square, passerbys and those who attacked her alike. And then she threw off her cloak and I saw them for the first time: wings. Magnificent black wings like a raven, feathers as dark as jet. She picked me up, cradling me protectively in her arms. We were both bleeding and I was barely conscious at the time, and she took to the air and flew us away from the others, out past the walls of the city, out towards the sea.

When I came to my senses we were on the ground by the sea out beyond the city. We were still tangled together, as if she had lost the strength to bear us both any further and had suddenly crashed to the earth. There was blood everywhere, hers and mine, mingled together and indistinguishable. I hurt in most of the places it is possible to hurt, but she was even worse. I swear, I could have killed her then. She was so much more fragile than I had imagined. I could have held her down in her moment of weakness and slit her throat with my blade, but gods she looked so helpless there. Her wings were tattered, feathers sticking out the wrong way, and I could feel her shudder with pain as she stirred against me.

She continues to speak, but for a moment it seems she's forgotten he's even there. She tells her story, but she doesn't look at him so much as through him, clearly seeing the memory of something else.

I could have killed her then. Perhaps I should have, but I don't believe so. I took her into my arms instead and held her close, putting pressure on her wounds until they started to close. I held her as she had held me, and kept her from bleeding out, and while I held her life in my hand I couldn't hate her.

We learned many things about one another that night as we both tried very hard not to die. She realized that she had underestimated me, and I understood far more about the urns and her objectives than I had let on. And I learned that she was no longer truly a vampire. Something had happened to her when they killed her sire, the vampire that had bitten her, and she had begun to turn mortal again. No vampire would have been that fragile. She still had her magic to protect her, but much of the ... what's the word for vitality when you're undead? Much of her vampiric fortitude, perhaps, had faded when they killed Veira and Marilyn. In time I learned that had been the plan. She betrayed her vampire mentor and delivered her, bound and gagged, to the Council and her death. So many dark acts ... so many betrayals. And I still refused to give her the names.

I held her, my hands on her wounds and her blood covering my hands, until she was strong enough to fly away again. Before she went she gave me a time to meet her. There were no more meetings by the fountain, not after that day. After that we always met in secret.

I watched her take flight, awkward with her injuries but still beautiful. She skimmed over the waves and out towards the open ocean like a strange sea bird, lovely and exotic. I watched her until she was out of sight, and then I stared at the spot where she had vanished for a long time, her last words to me ringing in my ears. Those haunting words, what she had called me before she took flight: my love.

I had no idea what I was going to do.