Even without the magic taking me wherever I desire, it’s not too hard to find what I’m looking for: a hallway of shattered pictures. I pick away at the glass, pulling free each photo, ripping the ones with Lucius in them until I have only pictures of my mom and the rest of her troupe, and then I step into the bedroom. The sofa’s worn down with springs ripping through the fabric, and the glass coffee table is in shards, but the golden box still shines even though it’s broken open, like he put Mom’s journals in the one thing in this place that was real.

I take back those pieces of Mom that were stolen from me and hug them against my chest.

I almost drop them when I turn around.

He’s awfully quiet for someone who’s not a vampire anymore.

“Where’s Beatrice?” I ask Roman. I thought he’d want to be with her—at least for a little while. She’s his family.

Roman stares down at his foot, scuffing half circles in the dust. “She… has decided to leave with your troupe.”

“What?”

He shrugs. I didn’t think he was capable of looking sheepish. “Apparently she didn’t hold it against them. She was the one who was begging to go hunting all the time.” He chuckles. “She always had a vicious streak. She’s shocked that I was vampire.”

“And you’re here,” I say. “You didn’t go with them.”

He stares at me. And then walks slowly over, hands in his slacks, looking more like a vampire than ever in his red-splattered shirt. “I want to be with you.” His face is solemn as he watches me. His eyes shift back and forth like he’s hoping to read something on my face.

I set down the journals and take a step closer to him, then another. Each one feels like I’m crossing a bridge and lighting it on fire behind me because I don’t want to go back to who I was before I met him.

I take the last step so that I’m standing right in front of him. He tracks the movement of my hand as I reach up between us and place it on his chest, above his now-beating heart.

My hand drifts higher, up to his tattered collar. I curl my fingers into it and pull him down gently. Even as I tug him closer, his eyes bore into me, like he’s unsure what we are to each other now that it’s over.

“Kiss me,” I say, because I want it to be that simple.