A few hours before Aidan's unfortunate encounter with the vampire and his blade, Emilia lay in bed, deep in dreamless sleep, when her phone rang.

The events of the night before had drained her physically. Once they left the castle, the witches had travelled in a convoy of vehicles until they neared London, after which they dispersed to their respective abodes. Such practice was commonplace amongst the witches, as their kind preferred independence and solitude, contrary to werewolves and their love of group housing. There was safety in numbers, but it also drew attention and risked the occurrence of mass casualties. A much better option was blending in with the human population, living in small family units or on their own.

Emilia and Paul, along with a couple of security guards, were the only ones headed to the London branch of the Witch Committee, which was thoughtfully concealed as a fine dining restaurant famous for its seafood cuisine. The facade had turned out to be immensely profitable if a little too conspicuous.

They headed to the topmost floor to send a brief of the attack and aftermath to the other Committee members. The entire floor was an open-air office, appearing at first glance like a tech start-up's workspace.

Paul continued to grouse while typing out a detailed email, "The Committee will moan and cry over the loss of life, but nothing will come of it. Nothing but a bunch of weak, passive fools who can't see the changes happening on the ground because they are truly out of touch with the world, doing nothing but remaining cooped up in their hidden safe houses!"

Emilia said nothing, used to her father's vitriol over his perceived inadequacies of the Committee of Twenty-Five. He wanted the witches to be on the offensive. Unfortunately for him, most of the committee preferred not to engage in a full-on war against the vampires. Emilia didn't particularly care, either way. She continued to deal with the stack of reports on her table until they were resolved before taking her leave. Paul nodded dismissively in return as she wished him goodnight. He was still furiously typing when Emilia left.

One of the security members escorted her to a detached three-storey in a more luxurious residential area. The house was big, too big for one person, but Emilia had purchased it anyway. It was in a good location, not too far from work, and in her opinion, it was better to have more space than less. Emilia half-heartedly unpacked her bag, placing the black jewellery box back in its original position on her vanity table, where it would remain indefinitely as long as she wasn't on the move.

After showering, Emilia half crawled, half rolled her way to the centre of the king-size bed, finally spent after having used a fair bit of energy healing those who were seriously injured in the castle attack. It was a wonder she had lasted so long, even managing to finish some paperwork that wasn't particularly urgent. Suddenly it occurred to her that she hadn't eaten the whole day. 'Eating's for the living, and I haven't felt alive in centuries,' she humorlessly thought.

Too tired to contemplate further, she fell asleep within minutes, only to wake up to the incessant ringing of her phone, feeling like she hadn't slept at all. Sunshine illuminated the entire room, reminding her that she had forgotten to draw the blinds the night before. Shimmying to the edge of the bed, she somehow managed to find her phone on the bedside table with her eyes still shut, only opening them a smidge to look at the caller ID. It was an unknown number.

"Hello?" Emilia tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice.

"Finally! Do you know how hard it was getting a hold of your number?! I'm pauperised now after paying for the bloody asking price." A woman replied while breathing hard, sounding like she was at the gym.

The voice on the other end of the line was familiar yet unknown to Emilia, who questioned, "Who is this?"

The voice on the line paused as if in shock. "What the hell, Emi?! It's Netta!" The vampire queen answered breathlessly.

Emilia was initially taken aback, but then her anger began to rise. "You bloodsucking scum! How dare you talk to me after what you've just done, killing my people at wolf headquarters! If you think our past friendship will make me go easy on you, you're dead wrong! I will skin you alive and throw you directly in the first-morning sunlight myself! Mark my words Lannetta Bloodreign, whatever ties we once had, are now long gone, no better than vampire ashes thrown to the wind." The witch was now livid, face contorted into an ugly sneer.

"And if you hadn't cut off all communication from me, you'd have known a long time ago that I no longer have the backing of the royals!" Lannetta yelled in reply. "I haven't been in power for the past century. I never condoned those attacks." The vampire gave a very unladylike snort that sounded rather wheezy when coupled with her strained breathing. "If you can't tell already, I'm in a bit of a pickle at the moment, being chased by the duke's men and all."

Emilia was stunned silent. A hundred years. Had it really been that long since she had cut contact with the vampire queen, she wondered. Fifty years ago, vampire attacks had been on the uptick, first with small groups of half a dozen vampires, mostly unplanned, opportunistic and carried out by young and inexperienced vampires looking for a thrill of excitement.

With time, the frequency and brazenness of the vampire attacks increased until eventually escalating to the kind seen at the castle. Emilia had assumed that the vampire queen had allowed it to escalate in response to being ignored as a petty and final tit-for-tat revenge play against someone she once called a friend. Emilia had treated it as closure to a fractured relationship that she hadn't tried to fix.

Finally dragging her thoughts together, Emilia asked incredulously, "How could you lose power? I mean, you're the Lannetta Bloodreign, for crying out loud!"

There was a momentary silence on the other end of the line. When Lannetta answered, now no longer yelling, her voice carried with it unmistakable weariness. "Vampire aristocracy only follow those they deem worthy of leading. They followed my father and grandfather because of their powerful Talents. They also saw the sacrifices the royal family made for their people.

"But what about me? What do I have to offer? My Talent does not add value to my role as a leader, nor do my swordsmanship skills, not when no one fights with swords anymore. Here on Earth, other descendants of Lucius Bloodreign shine brighter than diamonds; unfortunately, I look like a lump of coal in comparison. Honestly, I'm lucky to have held on to power as long as I did."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know," Emilia replied, feeling bad about her earlier outburst.

"Why the hell did you do it, cutting me off like that?" Lannetta questioned in turn. The vampire had pondered this for a very long time.

"Because I was angry with you!" Emilia replied bitterly, "you said he'd come back. You were so certain! And so, I waited. Centuries went by, and nothing. I waited until I couldn't anymore. This false hope you gave me nearly destroyed me, and I just didn't want to lie to myself anymore that it would come true."

"Well then, I'm glad I've proven you wrong," the vampire replied smugly. "Where is he?"

"Who?"

"Aidan, who else?" Lannetta replied impatiently.

Emilia felt a chill sweep over her as a thought pricked at her mind. "Why would I have the human with me?"

"Oh no. No, no, no. Emi, didn't you recognise him?! How could you not know? What happened to the crystal?!"

Emilia scampered over to the vanity and picked up the black jewellery box. Inside, carefully wrapped around a small velvet pillow, was a brittle leather cord attached to a smooth pure white moonstone crystal that emitted a warm glow of light. Hidden below the velvet pillow lay a folded piece of parchment, preserved with magic but still tattered at the edges.

The witch's legs trembled, and she took a few unsteady steps back to the foot of the bed, where she sank heavily down. The glow from the crystal was proof. "He's reborn." It was a statement and not a question.

"He was! Twenty-five years ago, to be exact! Damnit, Emi, you were supposed to keep track of the crystal!" Lannetta yearned to smack the witch over the head. Emilia used to be reliable. Undoubtedly, seven centuries was a long time, and people do change, but she had never expected the witch to slack off on such a crucial duty! "Where is he now?"

Emilia dazedly replied, "He's with the wolves. He's safe—"

"No, he's not! My enemies have figured out who Aidan is! They won't stop trying to kill him, even if it costs them thousands of vampire foot soldiers. Emi, vampires are gathering in London as we speak, hunting for Aidan. You need to go to him immediately."

"I'll head to the werewolf safe house now."

"Emi, I'm counting on you to protect him," the vampire queen sternly told her before hanging up.

Emilia wasted no time immediately dialling another number. The moment the call connected, she blurted, "Samaira, I need your help."

"Oh darling, hello to you too. Thank you for not asking how I am, what I've been up to, or even bothering to keep in touch for the past five months! After all, aren't we besties who have known each other for only four hundred years?" Samaira snarkily answered, "Just letting you know, this is a simple and polite reminder that I have every right to ignore you when you're ignoring me!"

"Sam, to be fair, a hundred and fifty days is a pretty small amount of time when you have a lifespan of two thousand years," Emilia sheepishly said, to which Samaira answered with a few colourful expletives. The angry witch was about to hang up when she heard her friend wailing on the other end, "Wait!! Sam, please! It's urgent. Someone's life is at stake!" Samaira abruptly stopped in the middle of her kitchen, a bag of potatoes still clutched in one hand.

Emilia knew her friend well enough to know that even though her Talent was super strength rivalling those human-mutt hybrids, Samaira was a pacifist at heart, preferring nothing more than to cook up a storm in her quaint and homely kitchen. In truth, she was a big softie who hated seeing others get hurt. Her Talent, for the most part, was wasted on her.

"Fine," Samaira replied, much to her friend's relief, "I'll come to pick you up and then we can go on your rescue mission. And I've lost count of the number of times I've said this, but I'm going to say it once more, get a freaking driver's licence! You've been delaying it for one decade too many!"

As she drove, Samaira watched her friend from the corner of her eye while the other witch bit her lip and nervously dialled the werewolf safe house's main phone line. The raven-haired beauty quietly thought it was downright unnerving to see the equanimous, sometimes colder-than-dry-ice Emilia Feronia displaying so much emotion.

A woman named Olivia answered the call, informing Emilia that Aidan had gone sightseeing in the city. The blond witch's complexion had turned whiter than snow, and she immediately tunnel-visioned, hellbent on finding him, much to Samaira's exasperation, using only a glowing crystal as a guide. Somehow, luck was on their side since it only took them an hour of searching, with plus points for finding him still breathing.

*****

Safely back in Samaira's guest room, Aidan gazed back at Emilia, his hand still clutching the crystal as she said, "Calm your mind. Let your soul become one once more." The crystal began to heat up, itching the skin beneath. Aidan felt the warmth spread through his entire palm before travelling unpleasantly up his arm, akin to being dipped in bathwater that was a tad too hot for comfort.

Soon, his whole body was caught in a feverish heat, threatening to melt him from the inside out. The room began spinning like a cruel roller coaster ride. "I feel sick," he managed to choke out before the dizziness intensified to the point he could no longer sit upright and slumped back clumsily into the pillows.

Emilia leaned over him worriedly, "Don't try to fight it," he heard her unhelpful reply even as he struggled against the urge to hurl the remnants of ingested hot chocolate all over the fluffy blanket. In a flash, Aidan felt himself falling as though an invisible rope had attached around his neck, pulling him down into a tunnel of nothingness. With a sharp intake of breath, he drifted away from consciousness, escaping the present to relive the past.