For three days the Duke did not come down to eat, and on the fourth, he came down for breakfast.

His hair was in a mess, and he was wearing a loosely buttoned shirt, and black trousers. He didn't touch the newspaper laid out, and only drank his tea. He looked grave. Even Flemings knew not to say anything during breakfast.

Once the two men finished, Emmanuel looked up and smiled at Blair.

"Do you want to listen to the continuation of my story?" Blair had dreaded the words. He tried to smile.

"You wanted a rest, didn't you? I can wait."

"No. I've realized, it's time to stop running away." Emmanuel stood up. "Come to my room. You don't need to bring anything."

Emmanuel gave him one last look before he spun on his heels and left.

Blair had never seen him with such a grave, such an expression. It chilled him to the bones. It made the room feel all the more colder.

The sky outside was still white, blending into the white landscape. The wind howled and rattled the windows as Blair made his way to the Duke's room. It didn't feel like morning at all. It felt timeless, and it wasn't like late February at all. There was no trace of spring, but the camellias had began falling. Red heads dotted the garden the Duke looked down at. Instead of feeling relived, as he always imagined he would while telling his story, he felt like a storm. He felt like tearing down the walls and the trees and even his own camellias.

The door opened and there was Blair. Emmanuel turned to him with a small smile.

"You want to know, don't you, about my dreadful history?

"I—I don't."

"You don't have to be so kind. I shall tell you—but I will tell you this beforehand, Blair. I'm no saint, and I never said I wasn't. I am a human, a terrible, real, human. I get mad, and sad, and I feel—I feel."

"Of course you do. I know you are human, better than anyone." Emmanuel only looked coldly at Blair as he said it.

"I suppose you do know. I felt everything they did to me, the things that I always accepted and never protested against. But the moment I heard of my brother's death, I could no longer accept it. He had never been in France, no, he had been sent to an asylum, and he had killed himself."

"No." Blair looked at him, dazed. Flemings was right.

"Yes, he had not died in France. No, he had been locked up in a different asylum from the one my mother was in the whole time. I had thought it was strange, for I never got his letters. I had simply thought the Duke and Duchess took away the letters, or even tried to believe Charles was too happy in France to pay me any mind.

"But no, that wasn't the worst of it. The whole time, did you know, he had been shot up with morphine, slowly, until he went insane, and finally killed himself, all alone, in the asylum? Did you know?"

"No," Blair whispered.

"Yes, I didn't either." The Duke was crying, for the first time. He did not look any different, for the tears only dripped out of his eyes, and then he looked away. He wouldn't show his vulnerability. "I was not by his side, as all of this happened."

"It's not your fault," Blair said, but his words were cheap. They didn't mean a thing, not after what happened that night.

"Everything I ever loved had disappeared, so quickly, so easily," Emmanuel mused. "And after his death, I was going to be heir, and they tortured me even more. The Duke administered all these terrible poisons for me to take, against my will. For the first time one night I fought against him, shoving away the Laudanum and Godfrey's Cordial—everything!"

"And that night, as the Duke struck me across the face, I realized, something terrible. I realized something so utterly terrible I laughed after realizing it, for it had been so obvious and overlooked by them that it was almost comedic! Yes, that night I realized I had nothing holding me back!"

His eyes were wide, and his curls flew about as he shook his head with vigor as he shouted.

"That was the moment I changed. I became a different person, Blair. That night I couldn't sleep, for I shook with so much excitement. I shook, knowing I was free of shackles and chains, but also because I knew they had everything at stake. How utterly foolish, how inane, how laughable, how perfect everything was, as though set up for me."

Emmanuel smiled at the memory, as though reliving it, and then he closed him eyes, and a tranquil looked came over his face.

"I believed, for the first time, in the Lord. He had, I understood, made me understood it at that very moment for a reason. Yes. I laughed about and I cried and I was so happy. There was a God, after all! He had been so late, so cruelly late, but he had came, after all."

"Emmanuel," Blair said, "Stop! I don't want to listen, stop! Don't look like that!"

He looked up in desperation, but Emmanuel had the same, crazed smile. His face seemed so much stranger now, and his chin so slender and akin to a demon's. No, a fallen angel's. Lucifer's.

The wind outside cried like a chained animal, and branches and hail clacked against the glass.

"Forget about the promise, you don't have to write about the story. Just listen to this story you've waited so long for. As my friend, Blair."

"I—"

"Don't tell me you want to stop, Blair. You want it—I can see it in your eyes, that awful curiosity lingering still, just like all those awful people out there, always turning me and scrutinizing me like a bug, pinning me down with needles, trapping my wings. So sadistic, so heinous, so ruthless, so—" he bared his teeth as he spat the word out, "so human!"

"I don't want to hear it!" Blair rushed forward, and gripped both of his shoulders. "Stop, Emmanuel!"

"You heard about it, didn't you?" He smiled. "Ah, that's why. You only don't want to hear it after you've heard it."

"Please," Blair whimpered, "Emmanuel, please."

"You're a writer, a historian. Remember this; your job isn't to have me trust you, or to relieve me of my pain. You're job is to write, to record!"

"No, that's not true." Blair sobbed. "You're a sad man, such a sad, lonely, person. You didn't want this."

"I did want it. I wanted it more than anyone. I destroyed my family, and all the while, I laughed, like an evil man."

"It's not you," Blair whispered, but he didn't know, too.

He had been so lonely, no, who was? Emmanuel, or Blair? They had both been so lonely, and Blair had thought they could forgo that loneliness as long as they lived together, in this facade of friendship.

What had he wanted when he said that to Emmanuel that night?

'Once this is over...'

'Then let's make a wager, Emmanuel.'

'...you'll leave.'

'If I win...'

'Just like everyone else.'

'...trust me."

No.

Blair shook his head, the tears dripping, snot dripping, and he gasped for breath, nose clogged and eyes blurry.

"Don't, Emmanuel—"

"I ruined my siblings."

"I know."

"You don't. Did you know the way I smiled and called Cynthia, 'Cindy'? Did you know how I built up her trust, like I did to you, slowly, all those months?"

"No—"

"I'm a chess player, Blair." Emmanuel smiled wickedly. "I can wait as much as needed, eagerly watching one step into my trap, waiting for their demise. It thrilled me, like nothing ever had. Not even the love for my mother, or my brother."

"That's not true. You friendship with me wasn't fake. And you were sad, you must've hesitated before you did it. It's not true!"

"It is." Emmanuel shoved him away roughly, apathetic. Blair could hardly recognize him, and then he continued his story. "We became friends, all of us, even Jeremy and Gregory. And oh, Cindy, with her beautiful blue eyes, so much like my brother's. And yet each time I saw them, so wide, so innocent, I only felt hatred. And I brought her to operas, and ballets, as I did to you, Blair. And then one day, I brought Cindy to an opium den."

Blair's eyes grew, and he buried his face in his hands.

"And she was ruined, as she should, taking opium day by day, and then I brought the children, Jeremy and Gregory, adolescents at the time, to a whorehouse. As expected, the children were quickly lured by the vices, and began going there routinely, even without me doing anything."

"News spread, shortly, of the things they did. Cindy had became addicted, and could hardly recognize us. Her personality changed, and she thrashed about in the house as the duchess cried, like a real madwoman. As for Jeremy and Gregory, they were busy aborting the children of the prostitutes they had fornicated with. That was not even the worse—for one of them, Gregory, I believe, had gotten a nobleman's daughter pregnant, too, against her will.

"And of course, throughout this, the Duke was aghast; his son had killed himself, and I was the backup plan that had failed, but his children had became the laughingstock of England. And I was still not satisfied."

"Why?" Blair asked.

"You're right. Why? I had thought that all I had ever wanted in life, revenge for taking me from my mother, revenge for casting my brother away, revenge for giving birth to me. But it's was not enough. My mother was gone, and my brother was gone, too. Even if he was there, watching me, I was afraid of letting him see me, for I did not want him to see such an ugly side of me."

His eyes burned, and his face contorted.

"I could ruin their house. Make them the talk of England, destroy them to smithereens. I could curse them, forever and ever. Destroy what happiness they had, happiness that should've belonged to my mother and brother. Happiness that they didn't deserve. And I was still not happy." He turned to Blair at that moment, and looked like he had lost it all, his lips chapped and pale, and his hands fell to his side limply. "And I could not understand."

Blair reached out. "It's not your fault, Emmanuel." Emmanuel stepped back, Blair's fingers grazing the air instead.

"Don't call me by that name."

Blair stopped. He knew, but he could not comprehend it.

"The truth, Blair, is that I'm not Emmanuel."