He wanted that?

Our demise?

As we played around and he told me stories and I trusted him with stories of my mother he was fake all along! Laughing at me from behind.

I ran, seeing red in my vision as I returned to the other tower. I had to find Agnes and ask her—many, many things. About my bloodline, the boys they killed, and that hateful women called my mother living in the outside world!

I ran, bare feet slapping the cold floor, and in my night dress red with blood I reached the hall again. Yves gave a yelp when he saw me splattered with blood. He raised his gun but I bawled.

"Open the door!" I cried, desperately. "Right now! I don't care, I'm going to talk to Agnes! Open it, damn it!"

Yves went still before he moved and then unlocked the door. "Agnes? Agnes?"

"Agnes!" I yelled, running into the room.

I couldn't find her for the first few seconds, then I saw it.

I gaped at the body.

Agnes lay on the floor, her neck arteries split by a piece of glass in her hand. The blood had seeped deep into the floor, creating a dark purple puddle. Her hair was matted due to the wetness, and I knew from such a scene there was no more hope.

"No. No. No!"

Was she gone just like that?

"Agnes?" I whispered. I walked into the room, slowly, hoping she's jump up and it'd all be blood from bottles she kept hidden or she'd open her eyes slowly.

She couldn't die that easily, before I killed her. Before the rifle and our plans and my apology for planning on killing her this whole time, blind sighted by a man.

Yves crept up behind me as I sobbed quietly. "She's dead?"

I shook my head. He ignored me.

"Agnes is dead!" Yves started running, shouting it down the hall.

No. Don't die.

Not now. Not after I finally knew who Elsie and Edith were and how I was only a tool. Not now, when I'm trying to leave and search for them. She couldn't die before telling me where Elsie and Edith were, if I had a brother outside, if I had a family.

Agnes wouldn't have let me. Even against all the men she'd keep me, her only pureblood treasure. I was her most precious trophy, a mix of the best vampire genes.

So it was good, a sign, maybe, that she had died and I could choose my own path and leave. I could follow the men and look for my family—no, the people had had birthed me.

I looked down at the matriarch I'd hated my whole life and yet in her last moments, I'd needed more than ever. She was still pretty, drenched in blood, and she was suddenly so much more likable. I remembered the dungeon, but I also remembered her coming to the tower with dresses for me. The earrings she gave me that she used to wear, the smile she had when I bragged to her about my first few kills, all my kills, in fact. I always wanted her approval.

Funny how I knew despite my promise I wouldn't have killed her. The rifle scared me, and the thought of killing Agnes was akin to killing Sabine and Primrose.

Even with Yves's rifle right there today, I chose to lock her up.

I wouldn't have killed her.

I held her corpse in my arms, as I've done to many corpses many times. I watched her face, skin smooth besides a few frowns; she looked like she always did. The corpse was cold quickly unlike the humans. The face was beautiful, unlike the men.

"Agnes," I whispered, and I held her cheek. "Mother."

She still did not stand up.

She never will.

I thought of that time she gave me a deep garnet necklace. It was a reward for my work, and Primrose threw a fit over it. It was a choker, and the tear shaped garnets followed like a bleeding neck. I wore it and said I wouldn't take it off. I was proud and loved red, which she always dressed me in.

Agnes was a mother to me.

And it hurt to realize after she was gone.

***

It was snowing lightly outside, and for once I'd thought over the lies I always believed in. I was not always in the castle—it was only in my pubescent years that I was truly Queen Butterfly.

My mother only stayed with me until I was two or three, before 'leaving'.

Edith was never here. She led the council somewhere else. She was using Agnes and made the dungeon for us!

"Edith!"

I screamed her name again and again before my throat was parched.

I hit a nearby tree with my closed fist again and again until the side of my hands were raw and bloody. But I wouldn't drink it. No one drinks their own blood; it's acidic and dry.

So I stopped myself and kept walking. The snow was not even cold to my skin, only a soft tap like fingertips although it was coming without cease.

I thought of that day Uriel came outside with me. What a joke. He was only using me. Humans and their desire for revenge, to avenge family.

My family was never a family.

I was walking without aim outside when I felt a hug from behind me.

"Margery."

"Sabine."

I touched her cool hands and when she tried to lace her fingers into mine I pulled away.

"She killed herself to anger me. Like always. So I can't ask her anything. She's laughing at me!" I sobbed angrily.

I could imagine her triumphant face. She wouldn't betray her sister, her twin, the one who escaped. The one who brainwashed my mother!

"She died, Margery! It can be us together now, we can kick out the men—"

"And what? Live in this cursed prison forever?"

I turned and pushed her away, and her yellow hair fell to her waist in waves. The wind blew and it blossomed behind her. She reached out to me cautiously, eyes glistening.

"I love you, Margery. I'd stay anywhere with you, castle or prison."

Our fingers interlaced and I remembered how we always promised each other that. We were going to stay together, forever.

But she wouldn't leave this place, I knew. Sabine liked our castle—because she didn't have to kill. At most she seduced a few man, but to her, being a vampire was no different from a human. She would never admit it, but what did she know of killing people and staring outside a small window for more than a decade?

I was burning, and she came closer, pulling the shoulder off her dress lower. I eyed her neck unconsciously, and I swallowed. It was sweet, and Uriel's strong human taste was still on my tongue.

She swished her head so her hair fell from her shoulders. She was beautiful as she lowered her eyes and her lashes fluttered. She opened her mouth to say one word. 

"Drink."

I stepped back.

"I'm not drinking yours anymore—"

"You finished all my bottles. I know you're suffering. Let me offer this at least."

Her face was so small, the skin of her neck smooth like silk, and then she took a step.

"I won't stop if you let me," I warned. She nodded.

"I'll give you my everything, Margery."

I reached out my hand and then I froze. "This isn't what I want."

Her face was full of pain. "It's Uriel."

Uriel.

No no no.

"No." My voice was small.

I turned to look at Sabine, eyes red with vampiric anger and innocuous crying. Her skin was unmarred like all of ours, light pink like Cecile's, while Primrose's was dark like wood. Mine—after the dreams, had grown horrid. My eyes constantly shown bloodlust and there was a purple tint from sickness.

"My mother and Edith are alive. Out there. How can you stand being abandoned? Traded for freedom?"

"Who said such a foolish—"

"The butterflies. And Agnes admitted it."

"You're mad, you always were." She began to cry. "Full of grand ideas like living outside Jardin—do you really think anyone would accept vampires? We have to stick together or we'll be burned, like that day. Your mother and Edith must've being persecuted and killed already."

My face burned. "No! They can live in the dark and enchant men and they have their fangs to protect them—"

"And what about your rifles and other weapons?" she asked. "Jardin is small, undeveloped. This castle is ours and offers us more protection than anything. It's been ours for decades, if not centuries."

"You know about rifles?"

"Agnes warned us about it. She never told you." For once Sabine seemed sorry. "She wanted you to be pretty and ignorant."

"I'm glad I found out. You were lying to me, too."

"How can you say that?" Her voice grew high with anger. "Uriel wanted to end our clan! His father died and he's using you to get his own revenge! He's a coward, a weakling and—and—"

She fell on me. Crying.

"Don't go, Margery! I love you, I always have."

Her arms encircled me and I thought of our young years in the castle, talking about escape. Then as I was locked in the tower, she came to offer me sweeter blood. Then she snuck over when Agnes stopped her.

"You can never be with Sabine," Agnes told me when we were fifteen and she saw it. She sent Sabine away and had Rowena and Selma watch us more carefully later. "Her blood is sweet as all pureblood are. She's sweet because she is not you, she's many relations away, but she's a vampire. Human blood taste heavier, thicker, and maybe bitter.

"But you can't drink Sabine's, because she'll grow to love you and feed you forever. She will, I know that girl. She'd give away anything for you. She follows you like a cat, it's not right. If you keep drinking you'll lead her on, make her think there's hope..."

I closed my eyes. Her arms were on my back, hands clutching at my sides. She loved me.

We were seventeen when we kissed and touched one another. I didn't know how it happened, but it did. In the dark of the night, when she snuck over. I thought of the virginity I lost to a man I didn't know. I thought of the many men I gave my body to.

Sabine was so much softer, her blood sweeter, and she obeyed me so easily.

And that's why I used her.

"I don't love you, Sabine."

She didn't let go, and I was the one sobbing. I was sorry and ashamed and for once, I truly knew why I kept her to my side.

"I don't love you. I never did."

Her hug only grew tighter, and I couldn't open my eyes. Agnes was right. I would hurt her, and now I'd hurt her even more.

And my only choice, for both of us, was to leave her.