Ten full years passed since the last time I saw him. If I added it up it had been fifteen years since I last properly faced him and spoke to him. I won't lie, I occasionally go to his house and see his smiling face or just the house with his closed curtains. I often passed by his place when I visited Manon.

If I "visited" Uriel I went to see Manon with Gregoire. She grew up and from a distance she looked completely human, brown-haired and plain features. Gregoire was always doing strange things, catching a kitten to raise one time, walking under a parasol with Manon in summer.

I never got caught by either side, I truly felt like a butterfly. I only made sure they were happy, and most of the time the humans were smiling.

These fifteen years I think I never stopped thinking about him and my muse, Sabine. Dark nights when I was afraid of someone, Agnes or Elsie, I tried to think of those I loved. I thought of the brief times I kissed Uriel or drank his blood, things that confused me yet at the same time made everything clear.

I didn't want to become the next Elsie, so I had to leave them after short visits. Every time I saw Yves's letter and thought of Uriel with his fiancé I found it hard to stick to my own morals.

I wanted to return, to see him, and to feel whole again.

That year I realized Manon would be fifteen and it reminded me of when Lark, Adalyn and Bernadette left the castle. They were so incredibly young now that I thought about it, as a—what, forty year old?

When I looked in the mirror I only saw that girl from fifteen years ago, twenty five and ready to leave a cage and be dependent.

And I was happy with my choice: I went to Asia and returned, became less seasick, but I still preferred to travel through steam locomotives or even cars. But it was just a gnawing feeling in me, how I wanted to tell Uriel "I'm riding a car!" Or "Look at that dress, wouldn't I better in it?"

He could move on, because he was a human and only lived to what, sixty? He could move on, because he had a wife and most likely children—as Gregoire moved on from his first wife. But for vampires, it's a curse.

I'm twenty-five, dancing in Jardin's rainfall and holding his hands, and he's putting his coat over my shoulders and chasing after me that snowy day to apologize—I can't move on.

Through these years I've killed men to protect myself, but I have never drank their blood.

But ten years changed other things about me; I had my hair cut into a bob I curled and stopped wearing stifling hats. I still hated boots, but heels bother me too, so I wear oxfords or loafers. I'm very particular about shoes because my body is still sensitive. Funny, I wear anything but a brassiere.

The fashion changed by then and I wore dresses up to my calves, some sequined and others with savant garde cuts. I even wore trousers when I have to walk a lot, like that day I went back to Jardin.

Yes, I returned to Jardin to put an end to my nightmares around six years ago, and there I saw something interesting.

I lingered around our empty castle before I headed towards the lake Cecile loved.

A young vampire girl—I could tell by her looks, very distinct to our clan—was crushing Jardin's trademark red butterflies. Their sorry figure and the smearing of their red wings made me instinctively run up to the emotionless girl.

"You," I had said, trudging up to the place by the lake she was, "stop killing them!"

She glared at me, and then seemed to relax when I got closer and she could smell or sense I was one of her kind.

"Don't let them fool you. They're just mosquitoes with pretty wings."

I stopped in my tracks.

I recognized the saying, and ran forward to catch her hand before she could recoil, and her eyes were of fear. Ah, I realized, I could instill fear like Agnes and Edith had once. I was technically an Elder, which put a bad taste in my mouth.

I released her hand but she stood there, and she was much smaller than I thought. She might've been Lark's age when we left the castle, so ten.

"Where are you from?" I asked.

"My clan didn't want me. I heard about Jardin so I came."

"Who are you living with?"

"Vampires. Where are you from?" She glanced up and down at my bobbed hair and trousers. I must've looked like I was trying to be a man.

"I'm from Jardin, too." I looked at the castle that was crumbling. "I lived in this castle before the matriarch died."

"You're lying!" she said with such sudden fervor I jumped. "The vampires I live with are from the castle! They are Butterflies! Pretty but they drink the blood of men who come!"

I stared at her pretty face and felt something akin to sorrow.

"That saying—" I whispered, "Sabine taught you, didn't she?"

"Don't call the Queen so casually!"

"Oh, I'm sorry about my rudeness." I smiled. "What's your name?"

"Melanie." She turned her face, only her eyes peering up at me. "You are?"

"Margery. Would you mind bringing me to the Queen?" I asked softly.

She hesitated before she nodded and ran in her long skirts, tattered but conservative, from the neck to her slippers. It was such a stark contrast to the outside world and the girls' dresses from years ago that I pitied her.

I expected she would bring me to a castle or one of the grander buildings, but she brought me to the church I saw a decade and years ago. I remembered the pretty frosted glass with its lights inside and white exterior that made me think it was like Heaven itself.

"The church," I said to myself.

I remembered the night Cecile was dressed up in a frilly dress and clung to me and told me she loved Gregoire, a human.

The night the townspeople came and attacked our castle, to the point Yves shouted outside that he had control over us. I had to submissively listen to him and the townspeople cheered him on.

Now that I remembered, the townspeople weren't here. Not a single human had been spotted.

"Where are the people of Jardin?" I asked Melanie.

"People? You mean humans?"

"Yes," I replied. Now that I thought of it, almost no one was on the boat ride with me. I rode first class this time, but felt sick for some reason again and didn't pay attention to how empty it was.

Melanie beamed.

"Thanks to the Queen, she's driven all the humans away and more vampires have started living in Jardin."

"What?" I cocked my head in disbelief. "All the humans? What do you eat without humans here?" I asked. I had thought they'd have a dungeon of the humans locked up for blood banks.

Melanie gave a nonchalant shrug. "Some of us are in charge of planting corps, others butchering meat, and we live off that instead of blood. The Queen hates the red butterflies, though. Rumor is they took her lover away a long time ago."

"Oh?"

I looked up at the church. Sometimes it's to easy love and hate, as I did to Uriel. But which side would Sabine be on if she saw me again?

"But to talk to the Queen you'll have to get through Lady Primrose, her lover, is that fine?" Melanie turned to me.

If a person could feel loneliness creep up into them then I certainly felt it. Somehow, I came to Jardin for reassurance Sabine would like to see me, but it seemed like it wasn't the case at all.

I thanked Melanie and gave her some gold coins to her confusion.

"Don't tell them Margery visited, would you?" I asked her. Then without my realization, I patted her head. "But forgive these red butterflies. I'm sure one day they'll aide another vampire in a time of need."

"I suppose I can spare them, then," she said.

She turned and walked off to another building. The whole of Jardin, now I saw, had houses that were no longer separated by the invisible line that I often saw from my window. Now it felt like a true town.

Sabine had done a wonderful job, and I was proud of her—but I couldn't face her after all. We were forty, but I was still a child inside.

When I left I saw someone move in a church window.

I would never forget the yellow curls I love, so I looked up.

"Thank you," I said loudly, and before I knew it, tears were falling. "Thank you, Sabine. And I'm sorry."