Our conversation from weeks past had been weighing on my mind. Not in a way that constricted or scared me, in the way that gripped me as something left unfinished. It was intolerable. Especially when it came to her.

We were not traditional–Quinn and I. But that did not mean I wouldn't honour her with anything less than a ring of significance. 

"You can promise me you... You. Tara Fletcher. I want you."

I'd been through the heart of Covent Garden and all the major jewellers across London but none met the expectations I had for her. None captured her elegance, her subtly and her colour well enough. These were not petty words or actions and we were not in the business of making them.

I pocketed my hands in my suit pants as I descended the stairs into my vault.

I had a century worth of history, of moments and pieces of time in this space. There must be one that could represent our love in the right way. I flicked on the surround sound in the vault and played a timeless piece of jazz from the 1920's that floated effortlessly between the rows of artefacts. 

I passed the disarmed warhead, a few shell casings from artillery, even a tank turret... but I smirked when I saw a crossbow–that was a strange choice for the enemy. As it turned out, a wooden stake to the heart was not a sufficient way to kill us but I had to credit his creativity.

I stopped before the illuminated cabinet with countless previous metals on display. Sapphires, emeralds, rubies... None of it was what I thought of when I thought of her. Diamonds just made me roll my eyes. How cliche. 

Even gold made me want to turn from the room.

I rounded another corner to interrogate more pieces before my eyes stopped on a finely made pair of boots, ran up more Paragon tailoring until I met the blue-gold eyes of Selena Helland.

"I didn't invite you in here." I murmured, ignoring her and resuming my appraisal. It certainly explained why I didn't hear her enter.

She joined me silently and tucked her hands behind her back, staring at the cabinet beneath us.

"You have excellent taste in music." She answered instead, running her fingers with the notes of the piano. "–and I don't think you came down here to appreciate the past."

I remained silent, getting more irritated with her intrusion or the lack of a suitable ring–I couldn't tell which yet. I pressed my hands against the glass before pushing off it with a sigh through my nose.

"I didn't take you for a jewellery woman either–"

"Is there a point to this or are you going to assault me in my own vault?" I demanded, whirling on her and watching her gaze at a silver necklace below. She propped an elbow of her military jacket against the cabinet and smirked at me.

"Come with me." She uttered, flicking a finger over her shoulder.

"Why on earth would I do that, immortal?" I demanded, flexing my fingers and watching that back heel of hers as she walked away.

"You need to trust me." She called over the jazz.

I debated letting her walk away, but I was getting nowhere down here and I knew I was running out of trinkets. I didn't collect many shiny things after all. But Selena... that was a woman attracted to shiny things if ever I saw one–her house alone was a testament to that. Her vault promised to be something else entirely.

I cut the music off and followed her back out the way we'd come.

A car was waiting for us on the other side of the street. It was hardly discreet. 

Selena ignited the engine of a classic Aston Martin DB5. As if to make her point more that she collected rarities... I pocketed my hands again and walked leisurely to the passenger side. She dropped a pair of sunglasses over her eyes and leant over the wheel to retrieve something from the glove box.

I opened the door and took a seat as she accelerated back onto the road.

A chrome packet landed on my lap. I frowned and glanced at her.

"What's this for?"

"You're to take something from my vault, Fletcher. You think it comes freely?" She drawled, dodging a number of cars at a speed not even I risked in central London. I pressed my hand against the dash and glanced at the dials.

Then I decided to bury my pride and I tore into the packet regardless. If there was one thing I had learnt of her in our brief time, it was that she did not bluff. I made sure I drained the packet quickly because her driving was not going to make it easy–

"Selena!" I hissed, as we passed two cars by inches.

"Oh, please. Live a little you fossil." She retorted, pulling her dark sunglasses down an inch to wink. 

"You're going to get–"

Police sirens blared behind our vehicle as predictably as the arrogance that graced her next grin.

 She punched the accelerator harder and wove through more traffic. I palmed my face.

"Perfect. That's one–apologies, two cruisers–hunting one of the most identifiable cars in the continent. Even Paragon will be impressed by the audacity you have." I scoffed, glancing at the side mirror and seeing the cruises get slowed by traffic that Selena had no care bolting through. 

She pressed a button underneath her radio before twisting a dial to the right of it.

"Yes, let's play with the air-con while half of London's Metropolitan police service hunts us." I deadpanned, cursing myself that I was foolish enough to get into a vehicle with her.

"That wasn't the air-con, but I'm quite partial to you playing some more of that Jazz while I have my fun." She quipped, turning down a narrow side street and putting some distance between us and the sirens now two streets away.

She took us further north before looping back round and doing the last thing I thought she would do. She pulled up outside her own residence while the area was still hot.

"I'm not getting out this car, Selena. You've got to be mad." I finished, without room for negotiation. Did she want every mortal under the sun bursting through her front door?

"Relax, Tara Fletcher, and..." She leant forward and took her sunglasses off entirely, "–trust me."

I darted between her own irises that didn't even flinch for a moment, not one second of doubt. I sighed and pushed the door open. A member of her staff was already at her driver side and took the keys off her. I frowned glancing down the street and spotting two pieces of CCTV alone...

Selena caught my gaze and patted me on the shoulder.

"It's had a jamming bubble over it for the last ten minutes." She answered the question in my head, "–and a different plate."

I balked and straightened.

She was smart. And prepared. A jammer? How big was the radius and what devices did it disable? I drew out my phone and saw a prime example in action. The screen was flickering in a way that told me all I needed to know; it disrupted electronic devices. I sighed and watched her get into a black BMW... thank god.

"You can drive!" She called, jumping into the passenger and leaning back.

Her member of staff had already taken her Aston in the opposite direction and all the attention with it. I shook my head as I slid into the BMW and she handed me the keys.

"I hope you have a safe house for that car–"

"Do I need to say trust me in another language, immortal? Or can we get on with it?" She sighed.

I smirked for the first time since she had interrupted my day. She mirrored it. I turned on the engine and became serious.

"Where am I going?"

She typed into the touch screen in front of us instead of answering. I raised an eyebrow in surprise. So, I'm driving us straight into the river Thames.

"This should be interesting." I muttered.

She propped her head against the window to watch me as I pulled away. It was making me nervous. All that power in one place in a confined space... The predator in me even recoiled. After a few minutes she finally broke the silence.

"You're quite different." She blurted.

I flinched, and glanced away from the traffic for a moment before tightening my hand on the wheel.

"How so?"

"You work for them–first and foremost." She remarked, nodding her head outside to indicate the mortal world.

"How else would I stay sane with all this time?" I countered, pulling up at the lights and watching an elderly couple cross the road slowly. Selena turned her head and watched them with me, the car seemed to sober faster than a joke at a funeral.

"Do you miss it? The lack of time... The constant change?" She whispered.

I thought about it for a moment. Thought of all the well spent time and the mindlessly passed time. There were so many years of nights by the fire and thoughts of violence... of the lives I took and the ones I could not save. Then I was warmed by the flare of the ones I could, the ones whose stories I rewrote and gave more time, those that could not defend themselves. But my friends and my family moved on, turned their pages and reached the end of their stories... I didn't.

"I do." I nodded. "I think that's why I went back to it in a way."

"I agree."

I turned to her in surprise. She agreed? Did that mean she had done the same? Or she merely considered it after so many centuries. Immortals, let alone Elders, were so far removed from mortal society they detached themselves completely. They pursued the world, mastered the arts, conquered the elements and collected vast arrays of souvenirs along the way–

"The light has been green for five seconds, Fletcher." Selena remarked, with a smile back in her voice.

I hit the accelerator a little too harshly as I pulled away from the rising horns behind us. I knew she watched me again but I focused on where her sat nav lead us. We were minutes from the river location I was sure was a dead-end, but I had to ask the question that was nagging at me since she brought it up.

"Did you find a purpose after you turned?"

"I worked for Paragon." She said distractedly.

I frowned. "That's not what I meant."

"Then say what you mean, Tara." She returned in a low voice.

I took my eyes off the road and looked at her. But she watched the trees along the river.

"Did you ever live and work alongside mortals after you changed?" I asked quietly.

It was a simple question and it still seemed to be a complicated one for her to answer. The yards closed down quickly to our destination and she still did not answer it. I thought she wouldn't but she finally did when I turned the car towards a dip in the road and a coded gate beneath.

"I did once." She murmured so quietly I almost missed it.

I watched her as she dropped the window and rapidly typed into the keypad. She then drew up her wrist and pressed a button beside her watch. That certainly was one way of securing your possessions, I thought as she lowered her hand and the doors started slowly opening to an underground tunnel below.

"If you mention this place to anyone I will make your wish for mortality come true." She said with an easy smile, but no joke in her eyes. But I was no cowering new blood either. I snorted and put the car into gear.

"I have no desire to steal from you, Selena." I answered.

I pulled the car to a stop in a space not designed for many vehicles. The entirety of the back wall was a door, I realised with no small shock. They looked like bloody blast doors.

"Are you storing rockets down here?" I quipped, scanning the vast interlocking bolts and mechanisms before us. We shut the doors to the car and it echoed behind us.

"Something like that." Selena answered, in that carefree manner again.

She placed her palm against a square scanner. Then her eye. Then input a code longer than a telephone. The final touch was the same button on her watch. I shook my head at the display. I remained silent as I heard many locks behind those doors unlock. Then they slowly crawled back on either side with a mechanical churn. Selena did not wait for them to complete their great task as she strode through once it was open more than a few feet.

"Come." She said simply.

I followed her a few feet behind. The moment I was clear she pressed her watch again and the doors began closing behind us. Mortals would likely make a joke about being locked within these walls but it wasn't worth making. We could break our way out of anything.

The steps descended around a corner and emerged out to the floor plate of her vault.

It took my breath away.

I was in a numb stupor. I stood staring at Eldorado. Atlantis. A preserved Roman Empire. It mattered not what you called it. She had stored history and kept it in a basement.

"Pick up your jaw. We're here for your ring." She stated, strolling through the marvels of the world.

It started with paintings. So many immaculate paintings. Portraits, Impressionism, Romanticism, Abstract–

"Selena..." I breathed, staring at a Picasso that I thought was in the National Gallery–they clearly had a fake. 

Then came the literature. The scrolls with original wax bindings, the stone tablets and the first iterations of human scribe upon stone. I stopped before a set of hieroglyphs carved into a slab of stone as wide as my apartment. Its detail and vastness made me feel small and young where it was ancient.

A hand took the crook of my elbow and yanked me along with her.

"This–this is–how did–what?" I rushed out a blend of nothing, as I turned my head in multiple directions. I was on this earth for over a century and had no idea collections like this even existed. What the hell else did she do?

I was vaguely still aware of her cool hand on my arm as she turned us down another row of artefacts–of art forms–and this time tapestries of every colour and material invaded the space. It was like being thrown into another dimension. They were close enough to brush our shoulders as we passed dozens of carefully woven creations and the stories within them.

When we emerged from the jungle of fabric, the jewellery awaited.

I swallowed.

We had emerged before a dragon's hoard. Blackbeard's stolen trove lost in the depths. Rows of it were illuminated at different levels. Kept and displayed in modern yet tasteful glass cases of hexagons and triangles.

She dropped my arm and cast a hand out before it.

"Choose. Then I'll tell you what it will cost you." She remarked with a dark look.

"Look, I don't want to take anything from you–"

"You won't. You will earn it fairly." She answered, with a shrug. I narrowed my eyes in suspicion, flicking my eyes over the vast fortune.

"How are you so sure I'll find what I'm looking for?"

She rolled her eyes to the moon and back down to me.

"I am bringing you the world, immortal. Open your eyes." She cast a hand out as she spoke and walked towards some of it, "–Mexico, South America, Japan–perhaps you want meteorite metal?" She uttered, nonchalant.

She had a point.

"I'll look." I finally answered.

Satisfied with my answer she walked away. To where within this vault I did not know. What I did know was that this place was unbelievable. It made me wonder how many other souls had witnessed it and still lived. I shuddered the thought away. Selena was yet to reveal what kind of immortal she was to me. 

For now, she was a mystery.