Page 18 of Nocte

Sometimes the itch for fresh air is too great, and I creep up onto the roof instead. Or sometimes I want solitude and head into the deepest depths of the catacombs where few venture.

Only Day will visit me now and again, and on those three important days of the year, I will be seen by Lord Master. Otherwise, the workers leave food for me at the mouth of the bell tower, but I never see or know any by name. One of them must have helped care for me when I was younger. Stern hands and a blurred face are all I can remember. Should remember. We live in two different worlds, much like how the mortals dwell alongside us in their own realm, oblivious to our very existence.

My heart pounds. It’s forbidden to think of it—at least for me. The other races are feasibly allowed to transverse between the two worlds but there is a process.

What that entails, exactly? I’m not allowed to know. Fae, lunaria, and vamryre alike can leave and see those things mortals hold dear.

Once, a long time ago, I found a volume covered in dust at the very back of the shelf. I lied before—not everything has a place. It’s a lie I tell myself; maybe one day I will believe it.

I have to believe it.

But this volume did not belong. I knew it with one look. The cover, though battered leather, was once a glossy sheen embossed with the title: sketchbook. On the first page, depicted in color and inked lines, was a building the owner thought important enough to transcribe in breathtaking detail. Not just any building, either. It wasn’t composed of the stark gray stone that forms the walls of the Citadel. It was vibrant. White marble columns and gleaming steps.

Beyond that page was a wealth of other sins to discover: one of them being defacement, written in someone’s hand on the inside cover.Collin Webber.A stranger who so permanently marked what he once saw as his. Owned. Possessed. My guess is that he created the images that fill the rest of the narrow book. Pages upon pages depicting the most wondrous things. Drawings. Paintings—some scribbled as belonging to The Museum of Art, the very building on the first page.

I’d never seen anything so bold. Beautiful. My favorite page is so worn it’s nearly broken free of the binding. Still, I flip to it almost every day and gape. The use of color was wild and seemingly random, and yet the image was perfectly clear: a park with various people spread throughout, each one as lively as the next.

Artwork, I learned this collection was called. A sketchbook.

Never would I admit as much out loud—it would be a sin to—but that book contained images of the most beautiful things I’ve ever viewed. Collin Webber was the owner of his own realm contained in pages. More beautiful than the Lord Master, even. All of it created by mortal hands with nothing more than pigment and brushes.

I’d give anything…

Wait.I clear my head and shake it firmly. I own nothing. But if I did. Well, I would give anything to see such artwork in person. To look upon the strokes up close. Are they as realistic in person as they are in the drawings?

I will never know. Only fae are allowed to leave the realm, them and the other races. Even that vamryre could leave if he wanted to. Maybe he has.

I couldn’t ask…

But to do so would be to humor his request. Tonight. I don’t want to.

Yet, I do. The question won’t leave me alone. It buzzes around and around in my head, and then I remember that, yes, he has. Not only has this vamryre been in the mortal realm, but he lived there once. Was mortal once.

He would know better than any.

Asking him would be wrong. Forbidden. Though, picturing those wild red eyes, I doubt he would mind. He radiates a wild energy that seems antithetical to how vamryre should be, according to the texts I’ve read. He has none of their poise. Their aloof mystique. If anything, he seems unhinged, like a bloodthirsty lunarian. Yet, his beauty alone designates him as one of the blood-sworn few. I wonder who his maker is. Not Nataniel, known for his quiet patience and icy wisdom. Clearly, he is the spawn of another.

I shouldn’t let thoughts of him persist—but they do.

All day, he lingers in my skull, taking up space for useful knowledge. Obedience and honesty are my two redeeming traits. I have chores to tend to. Silence to maintain. I must remain hidden.

But as night falls, I am there, perched on the edge of the sloping roof, watching and waiting.

He won’t come. The vamryre played a cruel trick. Cruel because even he knows what the rest of the fae do. I’m tainted. Unworthy. Unwanted.

“Little fae.”

I startle, swaying on the edge of a tile. As if born from the darkness itself, the vamryre appears at the base of the tower. His eyes glitter in the dark, his hands empty.

“Jump down to me,” he commands. “I’ll catch you.”

“Liar.” I don’t know where the refusal comes from. My legs still smart. I had to use parts of my robe as makeshift bandages. Even so, it isn’t my place to refuse anyone, even a vamryre.

Aware of that, he smiles, his teeth bared. “Come. I won’t bite.”

He will. I can see the desire displayed clearly in his gaze. His teeth practically quiver with the urge to clamp down over flesh.

Yet, he seems restrained as well. As if he’s balanced on tiptoe, ready to spring into action for another reason.

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