Chapter 9
POPPY: Please.
ME: I was bored.
POPPY: Bored.
ME: Not bored exactly. Empty. I’ve been doing the same things for a very long time.
Building companies. Managing assets. Attending functions where everyone wants something from me.
It starts to feel like I’m watching my life from outside.
Going through motions. Truth is that I stopped caring about all of it decades ago.
I pause. Delete the word “decades.” Replace it with “years.”
ME: Your request was different. You weren’t pretending. You said exactly what you needed—help getting through something hard with your dignity intact. No euphemisms. No games. Just honesty.
ME: I found that compelling.
POPPY: Compelling enough to fly to the Bahamas with a stranger?
ME: Compelling enough to want to know more.
Another pause. When her response comes, it’s softer somehow. I can hear the change in her voice even through text.
POPPY: That might be the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me. And we haven’t even had our second date yet.
ME: Saturday. When I get back.
POPPY: When do you get back?
I look at the documents on the table. The meetings scheduled for the next five days. The century-old relationships I’m supposed to be maintaining.
ME: Soon.
POPPY: That’s vague.
ME: Friday night. I’ll pick you up Saturday at seven.
POPPY: For our practice date.
ME: For our date.
POPPY: Julian. You can’t just drop the word “practice” and expect me not to notice.
ME: I noticed that you noticed. I’m choosing to ignore it.
POPPY: That’s very mysterious of you.
ME: I’ve been told I’m good at mysterious.
POPPY: By who?
A memory surfaces: Vienna, 1847. A woman telling me I was “insufferably enigmatic” before kissing me in a moonlit garden. I push it down.
ME: Various people. Over the years.
POPPY: That’s even more mysterious. You’re doing it on purpose now.
ME: Perhaps.
POPPY: I should try to sleep. Some of us have mortal limitations like needing rest.
The word “mortal” catches me off guard. She means it casually—a joke about being human. But from where I’m sitting, it lands differently.
ME: Sleep well, Poppy.
POPPY: You too. If you ever actually sleep.
POPPY: Julian?
ME: Yes?
POPPY: Thanks for this. For talking. I know you’re probably busy being important.
ME: I’m never too busy for you.
I send it before doubt sets in.
POPPY: Goodnight, Julian.
ME: Goodnight.
I set down the phone. The conference room feels emptier than it did an hour ago. The documents feel less important.
Marcus would tell me I’m being careless. Getting attached. Making the mistakes I swore I’d never make again.
He’d be right.
I pick up my phone and text my assistant.
ME: Clear my Wednesday and Thursday meetings. I’m flying back early.
The response is immediate.
REBECCA: Even the Hartwell meeting? You’ve been cultivating them for three years.
ME: Reschedule.
REBECCA: They won’t like it.
ME: They’ll survive.
I pocket the phone and stand at the window.
Right now, all I want to do is be with a woman in Los Angeles who can’t sleep because she’s dreading a wedding where her ex will be.
I should walk away. End the arrangement. Refund her money and disappear back into the careful anonymity I’ve built.
Instead, I’m moving my flight up by three days because I can’t stand the thought of her worrying alone.
The first rule of surviving two and a half centuries: don’t get attached.
I’ve already broken it.
The next few days pass in a blur of meetings I barely remember.
I take calls about the Tokyo merger while thinking about the way Poppy laughs—bright and surprised, like joy keeps catching her off guard. I review contracts while remembering how she looked at her grandmother’s photo, soft with grief and love.
We text constantly. Boundaries I should maintain keep dissolving.
She sends me photos of her day: a sunset from her balcony, a latte with foam art she’s proud of, a dress she’s considering for the rehearsal dinner. Too much? she asks.
Not enough, I reply, and I’m not talking about the dress.
On Tuesday, she calls me at midnight her time.
“I have a confession,” she says.
“I’m listening.”
“I googled you.” She sounds guilty. Almost embarrassed. “Like, extensively. After our first date.”
“And what did you find?”
“Almost nothing. Which is somehow more suspicious than finding something terrible.” She pauses. “Julian Blackthorne is basically a ghost. A few business articles. No photos. No social media. No interviews. It’s like you materialized out of thin air five years ago.”
“I value my privacy.”
“No one values their privacy that much. Not in this century.” I hear her shifting—settling into bed, probably. The image in my mind is dangerous. “It’s like you’re hiding from something.”
“Maybe I’m just old-fashioned.”
“You are old-fashioned. The way you talk. The things you reference. You called someone ‘insufferable’ yesterday like it was a normal word people use.”
“It is a normal word.”
“It’s a word my grandmother used.” She hesitates. “Julian? How old are you?”
“Thirty-two.”
“That’s what your profile said. But you don’t feel thirty-two.”
My hand tightens on the phone. “What do I feel like?”
“I don’t know. Older. Not physically—you look thirty-two. But the way you carry yourself. The way you talk about time. Like there’s so much of it that you’ve stopped counting.”
She’s too perceptive. Too smart. She’s going to figure it out eventually—not the supernatural truth, maybe, but enough of the edges to make her run.
“I’ve lived a full life,” I say carefully. “Travel. Business. Experience. It ages you in ways that don’t show.”
“That’s the most non-answer answer I’ve ever heard.”
“I know.”
“But you’re not going to give me more.”
“Not tonight.”
She sighs. “You’re infuriating.”
“I’ve been told.”
“By who? More mysterious ‘various people’?”
“Something like that.”
“I should hang up. I should decide this is too weird and too secretive and too much.”
“You should,” I agree.
“But I’m not going to.”
“Why not?”
She’s quiet for so long I think she might have fallen asleep. Then: “Because whatever you’re hiding, it doesn’t change the way you talk to me. Like I’m interesting. Like what I say matters.”
“It does matter.”
“I know. That’s the problem.” Another pause. “I’m going to sleep now. For real this time.”
“Sleep well, Poppy.”
“Julian?”
“Yes?”
“I’m glad you took this job. Even if you’re mysterious and infuriating and probably hiding something massive.”
“I’m glad, too.”
She hangs up.
I think about how easily she could destroy me.
Not with silver or sunlight or any of the old legends.
Just by leaving.
Wednesday morning, I board my private jet back to Los Angeles.
I land at 4 PM local time. Sunset arrives in roughly an hour, so I devise some pretext to remain within the aircraft in the hangar. Marcus meets me at the airport with updates I barely hear.
“The Hartwell meeting has been rescheduled to next month. They weren’t happy.”
“They’ll survive.”
“The Council sent a status check.”
“Good.”
“Someone has been running background checks on you. Deep searches. The kind that cost money.”
That gets my attention. “Who?”
“We’re not sure yet. The queries came through multiple proxies. European origin, possibly. Or made to look that way.”
“Damien?”
Marcus hesitates. “It’s possible. The pattern matches his style. Patient. Thorough.”
I close my eyes. Of course. Of course he would surface now, when I’m finally letting myself want something.
“Increase monitoring on all my identities. And run a check on Poppy Gable—make sure no one’s been looking at her.”
“Already done. She’s clean. No unusual interest.”
“Keep it that way.”
Marcus nods, but I catch the look on his face. The one that says he knows I’m making a mistake.
He’s probably right.
That evening, I make one more call.
“Julian.” Celeste’s voice carries two hundred years of complicated history. “This is unexpected.”
“I need information.”
“You always need information. What kind?”
“Damien Ashworth. Last confirmed location. Recent activity.”
Silence. When she speaks again, her voice is careful. “You think he’s surfacing?”
“Someone’s been running searches. Marcus thinks the pattern matches.”
“Damien’s been quiet for decades. If he’s making moves now...” She trails off. “Is there someone? Someone he could use against you?”
I don’t answer. I don’t need to.
“Julian.” Her voice sharpens. “Tell me you’re not doing this again.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re doing exactly what you did in Prague. And Vienna. And London. You’re letting yourself care about someone mortal, and Damien is going to—”
“I know what Damien is going to do.”
“Then stop. Walk away. Whatever this is, end it before—”
“I can’t.”
The admission hangs between us. Two centuries of friendship, and I’ve never said those words to her before.
“You can’t,” she repeats. “Julian, you’ve walked away from everything. Companies. Countries. People who loved you. You’ve always been able to walk away.”
“Not this time.”
“Why?”
I think about Poppy. The way she looked at me in her apartment, surrounded by her carefully curated life. The way she laughed when I read her cheat sheet. The honesty in her texts at 3 AM.
“Because she sees me,” I say. “Not the money or the mystery. Just me.”
“She doesn’t know what you are.”
“No.”
“And when she finds out?”
“Then she’ll leave. And I’ll survive it. I’ve survived worse.”
“Have you?” Celeste’s voice is soft. “Have you really?”
I don’t answer.
“I’ll get you information on Damien,” she says finally. “But Julian? Be careful. Whatever this is, whatever she means to you—Damien will find a way to use it.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because the last time you cared about someone this much—”
“I know, Celeste.”
“Damien left Anya’s body on your bed like a gift. You didn’t speak for years after that, Julian. Years of nothing.”
“I remember.”
“And before her—Margaret in the asylum fire. Corinne in the river. You’ve lost everyone you’ve ever let yourself love.”
“I remember everything.”
She sighs. “Then I hope this one is worth it.”
I think about Poppy’s laugh. Her honesty. The way she makes me want to be more than what I am.
“She is,” I say. “She is.”