“Ugh… I’m so getting an earful from Henry.”

She said it out loud to herself as she started dragging her feet away from the accident site. All the lectures Henricus Christensen had given her after she turned into a vampire were running wild inside her head. He would give her a short lecture every other night on the chaos occurring if the world came to know of the powers that vampires possessed, and his most favorite topic to drill inside her brain was the value of vampire blood. That man would go on and on and on about the responsibilities vampires had regarding their blood, and how their first priority should always be to never share this preciousness with a stranger.

‘I have spent too much time as a human suppressing my dormant vampire side. It is affecting my decision making capabilities; well that is if I have any.’

Letting out a small sigh, she stepped away from the thinning tree line and started walking towards a familiar looking shop. As she inched closer to it, the words written on the glass door became more and more prominent, “House of Hope.”

‘How long has it been since I was last here?’

After fumbling with her back pocket for a few seconds, she took out a small key and used it to unlock Ruth’s shop before stepping inside.

A few days after returning to their castle in England, Henry informed her of the news that Ruth had left her shop in Faith’s name. Keeping Eve alive, disguising her as Ares’ beloved with his venom, casting a spell on Faith’s blood to create a pull between her and the stone-turned Ares, causing Faith to time travel to save Ares from dying mateless, she still failed to understand what drove the witch to do so much for someone who was not even her own blood.

All of this combined with Felix’s death had made her unable to hold her head high especially whenever the mother or son’s name was brought.

Due to this reason, she hadn’t had the courage to visit Ruth’s shop immediately after coming back from Romania. But, sooner or later, something had to be done about it. She could not leave the shop that Ruth had left to her in ruins.

‘Maybe I should just sell it.’

She thought as she cast a glance on all the scattered papers, weird looking jars and countless unidentifiable items.

‘It is going to take a lot of time to clean all this mess and get rid of all these… things.’

The train of her thoughts stopped as her gaze settled on the table she had once shared with Ruth. Everything was as she had left it; the white paper, the broken onyx, her mother’s picture, nothing had changed.

With a bitter smile on her face, she bent down to pick up her mother’s polaroid picture from the table. Just as her fingers grazed the top of the picture, she saw something glimmering from the corner of her eye.

Something was glinting on the surface of that peculiar white paper that Ruth had taken out of her rusty looking box.

“Huh?”

She remembered when Ruth had cast a spell on her to send her back in time; she had taken a blood drop from her and dropped it on this page. As she cast a spell on Faith, glittering words had appeared on paper. She didn’t know what happened after that as she had gotten thrown into the medieval era before she could read that for herself.

‘Why is that paper shining again?’

With a bit of hesitance, she grasped the side of the white paper in her hand, lifting it up to see it up close.

There were words written on it, multiple words.

She read it out loud realizing it was a letter from Ruth.

She could feel cold, ruthless clutches of guilt once again crawling up her neck,

Gulping inaudibly she paused for a small moment. She remembered Felix telling her that his mother was the royal mage of the court and was often involved in healing people. She made him accompany her during her ventures, even while delivering babies. Ruth had indeed taught her boy well.

A small crimson colored drop slid out from the corner of her eyes as she thought back to how much Felix had suffered and how less he had received in return from his world.

Sniffling, she wiped her tears from her back of her hand before continuing to read Ruth’s letter,

‘Favor?’

She could not help letting a frown form between her brows.

‘The curse that was passed down to me from Gabriel? Was she aware that this curse was going to rob Felix of his beloved?’

‘So she knew…’

She didn’t like the way where it was going.

‘What the hunter takes, the hunter shall return.’

She knew this phrase all too well.

‘New moon. New moon. Is tonight a new moon?’

She whipped her head to the side to stare out of the glass window, her eyes zeroing on the barely-there crescent twinkling in the sky.

“Fuck!”

She felt like all her energy had left her body as she slumped down into the chair in front of her. Unbeknownst to her, she had tightened her hold on the magical letter crinkling its previously smooth corners in the process. Her head was getting clouded, swarming with the thoughts of what she had just done.

‘Did I just bond a young girl with a dead vampire-witch hybrid? Is bonding with a dead person even possible? Will she die because her beloved, Felix, is dead too?’

Pressing her lips together, she passed a hand through her raven hair in frustration before she went on to read the last few words from Ruth,

The letter ended there.

“Oh, God… Oh, God…”

She reread the letter two or three times more to fully grasp the situation yet it still remained difficult for her to wrap her head around this new information.

“I fed that girl. I fed her my blood without knowing anything about her and Felix. He isn’t even alive! What have I done?!”

Subconsciously she had started rubbing the thorny rose-cross pendant hanging from her neck, trying to seek the comfort of Ares’ presence through it.

‘Why is that I whenever I try fixing something up, I end up fucking it up even more?!’

Her eyes were travelling everywhere in the room, trying to find an escape out of this mess when suddenly she looked at the floor length mirror placed in front of the wall she was facing, causing her to freeze in horror.

‘Wait…’

She could see her soul leaving her body as she keenly observed her reflection in the mirror, particularly her irises.

Her eyes no longer held those unique shades of gray and blue in them. There were no specks of cobalt dancing in her eyes either. They had turned pale blue resembling that of her father’s.

“The spell shifted.”

She doubted that the magic could have created a bond for a dead person.

As she sat there in Ruth’s worn out shop, staring into the dust laden mirror from the wall opposite to her, her head was filled with only one inquiry,

“Does it mean that Felix is alive?”