“Right.” I nodded, pressing my tongue to my fang. “Guess that makes sense.”
“I fought for him, though.” He touched my hand until I looked at him. “I fought for David's life to be spared. But Drake overruled it—said he had to make an example of David.”
I sunk back a little. “Sorry, Arthur.”
“Don't be sorry.” He patted my hand. “None of this was in your control.”
I looked down at his fingers, then wound mine softly through his, as if he was the boy I missed so much. And it was just as easy as it was touching Jason, but this time, was merely a gesture of friendship. Something it had never been with Jason. “I am sorry he’s dead, you know?”
“Who?”
“Jason.”
He squeezed my hand. “Are you?”
“He was always more human than David. He never even had to try.”
“And you always liked human, didn't you?”
I nodded.
“It was the first thing I noticed in his eyes, after I changed him,” Arthur said.
“What was?”
“The glimmer of compassion—something vampires commonly lose.”
“But he lost it later, didn't he? When David took Rochelle.”
Arthur looked down. “Yes, but not completely.”
I thought about Rochelle for a second. “He described it once, the way he felt to fall in love with a human. If he never lost his compassion, how come falling for a human changed so much in him?”
“Love does that. It opens your world.” Arthur laughed, letting go of my hand to unfold his in front of him, like wiping paint across the sky. “Once you’ve felt love, you notice light in the day you never saw before.”
I smiled. “Yeah. I guess that’s true. It was like that for me when I fell for David.”
“And for Jason?”
I shuffled uncomfortably. “That can't be classed as real love, Arthur.”
“Why?”
“Because he bound me. I was compelled to love him.”
“But you still cared for him—love aside.”
“I…I don't know.”
“What does your heart tell you?”
I asked it, in my mind, and the answer was always the same. “I hate the way David treated him. I hate that David killed Rochelle. I just feel so empty for Jason, and I know that's wrong, I know I should hate him for what he did to me, but, honestly, Arthur, if he were here right now, I’d thank him. And the next time I saw David, I’d punch him in the arm for being such a butt-wipe brother.”
Arthur laughed loudly. “Oh, my dear, if Jason could only have heard you speak those words, I know it would have washed away so much of the agony for what he was made to do to you.” His smile simmered away to thought. “I'm sure he is resting peacefully in his grave now.”
“You buried him?”
“Of course. What else would I have done?”
“Cremated him—like—” I didn't need to say it. Arthur knew who I was talking about.
“I know that is the preferred method after a venom death, but Drake was not there to enforce that law, and I could not bring myself to betray Jason’s wishes.”
“His wishes?”
“Yes. When he was a boy, on his deathbed, we asked him if he would rather cremation or burial.” His voice softened. “He asked that he be buried beside his mother.”
“Is that where he is?”
“No. He’s next to his brother’s empty grave, and that of his aunt.”
“In his old grave?” I nearly shot forward.
“Yes.”
“How could you? He should have had a proper burial.”
“Amara, imagine the paperwork I would have to file in order to commission a new grave for a member of society who was nineteen years of age and died suddenly of unknown causes.”
“But—that’s what your Set does. You forge things, don't you, you have doctors on your side?”
“Yes. But Jason was, by all legal rights, supposed to be cremated. Those who die of venom must be burned. That is the law. Who would I ask to help me write the orders up to bury him, when I was breaking the law by doing that?”
“Didn't you have friends that would lie for you?”
“My girl, if they were my friends, I would not ask them to risk punishment by lying for me.”
“But it’s so wrong. He shouldn't be buried in his old grave—marked as dying in nineteen-sixteen. People should know who he is and what his life meant to those who loved him!”
Arthur softened. “And his memory will live on in those people, for eternity. You're immortal now, Amara, and sometimes you have to act unfavourably in order to survive.”
“I don't like it.”
“I'm sorry. It’s the way things are.”
“No.” I shook my head, sitting straight. “As soon as we have control of the vampires, I'm having him exhumed and buried properly.”
“This bothers you deeply, doesn't it?”
“Yes.” I folded my arms.
“Does it not bother you that the ashes of your husband remain in the cindering base of the fireplace in the room where he died?”
I looked away. “I try not to think about it.”
“Then you will do the same when it comes to Jason’s final resting place.”
“Fine.” I bit my teeth together.
“I must tell you—” Arthur said, breaking the calm song of nature that filled the silence, “—how it warms my heart to know Jason was loved once, before he died.”
“Loved once?” I felt the muscles in my brow fold in. “Rochelle loved him, too.”
Arthur exhaled. “Not when she learned what he was.”
“What do you mean?”
“She came to him, told him she was pregnant. Concerned for hers and the child’s well-being, Jason brought her to me, asked that I deliver news to this girl that her boyfriend and child were vampires.”
“What did she say?”
“She told him to burn in Hell, then tried to kill him with the crucifix she wore around her neck.”
I covered my mouth. “He never told me that.”
“He never told a soul. I only knew because I was there.”
“Did David know?”
Arthur scratched his cheek. “Yes.”
“Before or after he killed her?”
“I suspect…before.”
So many questions simmered through me, like an alternately cold then hot pulse. I wondered if that was the real reason David killed her—because she meant to kill Jason, because she thought of his child—their child—as an abomination. “Poor Jason.”