As quickly as Caleb had taken her to that hil top, in that beautiful moment which she thought would never end, he had just as quickly departed. She remembered watching him flying off, his huge wings flapping, heading off to Sera.
As if he couldn’t wait another minute to be with her.
Maybe she wasn’t being fair. Of course, he had said it was to be with his son. But had he real y meant it?
And did that even matter? After al , he would be seeing her, regardless. He would be running to answer her letter, the second she came cal ing.
It was hard for Caitlin to know what to think.
It just wasn’t fair, Caitlin thought again, as she bunched up her face, flooding with anger.
Just as quickly, her anger morphed to sadness, as she felt fresh tears streaking down her cheeks.
Where would she go now? What would she do? She had embarked on time travel for Caleb. He had become her mission. And now, with him gone, what was her life’s purpose?
Had she made a mistake to make love her life’s mission?
To make this relationship her central purpose?
At the time, nothing had seemed more important. And deep down, she stil felt as if love was the ultimate purpose in life.
But now, at this moment, in her heartbreak, she couldn’t help feeling as if she’d made a mistake.
As if she should have focused on more important things.
On anything, except love.
*
Caitlin arrived at Caleb’s empty castle at dusk, Ruth limping at her heels. It felt to her like hours had passed since she’d left the hil top. The long walk had cleared her mind, and now she just felt hol owed out, depressed.
Empty. Alone.
Now, instead of looking up at the castle as her new home, as a place she looked forward to fixing up, a place where she could spend her life in peace, she just saw it as a reminder of Caleb, and of his leaving her alone.
As she walked inside, she lit a few candles, just enough to see by. The dim environment suited her mood.
Ruth whined, and Caitlin went instinctively to the room that held the leftover deer; she took some scraps and hand-fed them to Ruth, who snapped them up. For such a smal animal, she was ravenous.
Caitlin herself was not. She had lost al desire for food.
She wandered upstairs alone, trying not to think of Caleb, and made her way to the bedroom.
She sat at the smal , medieval desk, and looked out the window. Before her, the last light of day was fading. In the distance, she could see the moon begin to rise.
Caitlin lit a candle and pul ed it close, as she reached over and opened her journal. This was what she needed right now. The one friend she could turn to, she could voice al her frustrations to. This journal had real y become a trusted friend, the one common denominator in al her travels.
She turned back the heavy leather cover, and the pages crinkled. She looked at her handwriting, flipping through the pages, and noticed how it had already changed. Al the different types of inks, of pens….Some of the pages were soiled by now, covered in dirt stains or wine spil s. The pages had become thick, too, from water stains and dampness. The journal already felt as if it were a thousand years old. She was shocked at how thick it had become.
Had she real y done al this?
The pages were getting completely fil ed, and Caitlin had to keep turning to find a blank page.
Final y, she did. She took out the quil and ink blot she’d found, sharpened the edge, dipped it, and leaned in to write.
*
I don’t know how I’ve let myself end up in this position once again. I promised myself I wouldn’t let it happen, wouldn’t let myself fall in love with someone who might not be there for me. This time, though, it seemed so different.
Caleb had seemed so sincere. And that’s the hardest thing—a part of me still thinks he is. That if that letter hadn’t come, we would still be here, together.
Sera. I hate her. She’s always there, ready to split us apart.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I need to take a step back, to figure out how this all began. How I even got here in the first place.
It all started in New York. New York, my God. It feels like a thousand lifetimes ago. I was just a normal, typical teenager, living with a mom who didn’t like me, and who I didn’t like either, and with an annoying little brother, who I loved. But, of course, nothing was normal. I was a hybrid, or so I would learn. A half-breed. Half human, half vampire. And coming of age at exactly the wrong time.
There was that awful public high school, there was Jonah, the first boy I really had a crush on. There was our first date, my first feeding. I’d been so embarrassed to run out on that date, and even more embarrassed to find myself waking up the next day in a place I didn’t know. And having fed on I didn’t know what.
Overnight, my life changed. I was hunted down by a dark coven of vampires, who captured me, and were determined to kill me. I broke free with Caleb’s help, and that was the first time I met him. I’d loved him from the first moment I saw him—and I haven’t stopped loving him since.
He took me to his people, to his coven, to the Cloisters.
But they refused to have me. I was on my own, and almost killed again, until Caleb saved me again, and turned his back on his own people to take me away.
Then there came the searching for my father, my true father, for the mythical vampire sword that he would lead me to and which would save mankind. Or something like that. The way I saw it, it was really a search to find out who I was. Or what I was.
Caleb and I searched together, from one town to the next, all up the East Coast. From the Hudson Valley to Martha’s Vineyard to Boston. There was our night of riding horses on the beach, of spending the night with him for the first time….It was amazing.
But just as our romance began to take off, danger came for us. I found the Sword, and I was attacked by Sergei, Kyle’s awful sidekick, who stabbed me in the back with it.
Dying, I begged Caleb to turn me.
He listened.
I was brought to Pollepel, an island in the Hudson River, to recover—once again, saved by Caleb. He left me, though, to go back with Sera, to go back to his people. He said it was just to help them, to save them from the war. I had been so jealous. Instead of giving him the room he needed, I believed he loved Sera.
I trained on that island, and met Polly, my best friend, and Aiden, my mentor and teacher, and Blake, a mysterious boy who I loved but never really understood. I trained and fought and became a much better warrior.