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Liam’s eyes narrow at Elijah. “You,” says the fire Druid. “You gave them the crystal.” He sounds more shocked than angry.

“Why would I do such a thing?” Elijah asks, his voice cold and calculating. “What would be the reason?”

"Because you are no longer committed to our oath," Liam says. "You would rather see us lose, see us forever bound to Dracula, than find us released from our compulsion."

Elijah looks at me worriedly, then back at Liam. "It’s true that I have reservations about a plan we made so very long ago, under wildly different circumstances." He clenches his hands and frowns. "But I would never betray our firm. You must know that. It wasn't me."

Liam scoffs. “I’ve read your journals. Your misgivings.”

“Those were private—”

“You betray our oath.”

“Never.”

This isn't the first time I've heard them talk of oaths, and it makes my stomach cramp at what I suspect is their intention. But I need to know for sure. "What oath?" I ask through trembling lips.

Elijah looks to me, compassion in his eyes. "When we were cursed—"

"Shut the hell up, Elijah," Sebastian says, with a warning.

"She deserves to know. Isn't this why she was hired? To help with the last piece?" Elijah casts a challenging gaze at each of his brothers, and an understanding passes between them. The passion in their eyes drifts away, replaced by a quiet resignation.

He looks back at me, his voice thin and morose. "When we were cursed, the power consumed us. Made us crazy. We lost ourselves in the excess of our gifts, in the excess of each element. It turned us cruel. Monstrous.”

Elijah looks away, gazing at the fire, his words far away. "There are many sins laid at our feet from those days. We set fire to homes, villages, cities. I cannot even count the innocents we killed.

"We couldn't contain our power. Earthquakes erupted wherever we went, uprooting trees that had lived thousands of years. Ravaging towns and collapsing mountains.

"We were the apocalypse incarnate. Flooding followed us, drowning anyone and anything in our path. Destroying livestock and farms. Killing wildlife and humans without discrimination."

Elijah nods in remembrance, his words full of sorrow. "And we brought the winds. They howled and shook the earth, blowing away homes and destroying whatever might be left. We tried to separate, as our collective power was too great, but we just spread our destruction farther. We tried living alone, as far from anyone as we could, but it was no use. We were too strong. Too out of control.”

"And so we made an oath," Derek says, cutting in. "A suicide pact. If we could not control the powers we had been cursed with, we would end our lives and spare those around us. But we are not easy to kill. Only a great power can kill one such as us. We had to create a perfect storm, using all the elements, to end our lives."

"And it almost worked," Sebastian says bitterly.

"But Dracula found you," I whisper.

They nod.

“I gave you control,” says the Count. “I gave you life.”

Liam frowns. "You sucked our power away, leaving us shells of our former selves.” He holds his palm out and a single flame ignites on it, glowing. "This is all that's left of who I was."

I shake my head, confused. "But then…if vampirism solved your problem, why do you still want to end your lives?"

Sebastian looks over to me, his eyes heavy with too many lifetimes of grief.

They say nothing. But I think I understand.

Some sins are too much for anyone to bear. Some crimes too heinous to forget.

I understand.

But I don’t agree.

"So you plan to die when this trial is over?" I ask, my voice cracking. "And I'm supposed to help you somehow?"