Page 15 of The Flesh Remembers

When the light faded, the room was eerily quiet. The cultists lay sprawled across the floor, their bodies slick with sweat and their breaths ragged. Eleanor collapsed onto the cushions, her body trembling with aftershocks.

James stepped down from the dais, his movements smooth and deliberate. His eyes were brighter than before, his skin tinged with a faint, unnatural glow. He knelt beside her, his hand brushing her cheek.

“You’ve done it,”

he murmured, his voice rich and commanding.

“You’ve brought me back.”

Eleanor looked into his eyes, tears flooding her eyes.

“James, are you…alive, truly alive?”

He smiled, but there was a darkness in his expression, a shadow of the man he once was. “Alive,”

he echoed.

“And yours. Forever.”

But as he pulled her into a possessive embrace, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had shifted irreparably, that the man she had loved was now something else entirely.

Even as they stood embracing, she felt James’s arms grow tighter and tighter around her body, his breath became erratic and heavy, and she felt tremors move through his body.

No, something was not right. Not at all.

Marian’s note had been brief, almost cryptic: Come to the infirmary. He’s stirring again.

Her heart pounded as she pushed open the door, the sight within stopping her breath.

James stood at the centre of the room, his decayed form supported by the galvanic apparatus. Sparks danced along the rods, their blue light illuminating the hollows of his face. He was awake, or something close to it. His head tilted slightly, his eyes dark and watchful, but his body barely moved.

Marian was close, too close. Her hands hovered just above James’s chest, trembling as though caught in some unseen force. Her face was flushed, her lips slightly parted, and her gaze locked onto his with a mix of awe and trepidation. Eleanor saw something familiar in the way that Marian was looking at him, and it caused a spark of jealousy to flare within her.

“Marian,”

Eleanor said sharply, stepping inside.

Marian startled, her hands snapping back as though burned. She turned, guilt flashing across her face, but it quickly gave way to something more complicated.

“He spoke to me,”

Marian said, her voice low and trembling.

“He said my name.”

Eleanor’s stomach twisted.

“You shouldn’t be alone with him. He’s…unstable.”

Marian let out a short, bitter laugh, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

“Unstable? You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t feel it every time I’m near him, the pull, the hunger, the… wrongness of it all?”

Eleanor frowned, stepping closer.

“Then why?”

“Why am I here?”

Marian interrupted, her voice rising. She turned to face Eleanor fully, her eyes brimming with unshed tears.

“Why do I keep returning to him, even though every instinct tells me to run?”

She laughed again, a shaky, broken sound.

“Because I can’t help it. None of us can, can we? He’s not just a man anymore. He’s something… other. Something that draws you in, even when you know it’ll destroy you.”

Eleanor froze, her blood pounding loudly in her ears.

“Marian, you’re not making sense.”

Marian shook her head, tears spilling down her cheeks.

“I wish I weren’t. I wish I could look at him and see only a patient. But I don’t.”

She took a shaky step closer to James, her hands reaching towards his chest again.

“I see him, Eleanor. I see the man he was. I see the man he could be if we succeed. And I…”

Her voice broke.

“I don’t know what I feel anymore.”

Marian’s skin flushed, and a fine sheen of sweat covered her face and chest. She opened the neck of her dress as if desperate to remove the tight restriction of her clothing.

Eleanor’s throat tightened. She wanted to pull Marian away, to shake her out of whatever trance had taken hold, but she hesitated. She knew all too well the allure of James’s presence, how he seemed to occupy some liminal space between life and death, love and obsession. She knew as well that this place and what they were doing here were affecting all of them. They were all becoming something other than what they had been in the past.

“What do you feel?”

Eleanor asked softly, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

Marian's gaze flicked to James.

“I feel… guilt. For wanting him. For seeing him as more than a patient, more than your… your lover.”

She let out a shaky breath, her hands trembling as she pulled them away from James.

“But I also feel drawn to him. To the power he represents. To the possibility that he could love me, too. I don’t understand these feelings, Eleanor. I don’t want to feel this way. Truly. But I can’t stop myself.”

Eleanor’s heart ached with a mix of pity and anger.

“Marian, he’s not capable of that right now. He’s barely holding onto what’s left of himself.”

Marian turned to her, her eyes blazing.

“And whose fault is that? You’re the one who’s been feeding him, sacrificing everything for him. You’ve made him into this… this thing that none of us can look away from.”

“That’s not fair,”

Eleanor said, her voice rising.

“Isn’t it?”

Marian shot back. She gestured to James, her voice trembling with frustration.

“You think I don’t see it? The way he looks at you. The way you look at him. He’s consuming you, Eleanor. And maybe that’s what he needs to return fully, but it’s destroying you in the process. And the rest of us… We’re just collateral damage.”

Eleanor opened her mouth to respond, but the words died in her throat. She couldn’t deny that James had become an obsession, not just for her but for everyone in the clinic.

Marian turned back to James, her fingers brushing against his chest. He stirred slightly, his pale eyes flicking to hers with an almost predatory gleam.

“I just want to understand,”

she whispered, her voice barely audible.

“I want to know what it feels like to be seen by him. To be… wanted by him.”

Eleanor’s stomach turned as she watched Marian lean closer, her lips brushing against James’s collarbone. The intimacy of the gesture sent a surge of jealousy and revulsion coursing through her veins.

“Stop this,”

Eleanor retorted, “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

Marian ignored her, her kisses trailing along James’s chest. Her hands moved with reverence, tracing the lines of his decayed body as though he were a holy relic. James let out a low, guttural sound, his hand twitching before resting on her shoulder.

The room seemed to freeze as James moved. His fingers curled weakly into Marian’s hair, and his gaze locked onto hers with an intensity that made Eleanor’s breath catch.

“Eleanor,”

he rasped, his voice low and fractured.

“Why… are you fighting her?”

Eleanor’s chest tightened.

“James, she doesn’t understand. She”

“She feels it,”

James interrupted, his voice thick with something Eleanor couldn’t quite place.

“The pull. The need.”

Marian released a shaky breath, her tears mingling with the flush on her cheeks. “I do,”

she whispered.

“I feel it. I can’t stop feeling it.”

Eleanor stepped forward, her fists clenched tightly at her sides.

“This isn’t real, Marian. It’s the rituals, the machines, the… the madness of this place. It’s not him.”

Marian turned to her, her face a mask of anguish.

“Then why does it feel so real?”

James’s grip tightened on Marian’s shoulder, and he let out a low, guttural growl.

“Because it is,”

he said, his voice dark and commanding.

“It’s more real than anything else.”

Eleanor felt her resolve crack as James’s dark gaze shifted to her. In that moment, she realized she wasn’t just fighting for him, she was fighting for herself, and for everyone else who had fallen under his spell.

James grabbed a handful of Marian’s hair and forced her head back, exposing the soft white flesh of her neck. Marian let out a soft whimper at the act, though Eleanor could not tell if it was in submission or fear. Perhaps it was both.

“Come, Eleanor,”

James beckoned her with his pale hand. “Help me.”

Eleanor began to shuffle closer to the two of them, though she had not even realized her feet were moving. She found herself incapable of resisting and wasn’t certain if she genuinely wanted to resist. Whatever dark path James was on, she had put him there, and she could not abandon him alone in the dark by himself. She would have to venture after him, no matter the depths.

“Taste her, Eleanor,”

James whispered as Eleanor stopped short beside him. He motioned to Marian and her exposed throat.

“What are you asking of me, James?”

Despite her hesitation, Eleanor could feel the familiar stirrings of desire flicker deep within her.

“Taste her, Eleanor,”

James repeated, pulling her closer with his other hand.

Eleanor stepped closer to Marian, her breath coming in short pants now. Marian was moaning softly; her eyes closed in reverence for whatever was to come. Eleanor did not doubt that Marian would do anything James commanded her in that moment. Such was the power he seemed to hold over them all.

Eleanor let her lips fall onto the other woman’s throat, and she began to kiss the warm flesh of her throat. Marian moaned louder, and James tightened his grip on her hair with a grunt.

“Taste, Eleanor. Taste her flesh.”

In confusion, Eleanor looked up at James. Isn’t that what she was doing? She kissed Marian again more earnestly, her tongue running up and down the other woman’s neck. She felt Marian shiver beneath her mouth, and Eleanor felt a corresponding throb between her legs at the movement.

“No!”

James shouted weakly, his voice deep and rasping.

“Like this,”

he stated, and then proceeded to pull Marian close to him. He pulled her throat to his blackened mouth and, with teeth still stained with the dirt of his own grave, he bit into Marian’s pale skin.

Eleanor gasped as she saw blood trickle down the nurse’s neck from the wound James had made with his teeth. At that moment, he seemed more animal than human. But the pull of him was too strong. It felt as though they each held a powerful magnet, and that magnetic force was pulling them closer and closer together as it was destined always to do.

“James,”

Eleanor breathed as she allowed his right arm to pull her closer towards him.

“Taste, Eleanor, taste her devotion.’ James bent his head to Eleanor and kissed her deeply, his tongue forcing its way into her mouth like a conqueror to a fallen nation. Eleanor tasted Marian’s blood on his tongue and though the thought of it made her stomach clench in disgust, she could not pull back. She accepted what James gave her and would undoubtedly take more before this dark journey ended.

James then pulled Marian forward, his grip on her hair still tight, and brought her lips to theirs. The three of them entered into an unholy kiss of entwined mouths and tongues, and the blood of Nurse Marian Collins passed from one to the other.

After a long moment of nothing but the sound of their mouths seeking one another and the soft moans, gasps, and strange guttural groans, James finally pulled away first. The two women both cried out in dismay as if their drug had suddenly been denied to them.

“Eleanor,”

James said weakly, “You must give me more. I need more to sustain me.”

James' breathing was laboured, and a fine sheen of perspiration covered his forehead.

“What do you need me to do?”

Eleanor asked him, feeling helpless, able to do nothing but watch him struggle to cling to this life thrust back upon him.

“Take her, darling. I need you to be the strong one now and then give that strength to me.”

Eleanor glanced at Marian, watching her lips tremble and her breath come in fast little pants. A slow blush crept across her cheeks and the tops of her breasts. Eleanor could not deny that she strongly desired Marian, particularly after their shared stolen moments. She could do this. She could be the strength that James needed.

“I will give you whatever you need,”

Eleanor said softly, kissing James’s cold lips.

James reached out, grabbed Marian’s wrist, and pulled her closer to him.

“Command her, Ellie. Make her yours.”

Eleanor swallowed hard, thinking of the right thing to say or do. She eventually took a deep breath and then leaned over James’s prone body and delivered a resounding slap to Marian’s cheek.

“Look at me!”

Eleanor said in a firm voice.

“Don’t look at him.”

Eleanor looked down at James to gauge his reactions. He was smiling and seemed pleased. He nodded his head, which gave her the confidence to keep going.

“Remove your blouse, Marian,”

Eleanor said with an authoritative command she had never used before. The force of it even surprised her.

Marian, for her part, seemed bewildered at first. Still, slowly, as Eleanor began to give her another command and then another, she began to show a wild eagerness bordering on mania.

“Yes, Eleanor,”

Marian said softly, her eyes downcast. She quickly removed her blouse and corset and wore nothing except her white cotton chemise.

“Everything, Marian.”

Eleanor watched as Marian removed her chemise and exposed her white pert breasts. The nipples were a dark rose colour, puckering and hardening almost immediately in the chill air.

“Come here then,”

Eleanor beckoned Marian to her side of the dias. Marian eagerly obeyed her and moved quickly to her side.

Eleanor ran her fingers through Marian’s fine brown curls, her fingers drifting softly, lovingly from her hair down to her cheeks and over her rosy lips.

“What do you need, James?”

Eleanor asked James as he watched them intensely. She wanted to give him exactly what he needed to become strong, but she wasn’t sure what that was.

“Make her submit to you, Ellie. Take her as I will take you.”

Eleanor nodded softly, her hands still entwined in Marian’s hair. She cupped Marian’s face, bending close to her and kissing her lovingly. It was a gentle kiss full of promise, but it did not linger. Marian moaned softly as if begging for another without words.

Eleanor then quickly grabbed a handful of her brown hair and yanked her head back hard. On the other hand, she slapped Marian across the face again, leaving a red splotch across her left cheek.

“Again!”

James whispered to her.

Eleanor slapped Marian again across the other cheek this time. Then, with a force she scarcely knew she possessed; she yanked Marian towards her and crushed her mouth onto Marian’s. The two women kissed passionately as James watched them with a satisfied smile on his lips.

‘Fuck her, Eleanor!”

James cried out to her with a vulgarity that she had never heard from him.

“Bend over the dias,”

Eleanor told her, indicating that she should drape herself over James’s prone form.

Eleanor picked up a long, smooth metal rod used to conduct electricity and slapped it against her palm. It would do, she thought.

“Lift your skirts, now,”

Eleanor commanded Marian, pushing Marian’s head and torso down further until her face was only inches away from James’s erection.

Marian did as Eleanor told her to and lifted her heavy skirts, exposing her legs and smooth backside. Marian wore no bloomers beneath her skirt, and Eleanor wondered if Marian had deliberately removed them, hoping for this very thing to happen.

“Spread your legs!”

she said, slapping Marian’s backside with the metal rod, causing her to cry out.

Eleanor took the metal rod and began to rub it up and down Marian’s wet slit. She found Marian’s swollen clitoris and began to rub her there in slow circles. Marian cried out in pleasure, pushing back against the rod as Eleanor continued her assault.

‘Do it, Ellie, fuck her!”

James cried out, stronger now than he had sounded before. Perhaps it was working after all.

Eleanor moaned wantonly as she felt the pendant at her throat pulsating, the heat of it almost searing her skin.

But instead of fearing the pain of it, Eleanor welcomed it, falling deeper and deeper into this void of pleasure where only James and her pleasure mattered.

Even Marian was only a tool used for their desires at that moment.

Eleanor pushed the metal rod in bit by bit, listening to Marian cry out in both pleasure and pain as the thick rod filled her.

Once she was completely filled, Eleanor pulled it back out and thrust it back into her more forcefully than before, relishing the moans and cries that came from Marian’s parted lips.

As Eleanor continued to thrust the rod in and out of her wet hole, James grabbed his hard member and guided it to Marian’s mouth.

As Marian moaned, James pushed the tip of it into her mouth, where she eagerly began to take it as deeply as she could.

For a moment, there was nothing but silence and the wet sounds of sex filling the room.

Then, Marian began to cry out loud, arching her back and thrusting back against the rod.

“I think she’s coming, darling!”

James moaned, his head on Marian’s head as she continued to suck him.

Marian gave one last loud cry, her entire body shaking as the orgasm flooded her with the intensity of a broken dam.

Eleanor removed the rod and slipped the end into her mouth, not knowing why, so she could taste Marian’s sweet juices.

Then, without warning, James grabbed her hand and pulled her close to him.

“I’m coming, Elie! I feel stronger, I do!”

Eleanor bent down to James, their lips only a hair’s breadth away.

“I love you, Ellie,”

he said to her in such a heartbreakingly normal, ordinary voice. He was still in there, her James. For a fleeting moment, she could see it in his eyes.

“I love you, too,”

Eleanor whispered, tears clouding her eyes though she would not let them fall. Eleanor bent her head and kissed James, his lips cold, still tasting of the earth, but she did not care. She held onto him tightly as he came, his body seizing, his muscles clenching, his cry filling her in such a way that she wondered for a moment if she had felt that orgasm too.

After it was over and they all had dressed and regained some of their composure, Marian and Eleanor noticed how tired James now looked.

“Oh, James, you should rest, darling.”

Eleanor straightened herself, forcing calm into her trembling hands.

“Yes,”

Marian agreed.

“Come and lie down.”

The two women guided him away from the machine, his weakened body leaning heavily on them as they crossed to the cot in the corner.

“Yes, rest.”

He muttered, his eyes fluttering shut before they eased him down. They pulled a blanket over his pale form, though Eleanor doubted he could feel the cold anymore. His breaths were shallow, his chest rising and falling like the ghost of a storm.

Eleanor turned to Marian, her gaze catching on the blood still trickling from the bite mark on her neck. The sight sent a pang through her.

“We need to talk about what happened,”

she said softly.

Marian’s face paled, her expression tightening as shame seeped into her features.

“Please, Eleanor, don’t speak of it if you're my friend.”

Her voice cracked, barely audible.

“Mar-”

Eleanor began, stepping toward her.

“Please!”

Marian’s sudden cry echoed through the dim room.

“Let’s forget it! I beg you, Eleanor, please!”

Tears streamed down her face, her hands clinging to Eleanor’s arm, trembling with desperation.

Eleanor hesitated, studying the terror etched into her friend’s expression. Finally, she nodded, her voice barely above a whisper.

“All right. As you wish. But know I’m here for you.”

Marian’s fingers slowly released their grip, and she touched Eleanor’s cheek softly. A faint smile flickered across her lips, though it was fragile, like the dying embers of a fire.

The moment hovered, heavy and brittle.

Then, Eleanor heard it—a faint and indistinct voice drifting down the hall like a breeze that shouldn’t exist. It was distant yet unmistakable, a whisper brushing the edges of her mind.

Her breath hitched, and she stiffened, her gaze snapping to the doorway. The voice came again, clearer this time, a low murmur that sent a shiver racing down her spine. It wasn’t James. It wasn’t Marian. And yet, it called her name.

“Eleanor…”

She blinked, her chest tightening as the sound faded into silence. Her heart pounded in her ears, and for a moment, she convinced herself it was nothing, a trick of her tired mind. But deep down, the unease lingered like a shadow she couldn’t shake.

“What is it?”

Marian asked, her brow furrowing as she followed Eleanor’s wide-eyed stare toward the empty hallway.

“Nothing,”

Eleanor whispered, forcing the word out as her pulse raced.

“It’s nothing.”

But as the silence pressed in around her, she wasn’t sure which unnerved her more, the voice she thought she heard, or the possibility that it was all in her head.

Excerpt from the diary of Dr. Eleanor Ashcroft

I no longer recognize myself. I was a doctor, grounded in science, yet now I am surrounded by shadows and rituals that defy all reason. James has returned, but is it truly him? Or something else?

The clinic feels alive in ways it shouldn’t. Shadows move where they shouldn’t, faint whispers call my name, and just last night, I saw a figure by the window, gone the moment I turned. My mind insists it’s fatigue, yet deep down, I wonder.

The rituals demand more of me each day, leaving marks I can’t see but feel on my soul. Marian avoids my gaze, her shame palpable after what transpired with James. Tonight, she begged me to forget it, and for her sake, I relented.

But how can I forget when the shadows breathe, when the voices haunt me? How can I ignore the growing sense that whatever we’ve returned isn’t entirely human?

I fear losing myself, my reason, my identity, perhaps even my sanity. What will be left of me when this is over?

The Thing that Feeds on Your Fear and Desire

The moon hung like a voyeur, its silver gaze piercing through shattered panes, illuminating the attic with a cold, unyielding scrutiny. Its light sliced the shadows precisely, as though carving out secrets hidden within the oppressive silence. The attic seemed to breathe in that silence, alive and heavy, pressing against Eleanor’s skin with an almost deliberate weight, daring her to disturb its stillness. Her heart thundered in her chest, each pulse reverberating in her ears, as if the room amplified the sound, a rhythmic echo that felt less like her own and more like the heartbeat of the space around her.

James was there, and he had summoned her to him. Marian had told her a few hours after leaving James to rest that he wished to see her in the attic. He was waiting there for her. Marian could not hide the disappointment at not being summoned by James, and Eleanor knew it must have been difficult for her to give the message. But she also knew Marian would have done anything James asked of her. Such was the hold he seemed to have over her.

James stood with his back to her, his broad shoulders trembling, his fingers clawing through his dishevelled blonde hair. The air around him crackled, electric and feral, pulling at her like an unseen force. The rhythmic sound of his laboured breathing was too human and intimate, yet there was an undercurrent, something guttural, animalistic.

And then she saw it.

A startled exhalation escaped her lips, caught between shock and something darker as her gaze fell. James’s hand moved with a deliberate rhythm, each stroke of his hard cock was raw, desperate, obscene. The low, guttural groans that spilled from his lips filled the room like a predator’s growl, and the sight rooted her in place, her body frozen in a mix of horror and fascination.

He wasn’t hiding. He wasn’t ashamed.

This wasn’t the James she knew; this was something primal, untethered, a creature lost in its ravenous hunger. Her voice, small and trembling, betrayed her.

“James.”

He stilled.

The name lingered in the air like a forbidden incantation, and his entire body tensed, his muscles coiling with dangerous precision. Slowly, excruciatingly, he turned. The glow of his eyes burned through the darkness, their cold light searing into hers with an intensity that stole her breath.

He didn’t stop her gaze from traveling over him, didn’t conceal the raw evidence of his need. If anything, he dared her to look, his presence exuding a dominance that silenced reason and ignited something far more dangerous.

“You shouldn’t be here,”

he growled, the sound more beast than man.

Her legs felt like lead, her body betraying her instinct to flee.

“Marian gave me your message,”

she whispered, her voice fragile.

“I came as soon as I could.”

He stepped toward her, his bare feet silent against the wooden floor. His scent hit her: damp earth, sweat, the sharp scent of electricity, and something darker, almost metallic, like blood. The space between them shrank, and every movement was deliberate and premeditated.

The tension was suffocating when he stopped before her, mere inches away. His hand, still slick and glistening with the evidence of his lustful actions, rose, brushing against her cheek. The touch burned, leaving a phantom trail of heat in its wake.

“Ah, yes, I had forgotten that I had asked Marian to bring you to me. My mind is not…I cannot recall things…sometimes.”

James lifted his head, and his eyes seemed to search the heavens for an answer to some silent question that plagued him. His pale blue eyes were bloodshot and tired-looking as they filled with tears. He looked away abruptly.

“This is what I am now,”

he rasped, his voice a broken snarl.

“A monster. A beast that takes, devours, destroys.”

Her eyes welled with tears, and her chest tightened under the weight of his words.

“You’re wrong,”

she said, her voice cracking. I see you, James. The real you. You’re still in there.”

James was in the habit of leaving her notes. Notes of all types. Love notes, notes of encouragement, notes of praise, notes of desire. Eleanor would wake each morning to find a note pushed through the letterbox in the front door. She would eagerly race downstairs before she would do anything else to see what sort of note he had left for her that day. It was her favourite moment of each day.

One note was left not long before that awful day in the park. Eleanor wondered what had prompted him to leave it and later wondered if perhaps he hadn’t known somehow that he was not long for this world.

Dearest Ellie,

I’m lying in bed as I write this, knowing I shall see you soon, and it brings such a smile to my face. You are why I rise each morning, and I cannot imagine a life without you. And it is my greatest joy to know that you feel the same.

But please promise me, El, that if anything were to ever happen to me, you would move on with your life. Promise not to try to fix things or wallow in guilt or sadness. I couldn’t bear to think of you unhappy in this life, even if I am no longer here to see it.

I am with you always, even if I no longer exist on this plane. And we will always be together.

Yours forever,

James

Eleanor glanced away from James and quickly wiped the tears filling her eyes. He had asked her to move on without him, and she had denied this wish. Now, he was something far different from what he had been in life. Eleanor felt guilt like a bellows squeezing all the air out of her lungs.

His laughter was sharp and cruel, a jagged edge against her resolve.

“What you see,”

he snarled, leaning closer, his breath hot against her ear, “is the thing that feeds on your fear. Your desire. You.”

The word hung between them like a noose, tightening around her throat. Her pulse thundered in her veins, and for a moment, she thought she might collapse under the weight of James’s presence.

But she didn’t.

“Then take it,”

she said, her voice trembling but defiant.

“If that’s what you need, take it. I give it to you of my own free will.”

His eyes burned, their glow intensifying as his lips curled into something between a snarl and a smile. Without warning, he moved, his hand snapping to Eleanor’s arm with inhuman speed and force. She gasped as he spun her, pinning her against the wall. The cold stone bit into her back, but it was nothing compared to his searing heat.

His nose brushed against her long black hair, his breath hot against her neck. When he spoke, his voice was a guttural rasp, dripping with possession.

“You don’t understand what you’re offering,”

he said, his lips grazing her skin.

Her body quivered, her hands weakly pushing against his chest.

“I understand,”

she whispered, though her voice betrayed her doubt. Did she truly understand what she was giving to him? Could she accept what he would take from her, what he might turn her into, even if she offered it to him?

He growled low, the sound vibrating through her, igniting a dangerous fire in her core. His lips moved lower, brushing the curve of her neck. His teeth grazed her skin, not enough to break it, but enough to promise pain. Her pulse thrummed beneath his mouth, and she felt the moment his control wavered.

But the crash shattered everything.

Excerpt from the diary of Dr. Eleanor Ashcroft

James is here, yet he feels so far away. The man I loved was warm and whole, but is now fractured and shadowed. The rituals that brought him back have left scars on us, and I fear what we unleashed may never be undone.

Lord Blackwood watches everything, his calm words masking darker intentions. James, I suspect, is merely a pawn in his grand design, though I cannot yet see the full scope of his plans. The thought chills me. Have I sacrificed too much for this monstrous game?

Marian remains my ally, though she carries her burdens. Tonight, she begged me to forget what happened with James, tears trembling on her cheeks. I agreed, but I worry her shame may drive her away. I cannot lose her. I need her strength as much as she needs mine.

I love James desperately, but my doubts grow each day. The man we brought back is no longer the man he was. As shadows close in and whispers linger, I cannot help but wonder: How much of my soul will I lose before this is over?