When they finally meet again, it's in the heart of a dark Albanian forest a little past midnight. Mist curls around his weathered boots and the hem of her skirts, and the moon is full and bright enough to see by.
He doesn't know she's hiding a feud and a diadem. She doesn't know he's hiding a dagger.
"Helena," he says with pleading eyes. She can see straight through them, and it sickens her. "Your mother hasn't long to live. Wouldn't it be doing the Lady Ravenclaw a mercy to see her?"
"You'd love that," she replies coolly, remembering months of staring and unrequited flirting, then of serenading and openly trying to court her. "You'd love to have me within your grasp again, wouldn't you? I've fought with the Lady Ravenclaw, and I don't intend to resolve it. Go back to England and tell her that from me."
His acting has gotten better, she thinks in a detached way. If she hadn't known him for so many years, she might believe that his distress is genuine. "See reason, please," he begs. "She's been so lonely, and she'll die alone."
"Let her," she says quietly.
"I love you," he whispers, and she can tell that this is his last, most desperate argument. "Would that have any effect on your decision?"
She doesn't hesitate, looking evenly at him and using a tone that is cold, even for her. "None at all."
There is a light behind his dark eyes that she has never seen before, building into something explosive. "You care for no one, do you?" He cries passionately.
She hides her fright at this new side of him with a jab. "I care for some."
"You enjoyed stringing me along for years and running off, leaving me so tightly wound I could barely breathe!" There is a glint of insanity in his eyes and a fury in his voice that scares her into raising her own.
"I didn't string you along, you fell in love and didn't have the strength to get yourself up again! It's not my fault you created some ideal version of me nor that you worked yourself into such a state over it! Leave here!" She is shouting by the end, and her haughty way of looking down at him after she finishes is what seals her fate.
He glares at her, anger rising and flushing his cheeks. "You're not so far above everyone else that you're immortal, Helena!"
"Put that away!" She shrieks, terrified at the dagger he pulls out of his cloak taking a few stumbling steps away. She backs into a tree and screams as loud as she can for help.
None comes, and a few minutes later, two corpses bleed out on the forest floor and two ghosts stare at each other in absolute horror.