To my dearest young master,

I considered leaving without a word, and yet the idea does not satisfy me. To imagine you waking tomorrow, calling my name, and having nothing in reply—nothing but questions and emptiness—unsettles my mind.

Do you remember when I once chided you on humanity's peculiarity in wishing to keep reminders of what has been, through the photographic medium, because they do not wish to be forgotten? It is something that only those who must die can understand completely, I fear. Everything must end, and I still hold that it is the inevitability of these endings that make the life before that so captivating. And yet… You must understand me, young master. I left your room with every intention that tomorrow, as I promised, with your revenge behind us, I would take your soul. It is, of course, what we have both decided. The basis of our contract. And do not think that you have displeased me: I still believe that you are the most exquisite meal I may have ever found, though I searched for something comparable for eternity. You are all that and more, and this past decade in your employ has been the happiest time of my life.

I did not exist before I met you. I mean that in the most factual manner: there was a beast, you see, that waited in an eternity of boredom and gnawing hunger, and it was drawn to your pure despair, your spark. I think it saw something kindred in you, but then again—I may have merely picked up Maylene's terrible tendency to romanticize. It was hungry; that is all I know for certain. Hungry and unused to living among humans and older than even it wants to remember. It thought it understood everything there was to know. But I have never been surprised the way every moment on earth since then has surprised me.

There was never another contract precisely like ours. You forced me to use the work of my hands, instead of magic, and it gave me the perception of time. You wanted me to play the part of caretaker, and in so doing, I learned what it is humans value about care. I have met butlers of all caliber, and taken pride in my work. I am a prideful creature by nature, but you gave me something to be proud of: something I could see, and touch, and affect. Something that it hurt to lose. (Even if it was just the terrible work of an afternoon fixing the once-again destroyed wing of the manor after the servants too-vigorous approach to intruder deterrance.)

I want nothing more than to take your soul tomorrow. In the story that we have created, there is no better end for either of us: together, eternally, for one blinding moment. Yet that moment will end, and you will be nothing more than food filling my belly, and a memory I will soon forget. Even now I can feel the beast stirring, eager for its pound of flesh. When I think forward, I realize that nothing discomfits me more than to imagine that moment: the moment where you will mean nothing to me anymore. The moment where it returns.

You have been privy to spite yourself, young master, so do not judge me too harshly when I say that it is spite that now drives me. Not against you, but against it: and against its utter indifference. Here, you see, I have finally realized why it is that humans do not want to be forgotten. I don't wish my death to be its triumph. I boil with anger at the thought of giving it what it wants.

These thoughts and more tormented me, as I heard your breathing, with the evenness of sleep. You have had no nightmares tonight: I am glad. If you had had one, I would not have been able to stay away, and if I saw you again in such beautiful anguish I would not have been able to make this choice. Any moment more! What is a few more hours until dawn, until you open your eyes and gaze at me one last time? It is everything to me. If you allowed me, I would not let go; but it would be to neither of our credit, in the end.

Such a terrible thing has happened to me, the irony might make me laugh, was I in a jesting mood. You have given me everything, you see: everything to lose. And now, for the first time, I can feel the passage of time rolling inexorably forward not as a mere feather-brush, a dizzying whirl against the unchanging center, but as a river in which I am tossed at cruel whims towards the finality of the sharp rocks below.

This name, unpleasant as it may be, has been mine for so long now. When you gave it to me, I had no concept of what would become of me, what art you would create from the nothingness. Once you die, Sebastian Michaelis will be no more, and I will be nothing once again. Therefore, in search of a dignified end, I have stolen from you yours: I hope you can forgive me the affront. I said it understands hunger: that and little else. So I will make all this matter, somehow, to it. I will give these years, and these memories, the only kind of permanence I am capable of giving, by stealing from it it's satisfaction, and it's prize. The hunger clutches at me, opens up inside me like an abyss, but to eat your soul is not the prize I want to take with me any longer. Not that it matters; for I will be gone, and all my confused, utterly mortal concerns with me.

Be angry with me, I beg. Rail at me, for I am a fool and a coward, to leave you. Perhaps it would have been better for us if I had stayed with you, tonight, as you almost asked. If I had spent the rest of these meagre hours caught in the impossibility of your life, instead of descending to thoughts of my own. I don't know. If there is anything that I have learned from you, it is that there is so much that I don't know.

I must not put it off any longer. The beast is getting impatient, and the sky is going grey at the edges, putting a washed-out uniformity to the stark trees and the bare-walled room that will soon no longer be mine. I'm sorry I could not give you proper notice before quitting, for no butler worth his salt would do such a thing. I hope it doesn't inconvenience you overmuch.

Yours,

Sebastian

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