Today's my birthday so you have to be nice to me and say lots of nice things. It's, like, the law.
Also, was PMed about the Italian in the last chapter. Portare male gli anni means literally that something carries the years poorly, but actually means it hasn't aged well. There is a phrase I used here that's inghiottire il rospo, which literally means to swallow a toad, but the English idiom equivalent is to eat crow.
Cuore amaro- GAIA
Per favore- Nyv
I wasn't alone for long. Lorenzo fell silent as well, and I lifted my head at the sound of the steps approaching, light and lithe and distinct enough that I recognized them immediately. This wasn't some transient young vampire skipping around the mountains, it was someone who had been around long enough that I had known them from my own time in Volterra.
In fact, he had been around for far longer than I had.
By the time he emerged from one of the doors of the houses, I knew well enough to shut myself off from the pain as best as I could and stand, ready to greet him.
"Felix," I said, mustering up another forced smile.
He had to duck through the doorway, too towering to fit through the conventionally sized opening. It had only been a few months since I had last seen him, but be it months or centuries, his size still baffled me. It was the reason Aro had changed him, after all. Any human of that size would make a formidable vampire, and Felix had certainly seemed to have cemented his place in the inner coven of the Guard.
His hair was black and cropped short, putting his wide face and thick neck on full display. His skin had an olive complexion that seemed at odds with his pale coloring and, unlike Lorenzo's clearly present hunger, Felix's eyes were a sparkling crimson, made even brighter by his excited grin. His robe charcoal grey robe hung thick and heavy over his broad shoulders, entirely out of place in the humid summer night- though I figured any human he allowed to see him wouldn't live long enough to be suspicious.
"Isabella!" he shouted, his arms sweeping open as he bounded through the courtyard. Lorenzo took a reflexive step backwards, trying to get out of his way as Felix clapped me on the shoulders in greeting.
I had to crane my neck to look up at him and did my best to smile widely. We had a routine, once upon a time. We had always been friendly- friends, even. Felix reminded me a lot of Emmett- or rather, what I imaged Emmett would have turned out like had he not been created for Rose, had he not been so committed to our way of life and instead allowed his strength and impulsive nature to reign free.
"It's been a very long time," I said in greeting, trying to loosen my smile and mask the pain that was sitting in my heart. Maybe, once, he would have been able to read my face, but what I said was right. It had been a very long time, and I was a different person. The Isabella he knew and the Bella I had become were entirely divorced from each other, like separate beings. I shared her memories but little else.
"But we only saw one another five months ago! And what's five months, to gods such as us?" Felix was still grinning as if he joked, but I knew he didn't, not really. It was a belief commonly shared by our kind, but most especially by the Volturi. I wondered if it was the mechanism by which they justified feeding from humans, how they numbed any kind of conscience.
"I meant, you know," I said with a shrug, gesturing to everything around us sweepingly.
"Ah," he nodded, clicking his tongue, "That's right. It has been a while! So, tell me, how've you been? We didn't get much of a chance to catch up in Seattle."
"Oh, you know how it is," I said noncommittally.
"No, I really don't. I have no idea what you've been up to, no one does. You're a total mystery, Isabella di Mantova."
I couldn't hold back a grimace, trying not to physically recoil from the name. "It's Cullen now, actually," I corrected.
Felix obviously noticed my reaction, but mistook the reason for it. "Oh, did you… marry Carlisle?" he asked hesitantly, confused. Lorenzo was still behind me, and I could hear him audibly swallow. Before I could answer, Felix glanced behind me to the boy, finally acknowledging his presence. "You can go now. I'm sure Na is looking for her patrol partner."
Lorenzo nodded, and I turned briefly to take his hand in mine again, shaking it briefly while trying to catch his eye. He was so boisterous and outgoing before, but he seemed utterly deflated. Felix tended to have that effect on people, and I couldn't blame Lorenzo for sulking away, disappearing in the night on the other side of the city wall.
"I didn't marry Carlisle," I said, trying to laugh it off. Lorenzo was gone and I was officially alone with Felix, and I let him lead me into the house he had emerged from. It was cascina-style, complete with polished brick walls and crisp paint the color of sandstone that perfectly matched the other homes in the courtyard. From the outside, none of them were notable, all blending into the cityscape with not a single petal on a flower out of place.
The interior was bare though, with no accoutrements or decorations. It was well-maintained and obviously regularly cleaned, with no dust settled on any surface or scuff marks on the shiny stone floor. Esme would have appreciated it.
"But we are a family," I continued, perching on a stool that Felix indicated I should sit on. "I took his name to make travelling easier, and I'll often pose as his sister. Cullen is our family name now, so it's the one I go by."
"Yes, you live among humans, don't you? I guess you have to play pretend quite often."
"Carlisle is my family, it's not pretend. Whether I pose as his sister or his daughter, our ties are deeper than something as superficial as a surname," I said sharply.
Felix threw his hands up in defeat. "I meant no offense. We had all just guessed, given how close the two of you were, and how you took off together…"
"The lifestyle was just too untenable," I said softly.
"Your eyes have stayed golden all this time, huh?"
"Never wavered."
"Impressive," he said doubtfully, grimacing at the thought.
"It's not so bad," I promised, and in truth it wasn't. I knew what they thought I was missing out on. They didn't know what they were depriving themselves of. I was staring into Felix's eyes, trying to focus intently and singularly on the bright crimson color, but the thoughts forced themselves through.
Edward.
The warmth of his skin, his hand warm and large in mine. His fingertips burning a path along the curve of my cheek to twist a lock of my hair behind my ear. The depth of his eyes and the complexity of the coloring, how each leaf of his iris was unique in its delicate fanning. His smile, crooked when genuine, the fullness of his lips and how soft and warm they felt on mine. Felix didn't understand that kind of warmth from a human, how tender and true they are.
And it was so much more than just physical. None of them could appreciate the beauty humanity brought. It was so exciting; the way Edward could change every day. He noticed things I didn't, and picked up on body language and ques that I never gave any thought. He could do and say the most unexpected things that could make me burst out laughing. Or break my heart.
I blinked, and that tear-stained night was clearly engraved on the insides of my eyelids.
Felix was oblivious to my racing thoughts, and leaned back casually in his chair. "So how do you pass the time? I noticed that there were quite a few others who share your eye color now, and we've heard as much from Eleazar and Carmen when they pass through."
"Yes, and I know they were recently here, weren't they?" I asked needlessly, trying to delay the inevitable.
Maybe I was overthinking it. Maybe Felix was just genuinely interested in me, and this little stop on the way into the city was nothing more than two old comrades catching up. After all, I knew Aro knew all of this information already, even if he hadn't shared it with anyone other than Marcus and Caius. Eleazar visited frequently over the years, at Aro's request, and occasionally gave him access to his mind. Aro had seen our entire family, knew our stories as well as Eleazar did because he had seen it all for himself.
I could only be grateful for how deeply Eleazar was trusted, because I knew Aro wouldn't force his way into Eleazar's mind. Decades could go by without Eleazar feeling the need to show Aro something from his thoughts, and it had been well-established that we had nothing to hide.
And as long as he was able to keep his mind secret, Edward was safe.
"So? They were yours, correct? Not Eleazar's coven's?"
I didn't bother to correct him that Tanya was the leader there, not Eleazar. And I didn't think she would mind. The more scrutiny she could avoid from the Volturi, the better.
"They are ours. There are five of us."
"Just like Eleazar, then! You really felt the need to catch up with him, yes? But you are more paired off than they are, it seems."
"Esme is Carlisle's mate," I sighed, capitulating. It was no use keeping such public information from him. No one else had to keep their mate secret. No one else's mate had sent them away, either. I felt that hollowness in my chest again veer past aching and into pain. "Carlisle found her and changed her. A few years later, I changed Rosalie, who in turn found her mate, Emmett, who Carlisle changed."
"That's a lot of biting going on for a family of vegetarians," Felix said slyly.
I rolled my eyes. "Two for Carlisle, one for me," I lied. "That's far fewer than many others."
"I get changing his mate," Felix started, his lips pursing, the marker of his expression of deep thought. "But why did you change Rosalie? She was the tall beautiful one, correct?"
"That's our Rosalie," I said tightly. Beautiful didn't really seem to accurately encapsulate how stunning my sister was, but I supposed it would do. In truth, I didn't want anyone in this city to give too much thought to anyone in my family.
"So? What was with the biting? The spirit move you?" Felix was pushing, but it didn't seem to be meanspirited. I couldn't tell if my instincts were off, but I thought he was just genuinely curious.
"She was close to death. I knew of her because we were living in the same city, and she was from a high-profile family. Carlisle and I came across her when she was dying quite suddenly. And you could say the spirit moved me, so I bit her. We became a family of four, but then Rosalie found Emmett after he had been mauled by a bear, so she carried him home to Carlisle. He bit him, and they've been together ever since."
I shared only Emmett's story- he was the only one who wouldn't care, the only open book with no secrets.
"You two have been busy!" Felix exclaimed. "But don't, you can't tell me, that you're actually doctors. Eleazar says that, but it was a joke, right?" I smiled wryly and Felix exploded, laughing and smacking the counter so hard the wood splintered under his palm. "Get out of here! I always knew you two were un po' di fuori, but I had no idea just how much." He chuckled again, shaking his head. "Demetri is going to die when he hears this. It will almost be worth inghiottire il rospo just to see his face when I tell him."
I nodded appraisingly, smiling tightly when he looked at me as if I understood. Apparently, my modern Italian really wasn't up-to-date at all, because I knew Felix was tossing around idioms, I just didn't know what they meant.
"So how does the doctoring work?" Felix asked after calming his laughter, though he was still grinning broadly. He listened intently, enraptured, as I told him all about how Carlisle and I started out.
And I didn't hold back. The devil is in the details, after all. I told him about enduring the ship to the New World that we had taken from Portugal, about keeping to our little cabin and trying to weather the weeks at sea with no hunting. I told him all about the decades of 'exposure therapy' we worked through to become fully and completely desensitized to human blood, something Felix seemed absolutely floored by. He really shouldn't have been. He was, after all, the one who had mauled that girl and made sure I found her while hunting. I was sure he had watched me stop mid-hunt and manage to gather my control enough to tend to her injuries, bleeding open wounds and all.
"So what? You and Carlisle work in a hospital and move every couple of years? That's awfully nice of everyone else to sit around while you two work. Almost can't believe they stick around."
"Well, originally that's how it was, yes," I said tightly. "It took a few years for everyone else to learn the kind of control it takes to be around humans the way we like to. But once they did, we've been able to become actual members of the community. Go to school, work, get invited to parties and work functions and the like."
"School?" Felix asked. "Like universities? You know you can just read a textbook, right? There's nothing a human can teach you that you don't already know."
My teeth sunk into my bottom lip, biting with the effort it took to refrain from snapping at him. He saw nothing of humans beyond his next meal. He didn't understand that they were so much more expressive than us. That their capacity for change- even if it resulted in heartbreak- was glorious and aspirational.
I had learned everything from humans. My everything was human.
"University or high school," I replied lightly. "The younger we pretend to be, the longer we can stay in a given place, you know?" I appraised Felix's confused expression and forced out a laugh. "Or maybe you don't."
"I can't say I relate," Felix admitted, bumping me on the shoulder with a fist. "You always were the nerdy one, though, chasing down all those books."
I rolled my eyes. "You didn't have to come along."
"Oh, please!" Felix huffed. "I most definitely did! Who knows what kind of trouble you would have gotten into if I wasn't there to protect you."
Felix stretched out an arm to flex his bicep, and this time, my laugh was completely genuine. For one, small, terrifying moment, I wasn't acutely aware of that fiery ache that hollowed its home in my chest, but instead on Felix's goofy grin before he gave in and laughed with me.
"Alright, alright, I get it, you can take care of yourself," he capitulated, throwing up his hands in defeat.
"Don't worry, I'm sure you can still kick my ass," I promised.
"I don't know about that. You were always pretty slippery, and that Emmett of yours is a big guy, too. I'm sure he gives you a run for your money, right?"
The lightness dissipated immediately. I didn't think that Felix was asking anything out of any ulterior motive, but I could be wrong. It had been a long time, and my ability to read him could have disappeared just like I was sure his ability to read me had changed.
"I'm so out of practice, you have no idea," I groaned. I was going to try. I had to try. If this was going to be the one thing to keep Edward safe, to make sure no one looked into our family, I needed to do it all. I had lied plenty of times in my existence. Our entire life was a lie, after all. My name, my age, my story, the history and narrative that we had carefully crafted as we skipped from town to town, only skimming the lives of those we interacted with- it was all a lie.
"I'm sure we could work on that," Felix promised, cracking his knuckles dramatically. If he was picking up on any of my tension, it wasn't showing.
"But how have you been? Catch me up on the past three hundred years?" I asked, finally finding an opening to veer the conversation to him.
"Oh, where do I start!" Felix said excitedly, leaning forward so his knees bumped into mine.
I forced a grimace into a smile. "Well, has anything changed? Are you and Demetri and Jane and Alec still a little team?"
"Little?" He asked, mocking outrage and again flexing his bicep, and I rolled my eyes again. "But you know how it is, there are always new people hanging around. You met one of them."
I glanced out to the courtyard, the doorway through the tunnel to the other side of the wall just visible through the window.
"He seemed very young," I commented.
"Everyone feels young to us elderly folks," Felix laughed, clapping me on the arm with enough force that the sound echoed through the house. "But there are some new people around."
"Or, at least, new to me," I added.
"Lorenzo's new to everyone. He only came around a year ago."
"Ah, that explains the enthusiasm," I appraised.
"Yes, they all are at that age, aren't they?"
"I don't remember ever being that young!" I laughed.
"Knowing you, you probably never were," Felix said, joining in. "But he's enthusiastic, and his gift is interesting enough that Aro wants to keep him around."
I leaned forward now, same as Felix. "Really?" I asked.
If Felix thought he was out of place, he didn't show it. The Volturi didn't always like to advertise the abilities of their Guard, outside of the kind that struck fear in others, like Alec and Jane. But the others- Chelsea, Corin, Renata- were kept more secret, strategically private and not widely publicized. I hoped that Felix telling me meant he, and by extension Aro, didn't see me as a threat.
"Yes, though I doubt it's something you'd ever be able to experience."
"Ah, mental then?"
"He can sort of project a thought to someone else," Felix said, pursing his lips as he searched for words. "It's not very strong, and he can only do it for short distances. It's how I found you so quickly without him having to come look for me. I was the only one nearby, so when he sent out his little message that he found an Isabella with an appointment with Aro, I was the only one who heard."
"Well, that's interesting," I said with a frown. "It's like having a built-in walkie-talkie."
"Not exactly," Felix said, shaking his head. "His messages are very, very short. He can't do more than a few words. And it's more like a text message than anything. It's not like I can see his thoughts, or hear his voice or anything."
I was always interested in mental gifts. As much as I was grateful for my shield, and the privacy of my mind, but I did occasionally find it all interesting. Right now, for instance, I didn't think I would mind being the subject of Corin's gift very much. A hefty dose of contentment might make my misery easier to bear.
"Does it, like, block everything else out? Like all you see are his messages?" I asked.
"No, definitely not," Felix said. "He's not Alec. It's more like a having a passing thought, but you're aware it isn't yours. It's not like he can influence our decisions, either. Eleazar came around and checked him out when he first came around, just to make sure it wouldn't get dangerous, you know? But Eleazar didn't think his gift would develop into anything more than just this, except maybe a little better with distance and clarity."
"Well, it sounds like it's still handy. Not like you need any more offensive gifts, right?"
"Yeah, I guess I really do the trick, huh?"
"Sure," I laughed, reaching over to tap his arm. He clenched his muscle automatically, his robe falling over his arm in the process.
"But there are some interesting ones around, for sure. Lorenzo's patrol partner right now, Na, is incredibly fast, for example."
"Aren't we all?" I said with a laugh.
"No, you have no idea," Felix said, smiling but shrugging off my comment. "She can run, like, twice as fast as the rest of us. It's almost like teleporting."
"Wouldn't that be a cool gift!"
"Hell yeah, can you imagine just teleporting anywhere in the world you want, in just a blink of the eye?"
I could imagine, actually. There was nothing I wanted more than to be on the other side of the world, and if I could make it happen instantaneously, I would do it in a proverbial heartbeat.
"All you're stuck with is that damn super strength," I commented, deflecting.
"That shield of yours isn't too bad, either," Felix said, but I just shrugged. "Demetri's mate is a shield too, did you know?"
"I didn't know he found his mate at all!" I exclaimed, sitting up a bit.
"Oh yeah," Felix said salaciously, wiggling his eyebrows. "You should've seen him when they met. I thought he was going to fall over his feet chasing after her."
"I can't imagine," I said honestly, shaking my head.
"It was tough," Felix said, then burst out laughing. "For him at least! It was refreshing to see someone put him in his place."
"What do you mean? You said she's a shield, so is she like me?"
"Definitely not as powerful. She can only shield herself from one person at a time, and she has to actively do it. It's not…"
"Latent?" I offered.
Felix nodded. "I know yours is something you can't ever turn off, but hers is something she has to turn on."
"How old is she?" I asked.
"One hundred and twenty-something," Felix said. "So, before you wonder if her gift will develop anymore, it won't. Not really, at least. She can hold up her shield for longer than before, and it's a little stronger than when she first joined, but she's not going to magically turn into you."
"I'm sure Demetri will be grateful for that!"
"I don't know, I always thought he had a bit of a crush on you," Felix said slyly, and when I grimaced openly, he laughed so hard he actually snorted. "You can't blame me for thinking it, though," Felix chuckled. "You two always spent so much time together."
"He was helping me with my gift, you big oaf."
"Gift, huh?" Felix said with another wide grin.
I rolled my eyes. "Some of us actually work hard and try to better ourselves. Maybe you're not so familiar with that concept."
The best thing about Felix is that he never takes anything personally- pretty much everything can be a joke. But it seemed, as much as I was trying to figure out how things had changed, nothing really had.
Sure, there were new faces. Lorenzo, Na, Demetri's unnamed mate, and I was sure there would be plenty more. I could only hope that I wouldn't be hanging around for long enough to meet many more, no matter how intriguing everything Felix was telling me might be.
But really, nothing seemed to have changed. Felix was leaning towards me, his face alight and a smile curving on his lips as he rapidly filled me in on all the 'adventures' I had missed.
Most everything was routine- an unruly newborn here, an overly vicious nomad there. In the end, no one was ever a match for the Guard, and it ended with purple ashes and sweet smoke billowing into the atmosphere.
However, some of it was intriguing, and Felix was nothing if not an excellent storyteller. His whole body sang, his muscles flexing subconsciously as he described a fight in vivid detail, his words weaving together in a colorful cadence as he told me of a newborn army in eastern Asia that coincided with the Qianlong Emperor and culminated in venom coating the stones if the Garden of Perfect Brightness, which sits now in ruins with much of its treasures stored beneath our feet in Volterra. Conspiratorially, Felix leaned in and whispered that one could catch Alec in a silk robe from the palace if he was in a good mood.
I did my best to not cringe and shudder as he told me of nomads descending onto the most desperate populations of humanity, like the carnage in Bengal during their great famine, where they figured no one would notice or care if they satiated their thirst at will, no control and no holding back.
Entire genocides had been committed to please these vampires, and Felix didn't give it at a second thought.
My memories of the time that had passed between us were filled with books and music and art. I remembered reading about Beethoven's first compositions, and sitting in the back of a theater in New York listening to Liszt in an enraptured trance, Carlisle equally mesmerized beside me. I remembered Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Agnes Grey all being published in the same year, and lounging around flipping through the novels until the covers fell apart as I tried to imprint the prose into my retinas. I remember wanting to cry as I read Leaves of Grass for the first time, and my eyes pricked with unshed venom at the thought of it again. I had been so stirred by his words at the time, and now… now that I knew what Whitman wrote about intimately, and understood what it meant for "every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you" meant…
In the meantime, my old companions had been entrenched in bloodshed. Felix was obviously concealing some things from me, but I knew the shady reasoning behind every time they ventured outside these solid stone walls. It was always about control. Aro and Caius would exert their will with an iron fist- whether that meant decimating entire covens and scores of humans without a second thought, or carefully collecting anyone with a gift that could be even minutely useful, they would do whatever they thought necessary.
I could only hope the respect that seemed to linger between Felix and me would extend to his masters.
"Anyways," Felix said, smacking his palms on the counter.
"Time to get going?" I asked sadly. As much as I wanted to get this over with, I was weighed down with a heavy dread at the thought of going any further. But even if I wanted to leave, I was no match for Felix and his brawn.
"Yeah," he said with a wry grin. It almost seemed as if he was hesitant to leave, like he wanted to stay here longer. I didn't know what Felix could possibly want to hide from, but it couldn't be good.
He hopped off his chair, gracefully carrying his height and size as if it were nothing, and extended his arm again. I had to reach up to take it, tucking my hand into the crook of his elbow. We were, when all was said and done, from another time, and while one such as Lorenzo would be happy to just strut alongside me, human customs and traditions were deeply engrained. No matter how much they fought it, humanity was a part of our existence.
The courtyard may have been empty, but we didn't head back in that direction. Felix led me through the sitting room- which hosted all of one chair- and through what seemed to be the front door.
The sidewalk here was neatly maintained, and the street entirely cobblestone. If the Volturi did anything, they made sure their enclave was perfectly preserved. We strolled through the quiet city, humans sleeping in their neat little villas and none the wiser about the monsters that roamed freely. If anything, though, they were safer than most anyone else in the world, save the populations of whatever town my family lived in. There was no hunting permitted inside the city walls save for the humans Heidi lured, which were almost exclusively travelers and merchants, or I supposed, in this modern day, tourists.
Our steps were silent, and no words passed. It was a one-eighty turnaround from the endless chatter he filled the cascina with, regaling me with stories throughout the night. By the time we reached the center of the city, the moon had already dipped below the buildings, leaving the sky dark and bare and lonely in its great, unfathomable expanse.
We were there too quickly. I stood at the front of the Basilica Cattedrale di San Marcus and stared up at the unchanging edifice, my hand falling from Felix as he continued on.
The piazza had been built long before I was born, much less came to the Volturi, and the only things that had changed were the nature of the storefronts. Even still, it was carefully cultivated. There was no tacky shops or kitschy tourist traps that seemed to inundate other popular city centers, especially in Europe. There were a few elegant restaurants and a charming little bar that seemed to be priming itself for an early morning rush.
On the opposite side of the basilica was a squat building the color of sand tucked into an alley of similar structures, with a flat tiled roof and arched windows and doors lined with stone. This was a location I was familiar with. I had spent plenty of time there when I was in the Guard. When the humans were gone, I spent time lounging in the internal cloister, basking in the Tuscan sun. It had been decorated with frescoes that represented vegetable festoons, simple and elegant, the pivoting point around which the three floors centered. Some of the rooms were almost al frescso they were so exposed, and the halls had been partitioned to preserve the building. A cistern in the center of the cloister collected rainwater, and it could become truly magical in the storm, listening to the pounding of rain on metal and watching the flow swirl in the cistern, like a baptism from nature herself, ready to wash us of our sins and bathe away the stains of blood that saturated the city.
And it was comforting to see that it seemed as though the building's purpose hadn't truly changed, but rather expanded into a full-fledged art museum. In my time, it had just housed collections of overflow artworks from the cathedral, but this seemed to be an actual pinacotheca, complete with tickets and tourists. I was slightly downtrodden by the fact that I would never see for myself what had become of the place I had spent a fair amount of time shielding myself from the worst aspects of my existence.
There was a fountain carved from stone in the middle of the piazza, shallow and bubbling with water falling from the simple spigot that arched it up. Droplets splashed onto the ground with every blow of the wind, dotting it with darkness that dissipated after moments.
And then there was the basilica itself. It was of a rustic stone façade, built in a Romanesque style using spolia from the Roman Empire that layered it in a white marble decadence that shone without any light, setting it apart as something almost otherworldly among the quaint city. There was a delicately engraved intarsia arching over the main double doors, hosting a dedication to Aro himself- a gift from Marcus when he had the cathedral built. There had been another church, the original one in the city that hosted the Volturi when they first moved into the city in the 9th century, but Marcus had burned it down when he 'drove the vampires' from the city. I could almost roll my eyes at how they shrouded themselves in mythology.
Towering over us all was a campanile I knew well, that would sound a resounding bell in just under an hour when the sun came up. It had been relatively new when I first joined, but seemed just as old and ancient as the rest of the city.
The huge doors were a faded copper, and I was momentarily stricken by the color. It was just a few shades from a familiar bronze, and I knew it was shimmer wondrously, brilliantly, in the sunlight. My mouth felt dry, my chest tight and painful as I struggled to inhale a breath that caught in my throat when one of the doors swung open and revealed a small figure in a black robe, shrouded in the shadows of the interior and a thick hood that was immediately thrown back with a gleeful flick.
"Hello, Isabella," Jane said coolly, a sadistic smile tugging at her small mouth.
Good night! Happy Virgo season everyone!