The ghosts are still in the room, but they’re playing a card game together now…right between the display cases.

“I have to say, this is possibly the best day of my eternity, and I don’t see how anyone could ever top it. Well, I suppose Violet could when she lets me take her as my bride,” I tell them, though no one but Damien seems to be listening.

I don’t want to wait days for that to happen. I want that to happen to finish off the best day in the world. Given all the events, this day truly started with the sunset instead of the sunrise, so it’s a vampire day to top it all off.

“Bloody hell. All that power, and the girl wants to save the weak and make fucking shampoo,” Damien says, clearly not listening to me as much as I thought.

“Vance, you give the PSA on Idun TV. I’ve got more important things to do,” I tell the Van Helsing.

Vance makes a frustrated sound, and then there’s a chilling silence. We all turn to look at Idun, expecting this charade to finally end, since it’s too hard to trust that it’s just that easy.

A simple pine case.

I suppose only time will tell if Violet’s made the impact she thinks she has. I’ve called her arrogant quite often. I’m starting to wonder if she’s deservedly arrogant.

“You’ve never been effortlessly dominated before,” Vance tells Idun.

Her blackened, crisped skin hasn’t started to heal. Her body remains severed in three, shelved pieces.

Life as we knew it exists no longer, and it’s impossibly hard to come to grips with that.

I have a lot of trust issues.

Understandably so.

“It takes a moment to adjust to such a reality,” Damien assures her, smirking with more abandon than even I feel.

“It’s a hard pill to swallow—watching your pride be smashed to bits, while your life gets put in the hands of someone who simply cares nothing about what you do or don’t want,” Emit tacks on, the words spoken solemnly and with some strain.

“To come so close to thinking it was all going to finally go your way. To have your dreams so closely in your grasp. Then to have it all stripped away with cold, unapologetic flippancy,” I decide to add, falling that much harder in love with Violet.

“Idun’s irrelevant now,” the jester says from the ground, while she gives a red-lipped grin to the long-haired, black eyed girl, whose face is still fortunately mostly covered. “You don’t have to care about the heartless villain when they’ve no power over you. It only took Violet a few months to be ready for her. Talbot was wrong. She didn’t have to take those licks.”

“She chose not to fight. Why not do it there and be done with it?” I ask, mostly because I’m curious.

It occurs to me there have been ghosts prying into our lives and stalking our every move, especially recently. Was our sweet little monster worried about us or just possessive?

Questions like these will drive me mad. Either way, I’ll be damn happy. I’m simply too curious, because I don’t think I’ve ever been truly loved.

At least not the way I wanted to be.

I edge toward the door, as the jester shrugs, a secretive grin on her lips.

“Where’s the fun in that?” she asks.

The black-haired girl suddenly moves, and the jester’s eyes widen, as the mouth from hell opens wide. The girl releases a shrieking scream.

Emit practically stumbles into me in his haste to put some distance between himself and that creepy thing.

“I was trying to make Violet sound more badass. You don’t have to call me out like that!” the jester shouts to the freaky mouth one.

Oy.

This is going to take some real adjusting to. I’m still not sure if I want Violet’s subconscious warring with other fragments of her subconscious in public all the time.

“Violet doesn’t want to be the villain. So she tries to solve things another way first,” the jester grumbles, glaring at the other ghost like she’s made her tell the truth. “She was going to retire us for all eternity, because she decided Sanctuary is harder, but still more productive than war.”

I bristle, mostly because I do love a good war. I think my family is the only one left still in for some fun bloodshed, though. Aside from the Neoprys. Doesn’t seem like the best company to keep.

I suppose some personal sacrifices were inevitable, regardless of the fact Violet said otherwise.

“But then Idun took Van Helsing,” she adds with a grin. “Violet told me I could play. Just that easily, she changed her mind about Idun. Only Idun. Then Clyde. One day, we shall rule her, and she’ll let us take down more.”

That’s mildly alarming.

I’d rather think positive. For once, I’d like to hope for the bloody best, because I’m sick of the bullshit.

Moving to the case, I put a hand on the wall and lean in to stare Idun in her frozen, nearly glazed-over eyes, that start leaking tears.

Idun is crying.

She’d never let us see it if she could stop it.

“That fear and anger you feel right now? It’s only going to get worse over the next few centuries. A sense of complete hopelessness is what comes next. Acceptance is the hardest part of grieving something you never really had.”

Since I’m being positive, I grin, basking in this moment for one last look at the end of a dark age and the beginning of a new era.

“I’m not known for my empathy, but I did spend plenty of time haunting the three of them without their knowledge. I understand better now. Being soulless occasionally leaves me without the proper emotions needed for any sort of personal guidance. And I was a man who once worked hard to be a humble man of the cloth, before I met you. Pride and dignity are just among the many superficial habits I shed to the best of my ability.”

I toy with the lock, wondering if we’re foolish to taunt her. But it’s better to know if this is for real or not.

Idun can’t stand to be taunted. Especially by me. It’s the gravest insult.

“Given all your pride, arrogance, ego, and superficial emotions, it’ll be easy for you to see how they must have felt, now that you see revenge isn’t an option. Maybe you’ll grow. Maybe you’ll rot. Maybe Caroline will drive you mad with what I hear are some vivid wish-she-were-dead windows into the past.”

I shrug a shoulder, relaying how little I truly care.

“Maybe even Caroline will eventually forget about you, and the only company you’ll ever have are the spare ghosts Violet has lying around,” I tell her.

“I’m not even going to get offended by that,” the jester chimes in. “Mostly because I don’t have emotions. I do love the way they taste, though. Idun gives off strong emotions. The empaths will never feel it though.”

It occurs to me, only now, how very well Violet planned out this punishment.

There’s Idun TV to appease all those worried about Idun’s return or true whereabouts.

Simple surroundings, a severed body, and ‘nothing fancy’ casings to demonstrate how powerless Idun has been left.

Apples and tar to obstruct all the scents.

And emotion-eating partial monsters to keep the empaths from being daunted by Idun’s likely overpowering, chaotic emotions.

Partial monsters who can also report to Violet immediately, in the event of a jailbreak.