My concerns take a back seat as we move higher and the concrete shaft gives way to city lights around us. We’re in the sleek high-rise building that sits atop the vampires’ lair, I realize, and the ambient light spills in through large windows.
Bastian glances at me, watching my expression as I take it all in. “We can’t very well run our legitimate businesses from the underground,” he tells me, his voice smooth as melted butter. “As much as the Elders would prefer it. We have too many of our own kind to take care of to allow ourselves to be surpassed by time and technology.”
“So this building, it’s—?”
“Our base of operations these days,” he says. There’s a touch of nostalgia around his eyes, or maybe I’m imagining it. “Perhaps not as dramatic as the palace below, but just as intimidating.”
I frown. “Why would the Elders prefer to do business from the underground?”
He sighs. “Many of them are anchored in the past, I’m afraid. Immortality tends to affect different people differently. Some become obsessed with youth and novelty, desperate to feel as young as they look. Others…” He presses his lips together, his eyes going a little unfocused as if he’s lost in some thought he isn’t sharing. “I believe they are intimidated by progress, and so they fight to keep the world around them working as it did when they first felt power.”
“Oh.” I nod, not quite sure what to say.
A small smile pulls at his lips, making his face look a little less like it’s been carved from stone. “They would prefer, I think, that I dispatch with dishonorable businessmen by beheadings in the throne room. Lawsuits strike them as being tedious and unreliable.”
I fight the chuckle that almost bursts from my lips. The idea of Elon Musk or Bill Gates being called to task in a Victorian-era throne room is just too ridiculous. I mean, probably not Victorian, per se. Bastian can’t possibly be that old.
When the elevator finally stops at the very top, we step out onto the roof and gaze down at the city below. The air is fresh up here, in a way that I’ve never tasted it. I inhale deeply through my nose, closing my eyes to revel in the crisp clean feel of it. Down below, a breath like that would have choked me.
I open my eyes to see Bastian watching me. His expression is stony and inscrutable again, but his storm cloud eyes are warm.
“That’s why I come up here,” he says softly. “I remember when I could walk the streets at night and taste the harbor in the air. Before exhaust fumes filled the world with poison.”
Before exhaust fumes? I can’t remember when cars replaced horses as the way to travel, but I know it wasn’t yesterday. Curious, I narrow my eyes at him. I know I shouldn’t ask, but what the hell. Worst he can do is kill me.
“How old are you?”
Bastian raises a brow, looking surprised, but not necessarily offended.
“Let’s see,” he murmurs, as though he has to calculate it. “As of this year—I am five hundred years old.”
I blink, trying to wrap my head around that. “I never was much good at history in school,” I tell him. “But I’m pretty sure that means you’re older than the US.”
He nods, sighs, and gestures at the city below. “Everything you see around us? I watched it grow. I was here when the underground was on the surface, or just beneath it. I watched this city rise, fall, and rise once more. It’s falling again. I’m sure you see that.”
Awed as I am in the face of that kind of longevity, I can’t help but think that he and his kind are some of the primary reasons why this city is falling. It occurs to me, though, that Bastian might not see it that way. The world seemed so much different to me just fifteen years ago. What would five hundred years do to a man’s perspective?
“What stands out most, in all of your memories?” I ask him, curious in spite of myself.
The prince looks at me strangely, then makes a noise that’s almost a laugh. “You aren’t like most tributes, are you? Not like most people, for that matter.”
“Is there a difference?” I ask with more heat than I intended. “Between people and tributes?”
His lips quirk and his eyes sparkle with something like amusement. “That’s a matter of perspective, I suppose. All chihuahuas are dogs, but not all dogs… you understand.” He surveys the city again, then looks at me with renewed interest.
I’m a little worried. This conversation isn’t going the way I expected it to at all. Part of me thinks I should just drop the subject, but I bring him back around to the question I asked earlier. Even though I’m not sure I actually want to know his answer, I feel compelled to get inside his head a little, if I can. He’s always such an enigma, usually so hard to read, and he’s the man who ostensibly runs this place.
“What do you mean when you say I’m not like most people?” I ask, letting the question of tributes vs. people go for the moment.
He flashes me a quick grin. A few days ago, I would have taken it as a threat. Now there’s an almost human quality to him. My guard is down, I realize a little belatedly. I don’t force it back into place just yet, though. His guard seems to be down a bit as well, and if I clam up, I know he will too.
“Most people—tributes and other vampires—want to know what powers I’ve collected. What strength I have. What villages I’ve conquered, metaphorically and otherwise. You… you ask me about my memories.” His voice softens at the end. He sounds gently pensive and a little sad. I catch myself moving closer to him, subconsciously offering him some kind of
