August laughed. "I don't think that's the first time you've told me that," he said easily. He had heard the same thing from countless people, over the years, and had managed to skate by relatively unscathed. Unmarried, alone - but unscathed.

" She was innocent, it was the right thing to do," August said. The right thing: his easiest, and longest-term, motivation.

"But I think I'm done with vampires."

Lyra was gone. He didn't know where, but she was gone. And if he kept talking to vampires, Lysander would be caught. And that - that he could not emerge from.

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