'Good evening, Vash.'

“Good evening, Vash.” Dre’s voice rang out in the silence as coldly as the clanging of the iron bars he closed behind him.

Vash did not reply, but only sat and watched the little dancing flame.

“Do you know what night it is?”

“My last?” Vash muttered.

'My last?'

“No! Not tonight. Come up! It’s the full moon tonight.”

Vash did not move.

“Come, my young friend. It is time to go. Show me where to find her, and I shall let you go home afterwards. Your father is distraught. It is truly heart-​breaking to see.”

The dark elf knelt beside him.

When Vash still did not reply, the dark elf knelt beside him and said softly, “He isn’t the only one whose heart is breaking, you know. Or rather one might say that her little heart is being consumed by a slow fire.”

Dre reached out to the candle and twiddled his fingers in the yellow flame.

“And you! Your poor heart is drowning in sorrow…”

The dark elf laid a caressing hand on Vash’s shoulder. Vash’s flesh shuddered beneath his touch, but he made no effort to move away.

'And your poor heart is drowning in sorrow.'

The elf withdrew his hand. “Do not think I will let you die here without her,” he said coldly. “You have perhaps one more moon in which to be stubborn, Vash, but then I shall simply bring Iylaina to you and keep you both alive. Or keep you both dead. It is no matter to me.”

He trailed a fingertip from Vash’s far shoulder to the near, ruffling his greasy hair over the back of his neck. Vash did not flinch.

Dre lowered his head and murmured, “It shall be just as it was with Druze and Midra.”

His cold breath trickled down Vash’s neck, and finally Vash twisted away.

Dre chuckled. “Won’t it be sweet? Together forever. Everything shall be just as it was a century before. Never have you seen such evidence of how much like a wheel is time. Perhaps your father will even kill all the men again, out of despair.”

'Perhaps your father will even kill all the men again, out of despair.'

“A century has passed and you still have not found her,” Vash said. “I will never tell you.”

“Never is a long time to wait, my young friend. I am surprised your storied ancestor did not tell you so.”

“Do what he says!” a woman’s mournful voice called out from a cell just out of sight. She spoke the language of elves, but with an accent midway between English and Norse.

“Why?” Vash cried with a bitter laugh. “So you can die?”

'Why? So you can die?'

“You shall soon know what it is to wish for that!” she replied.

“I do not wish to die,” Vash murmured, too softly for her to hear with her woman’s ears. “Nor have I ever wished to live forever.”

“Listen to her, Vash,” Dre purred.

'Listen to her, Vash.'

“I listen to her night and day! Or I would think so if I believed there were such things as night and day left in the world.”

“I assure you,” Dre said, “the sun and moon still set and rise. Tonight there is a lovely moon, and all the stars overhead. Wouldn’t you like to go see?”

“I have already accepted my fate, Dre. I shall never see them again. I have no children. It ends with me.”

'It ends with me.'