I have been enduring intense conversations with myself in the three years since our companionship ended. And as part of that journey, I wish to say something from the deepest regions of my soul. Two grievous lies, gross betrayals. The first is a well-trod pit of hot coals I blistered my feet on for 77 years. I chose my coven over you, lured you into a production of a play, in which your death would act as the grotesque climax. The coven was twisting my arm, but… I took aesthetic pleasure in making your death visually exhilarating. All of which was made worse by our heady lovemaking throughout this period of betrayal, and… the second. I shamefully took credit when Lestat saved your life. That lie bound you to me, and it lay like a corpse in the boiler room of our companionship. Many times, I told myself the lie did not matter because what we had built, a love that served as a bunker against time, was weightier and more consequential than the lie, but it wasn't true. The lie did matter because the corpse was there, calling forth the facts. And as for the many boys you drugged, drained, and lay with, I feigned resentment when, in fact, I welcomed your straying because your guilt in their aftermath bound you to me all the more tightly and allowed me my hours of observation with Daniel. I told you I loved you, but did I? Hmm? Did I? Or was it a clinging to the underside of anyone who would help me survive? And when I look back on who I've deceived, how I've deceived, how easy it was for me to lead a cult for 400 years, to burn in ritual any who broke the archaic laws we lived by, I— I think I might be a room without walls, floors, a ceiling. An infinite nothing. Also, yes. I put the Fred Steins in your photo collection just to fuck with your head. And that is my full and heartfelt "Armends."
