He quickly catches up to her but stays a respectful distance away. "I'm a vampire. I have super senses and super strength, I'm immortal, I'm—in eternal unbreakable magic love with you from the moment I put my eyes on you because the magic decided that you and I would be romantically compatible." That last part is said very quickly and with his eyes closed.

"What?"

"I can prove any part of this to you except for the magic love. Blair is a vampire, too, he got turned and forgot that he was meant to send you letters—not you, he remembers you, but he forgot about the letters, and I tracked him and found him and reminded him and he wrote all of those letters again so that I could send them to you."

She stares at him like he's gone insane.

"I can prove any of this to you," he repeats. "Just not in public, not if I want to stay alive—and to keep you alive."

"... You've put me in a really awkward position. Because if I believe you, and trust you, and turn out to be wrong, I am alone with a crazy person. If I don't believe you, and don't trust you, and turn out to be wrong, I just casually ripped your heart out and stomped it to pieces. Why didn't you open with this explanation instead of playing this stupid game and abusing the trust you'd already had?"

"Because I didn't notice I was in magical love with you," he—whines. It sounds weird in his voice. "I noticed just now, I just thought—that you were very attractive. I can give you more evidence here, more pebbles?"

"You—okay. More pebbles, sure, and I can walk to a relatively secluded place near an officer and if you turn out to be crazy I can scream."

This plan decided, she goes about enacting it. She collects more pebbles, and stalks off to find a police officer that she can be in a secluded spot within screaming distance of.

He follows her, keeping the distance. "I have extra-good reflexes, too," he says in a muted voice. "You can throw the pebbles at me and I will catch all of them."

"Do not want to attract too much attention," she informs him, in an undertone. "We are already interesting to look at, I'm collecting pebbles and we made a scene in front of a bunch of very mortified Englishmen."

He nods and doesn't say anything more.

She collects pebbles, too annoyed to be embarrassed about the weird looks she's getting, and then she locates a police officer and stalks into a relatively secluded place nearby, between a couple of buildings.

"Here," she says, holding out a handful of pebbles and bits of pavement and rocks of all kinds.

He accepts all of them and casually crushes them into fine powder in his hand. She might notice the coldness of his touch when his fingers brush her hand.

She'd noticed earlier when she'd kissed his cheek, but hadn't started connecting the dots until now.

"... Okay," she says, looking at the dust. "Other proof?"

He looks around—secluded—and jumps much higher than a regular human ought to be able to. Then he drops to one knee and presses one finger into the pavement, making a hole there. And then he runs one meter to the left faster than her eyes can follow.

Her breath catches and her heart rate speeds up and she stares.

She swallows.

"All right. I'll tentatively believe that you're telling the truth about the vampire thing. You did not mention the super speed."

"I did not make an exhaustive list, I just needed to convince you. I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted." She closes her eyes and takes several deep breaths. "Why is my brother not here if you talked to him, why did he not tell you not to lie to me? Why would he forget about sending letters at all? That doesn't seem like the sort of thing he'd ever forget."

"He doesn't have enough control to be around humans, not reliably, and not kill them. He does not want to kill you. And when we turn—the new senses are overwhelming, overwhelming enough to make us forget anything that's not very, very important from before. He remembered you, but not the letters."

"Great. Okay. How serious is your, your eternal unbreakable magic love with me, and if I ask you to leave, will you?"

"I will do whatever you ask me to."

She looks at him with alarm and concern.

"... Okay," she says, very faintly. "Okay. So I'm in a 'I am holding your heart and soul in my hands' kind of situation. Is what I'm hearing."

"If—if you ever turn into a vampire you will automatically have the same thing about me, as soon as you see me. But I would never do that without your consent!" he hastens to add.

She opens her mouth, then closes it.

"... Thank you for not doing that, yep."

"I had not—noticed before. I wouldn't have. But I also won't. It—it should be your choice."