Chives in Immortalis Records a Daily Nicolas Diary Entry on Unusual Behaviour

15 October, the year of Our Lord’s eternal shadow.

Master Nicolas has exhibited peculiarities today that warrant notation, lest they slip the confines of memory into the abyss where so many of his whims reside. I have served him these three centuries past, through the crimson tides of revolution and the pallid dawns of forgotten empires, yet seldom have I observed such a deviation from his customary iron poise.

The morning, or what passes for it in these lightless vaults, commenced with the usual rituals. I presented the silver tray bearing his ablutions: the crystal flacon of vitae distilled from the previous night’s harvest, still warm with the pulse of the unfortunates sourced from the dockside slums. He partook without comment, his gaze fixed upon the ormolu clock as if it harboured some secret rebellion against eternity. No disdain for the bouquet, no acerbic critique of the bouquet’s flatness. Silence, Master. Utter, unnerving silence.

By the eleventh hour, as I polished the ebony banister of the grand staircase, he descended not to the cellars for his diurnal repose, but lingered in the atrium. There, amidst the reliquaries of bone and the frescoes depicting the Fall of the Ancients, he paused before the portrait of Lady Elowen. You will recall her, the one with the throat like alabaster and eyes that promised perdition. She who met her end in the flames of 1789, her screams a symphony I conducted from the carriage shadows. Master traced the gilt frame with a fingernail, the gesture almost, dare I commit it to ink, tender. Tenderness in him is a blade sheathed in velvet, ever poised to unsheathe.

Unusual behaviour escalated at vespers. The girl arrived, the mortal one, with her scent of jasmine and fear-sweat. You know her as the thrall, though Master insists on no such nomenclature. She bears the marks from last eve’s diversions: welts blooming like nightshade across her collarbone, courtesy of the cat-o’-nine he favours for its melodic whistle. Ordinarily, he would summon her to the playchamber forthwith, the air soon thick with her gasps and his commands, rendered in that voice like grinding glaciers.

Yet today, he bid her to the conservatorium. The conservatorium, of all profane sanctums. There, beneath the iron-latticed dome where moonlight fractures through bloodstained glass, he seated her upon the divan and, with his own hands, unbound her corset. Not for the lash, not for the pierce of fang, but to apply salve. Salve compounded by my own hand from witch-hazel and myrrh, intended for his lesser wounds after duels. He murmured to her, words lost to the distance, but the timbre lacked its habitual command. It lilted, almost crooned. She coloured, that flush of life we immortals envy, and he did not mock it. He watched her, as one might a rare venomous bloom unfurling.

I retreated to the scullery, feigning inventory of the silver, but observation is my creed. Later, as she departed with steps steadier than precedent, Master repaired to his study. There he did not rage against the ledgers of our estates, nor summon the coven for nocturnal hunts. Instead, he perused a volume from the forbidden stacks: Les Chants de Maldoror, that fevered tome of Lautréamont. His lips moved in recitation, a sardonic smile playing as he lingered on passages of exquisite depravity. But his eyes, those obsidian wells, flickered with something alien. Restlessness, perhaps. Or worse, reflection.

By midnight, the anomaly peaked. A messenger arrived from the Conclave, bearing writs demanding his presence at the next conclave. Ordinarily, he would rend the parchment and dispatch the bearer with a flick of contempt. Tonight, he read it thrice, folded it precisely, and placed it within his escritoire. “Chives,” he said, his voice a silken razor, “prepare the brougham for dawn. We depart for the spires.”

Dawn. He who scorns the sun’s tyranny elects to brave it. For what purpose? The girl, I surmise. Or some deeper fracture in his eternal armour. I have noted the signs before: the softening of gaze upon her form, the hesitation before the bite. Love, that most grotesque of afflictions, creeps upon him like mould upon stone. Should it take root, it will demand excision, lest it consume the predator entire.

I shall watch. I shall record. And if needs must, I shall remind him of the cost of frailty. For in service to Nicolas, one serves the abyss itself.

Chives, Valet Eternal.

Immortalis Book One August 2026