T HE TEMPTRESS’

But there will come a time—I hear your protests, but trust me—there will come a time when you yearn for more. Dancing with the gods will no longer satiate you, no, no you yourself must become a god. And then you will be happy. You will. All of this is, of course, nonsense. It is not real. I literally just made it up. But now you are entangled in me. You have let me hold you, sing to you, love you and now you are mine. You are doomed, but mine. This serves as a sort of comfort to you.

Do you want to know a secret?

I care not for shipwrecked souls, the artifice of seduction and leading those who are doomed to their timely ends. No, no that dance is merely a compulsion, an unfortunate side effect of my position. The cycle goes on, the dancers keep spinning, and the game must continue to be played. Names and souls, names and lives, names and secrets are mine for the taking because you allow me to take them. You want me to take them.