Although both of them were girls, Sophie possessed the unmistakably mature figure of an adult woman.
Jane struggled to put the distinction into words.
Vampires remained frozen forever.
A hundred years.
A thousand years.
Their appearance never changed.
Humans, however, transformed with astonishing speed.
A mere six-year age gap created differences visible at a glance.
Never before had Jane considered the eternal blessings or the eternal regrets that accompanied immortality.
Only after Aro had entrusted Sophie to her had she begun thinking about them.
Sophie looked somewhat similar to herself.
Yet they were fundamentally different.
For the first time, Jane became acutely aware of the distance separating herself from adulthood.
Through Sophie, she found herself unconsciously exploring the part of her own life she had lost forever.
The growth that had been halted for a thousand years...
Somehow it seemed to continue through another person.
Jane was unusually eager to keep talking.
Her unexpectedly relaxed and friendly tone naturally encouraged Sophie to continue the conversation.
"What about you, Jane? How old were you and Alec when you... ended up like this?"
"Sixteen, I suppose."
Jane answered vaguely.
Partly because they had been transformed far younger than almost any other vampire, close enough to childhood that even discussing it felt uncomfortable.
More importantly...
Their mother had died far too early.
After becoming orphans, no one had remained to celebrate birthdays with Jane and Alec.
Even though they still had each other...
Neither of them remembered the exact date anymore.
Or even their precise age.
"So you've stayed sixteen for how many years?"
Sensing Jane had suddenly become much easier to talk to, Sophie pressed her advantage.
Secretly, she wondered whether wearing the clothes Jane liked had earned her this special treatment.
"About a thousand."
Jane estimated casually.
Sophie stared in complete disbelief.
"A thousand years? Didn't you ever think about choosing another birthday? Maybe the day you were transformed? Or the day you died? You could even celebrate on a different day every year."
"Most vampires don't celebrate birthdays after becoming vampires." Jane shrugged. "Some people, like me, simply forgot. Most others stop caring because the numbers become too large to matter."
She continued calmly.
"Time means nothing to vampires. So does age."
Seeing the unconvinced look on Sophie's face, Jane turned the question back on her.
"How many days have you been twenty-two?"
Sophie thought for a moment.
"My birthday was just last month."
"So less than a month?"
Jane delivered her answer with almost cruel honesty.
"You'll be twenty-two forever. Next year, the year after that, and a thousand years from now... you'll still be twenty-two."
"Oh..." Sophie groaned. "I'm not mentally prepared to live for a thousand years!"
Trying to imagine life as an immortal species, she still couldn't accept it.
"Maybe two hundred years at most. If Professor Dumbledore had lived out his natural life, I heard he could've reached two hundred."
The thousand-year-old girl who had spent centuries secluded inside an ancient castle had obviously never heard of a human professor capable of living two centuries.
She looked at Sophie with open disdain.
"Humans who live to two hundred only exist in fairy tales or on pension payment records."
Sophie's eyes lit up.
"Exactly! Harry Potter really is children's literature!"
"Were you making fun of me?"
Jane's tone suddenly became dangerous.
Sophie frantically waved both hands.
"Of course not! Literature is part of the human world too!"
Hand in hand, they walked through the labyrinthine tunnels beneath the castle. The conversation became so engaging that Sophie never even noticed whether they had retraced the same path as before. Only when Jane stopped did Sophie realize they had arrived...
At an elevator.
The two of them stepped inside together. Most of the floor numbers extended downward. Twenty underground levels in total. Floor B18 remained plainly displayed without any attempt to avoid the ominous number.
Pointing toward it, Sophie asked, "You're not bothered by the eighteenth basement? You know... the Eighteen Levels of Hell?"
Jane clearly possessed extensive knowledge of religious traditions.
"The Eighteen Levels of Hell don't mean only the eighteenth level is Hell. All eighteen levels are Hell."
She pressed the button.
The elevator stopped on Basement Five. Jane led her into a room furnished like a library.
Sophie called it a room only because she had clearly watched Jane open a door before entering. Yet once inside...
The ceiling simply disappeared.
An enormous open shaft stretched all the way upward to the distant sky, allowing sunlight to pour deep underground. The warm rays illuminated bookshelves, tables, and chairs below, naturally lighting the entire chamber.
Jane guided Sophie into the sunlight.
"Lesson 1. I'm going to teach you the single most important thing a vampire needs to know."
Standing beneath the golden light, Jane said calmly, "Sunlight. Silver. Crosses. Holy water. None of them can kill us."
Sophie already knew that much. Since becoming a vampire, she had actually spent more time under the sun than she ever had as a human.
A small blackboard stood inside the study. Picking up a piece of chalk, Jane began writing while continuing her explanation.
"There are only two reliable ways to kill a vampire."
"First."
"Fire."
"The safest method is to remove the head and burn the body."
"Second."
"Breaking Volturi law."
Sophie immediately raised her hand.
"Go ahead," Jane permitted.
Sophie looked as though she were facing a life-or-death examination.
"Are there a lot of laws? I'm really bad at memorizing things."
"Congratulations." Jane couldn't suppress a faint smile. "First, there are very few. Second, vampires almost never forget."
Except for those affected by rare memory-related gifts, she silently added to herself. Abilities involving memory were exceptionally uncommon and extraordinarily valuable among vampires.
Jane wrote the first rule on the blackboard.
"Law 1. The existence of vampires must never be revealed. Violation is punishable by death."
She wrote the second beneath it.
"Law 2. Harming any member of the Volturi family is forbidden. Violation is punishable by death."
Sophie quietly waited for the third rule.
Jane, however, stopped writing after the words punishable by death.
Sophie asked cautiously, "...That's it?"
Jane nodded.
"That's enough. It's more than enough for us to rule the vampire world.
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