"Where is she now?"
"Thierry took her over to Shaw House. He's going to stay with her until she finishes the change." This was the part Alex didn't want to handle, but felt she should try. "Val, I'm sorry—"
"Yes. So am I." Valentin rose, awkward and slow. "She loves him, Alexandra. She belongs with him."
"I do get the feeling they've been an item for a while." She gestured toward his missing arm. "You like the folded-sleeve look?"
"It doesn't matter." He walked past her.
"The reason I ask is that I think I can reattach it." That stopped him in his tracks. She smiled as he turned around to stare at her. "Kyn spontaneous healing plus my dazzling reconstructive surgical skills. I've got your arm on ice up at the house. No guarantees, but want to give it a try?"
"When we were dancing, I asked her opinion of me," Jaus told her. "You were right. She thinks exactly as you said."
"Maybe she was just being polite—"
"Not this time." He looked up at the stars. "She was still human enough for it to affect her. You see, it is my talent. When I touch humans, they cannot lie to me."
"Really." She thought about it. "That must more than occasionally suck."
"It is why I have never touched her." He smiled briefly. "I think a part of me knew what the truth would be. That to Jema, all that I am, all that I will ever be, is a nice man who grows beautiful flowers."
"You are more than that, Val, and if I weren't in love with Cyprien, you'd be too damn busy to have a broken heart." She held out her arm. "Life goes on, pal. Or, in our case, on and on and on and on and on."
He took her hand.
"How many dead?" he asked her as they walked up to the lists, which Alex was using as a temporary hospital for the wounded Kyn.
"Fifteen, counting the gunmen. Twenty-three wounded but recovering quickly. I should be able to clear everyone out of here by tomorrow." She smiled at him. "Do your people carry major medical insurance, or am I going to have to bill the hell out of the jardin?"
Cyprien met them as they entered the lists. "I know you must do this surgery soon, but Valentin has to decide what to do with the ringleader. He is the only survivor."
Val and Alex followed Cyprien through the hospital to one of the storage rooms. There the man dressed as the Grim Reaper was being held by two of Jaus's guards. Cyprien reached down and removed the Reaper's mask, revealing Falco's face.
Alex rubbed her brow. "Terrific. The guy who was driving us around town."
"I have nothing to say to you," Falco told her. He turned to face Jaus and spoke in rapid German.
"He seems to have a lot to say to Val," Alex told Cyprien in a conversational tone.
"My seneschal confesses to making private pacts with the Brethren," Jaus said. "In English, Falco. The seigneur will hear this."
"The seigneur." The big man sneered at Michael. "He is nothing but Richard's pretty boy. Yes, I went to the brothers and bargained with them. They had targets they wished eliminated. I went to the streets, found the stupid human boys, and trained them to kill. Every job we did bought more protection for the jardin."
"Montague? Was he part of this?" Cyprien asked.
Falco spit on the floor in front of Michael's shoes. "He was only to kill the Shaw woman. I used the crossbow that day by the lake. You would be dead if not for your yellow bitch."
Jaus stared down at Falco sadly. "He wanted to assassinate you, Michael, so I could succeed you as seigneur. He is an Aryan, Alexandra, so your racial background makes you unacceptable in his eyes."
"Oh, so he's a Nazi," Alex said. "I get it. But I'm not yellow. I think of myself as sort of a light caramel." She leaned over and smiled in Falco's face. "Remember that the next time you insult me, you racist jerk-off."
Cyprien crouched down in front of the seneschal. "Falco, how much did you tell the Brethren about us?"
"Nothing." Falco looked at Jaus. "I swear this to you, master."
"I don't think your word holds much weight with the master anymore," Alex advised him. "I wonder how many other people he has killed over the years?"
Jaus suddenly straightened. "Kurt."
"He got in my way too many times," Falco said, looking righteous. "He came into the city and saw me when I was meeting with the monks. He would have told you. He never could keep his mouth shut."
Val's eyes glittered. "So you killed him."
"He had to die, like the Shaw woman." Falco shook his head. "You spend too much time obsessing over her. She made you weak, but you would have chosen her over everything. After all I did to make you strong, to keep you safe."
"Michael," Jaus said, "lend me your sword. Alexandra, please step back three paces." When Cyprien handed Jaus his sword, he lifted it. "Do you have anything else you wish to tell me, seneschal?"
Falco swallowed, his eyes locked on the sword. "I want to fight you. It is the only way to die with honor."
"You gave your honor to the Brethren." Jaus brought down the blade, and with a single stroke decapitated Falco.
Alex watched the severed head fall and the body slump over. "I'm not reattaching that. Just FYI."
Jema wasn't afraid of what was happening to her body. Deep in the comatose sleep of change, she was still aware of Thierry beside her. He stayed there, a constant presence until she opened her eyes three days later.
They were in her bed, covered with her grandmother's old quilt. Thierry was dozing, his big naked body wrapped around hers. Jema stayed where she was, enjoying the novelty of waking up in the arms of the man she loved. Then she thought of what her mother and Daniel Bradford had done to her, and her happiness ebbed.
Thierry's eyes opened. "Jema?"
"Still here." She snuggled up against him. "I guess I made it."
"Stay in bed." He didn't, and after pulling on his pants hurried out of the room. He returned a few minutes later with Alexandra Keller.
While Thierry paced the room, Alex gave Jema a complete physical and explained the changes that had taken place in her body. "You can't eat solid food anymore, and most liquids are out. I'm going to keep you on intravenous blood until your fangs regenerate. I've opened the apertures, so it should take only a week or two."
"I can't believe I'm a vampire," she murmured. "A real vampire. And you think I've been one for how long?"
"I can tell you what I've pieced together from what Bradford said, and what we know about you and your life." Alex explained her theory about Jaus's blood infecting her and how Bradford had taken advantage of it. "Your mutation is just as strange as mine is. Like your ability to disappear; that's a Darkyn talent, but it should work only on humans. Instead it works on everybody, the way my talent does."
"Did Dr. Bradford do anything else to me?" Alex had already told her Daniel was dead.
"I'm not sure," Alex admitted. "We're going to search his lab, see if we can find any notes."
Thierry insisted on carrying Jema downstairs. "You are still weak, and you need blood," he said, overriding her objections. "I will tell you when you can walk."
She smiled. "You said I'd be too tired to walk." She giggled as he whispered against her ear what he intended to do to her when she was feeling better.
"Am I going to have to make you two get a room?" Alex complained. "Again?"
All they found in Daniel's lab were twenty-nine years of charts, falsified to make it appear as if Jema were being treated for diabetes.
"He must have kept it all in his head," Alex said as she thumbed through the charts. "I'll go through everything, in case he encoded something. You're sure he didn't use a computer?"
"He hated them." Jema went over to Daniel's desk, where there was a framed photo. It was a picture of Jema at her college graduation. Daniel had been so proud of her for obtaining her degree. "Do you think he loved me?"
"I guess. In a sick, psychopath kind of way." Alex shut the filing cabinet drawer. "Sweetie, I need to run more tests on you, but chances are there won't be any lasting effects. Kyn changeover heals everything."
"I'm just sorry I was so rude to you about Luisa," Jema said. "I hope we can be friends."
"You're an heiress, you own a museum, you have a huge mansion on Lake Michigan, and you're the only other Kyn in the world like me. That automatically makes you my best friend." Alex laughed as Jema hugged her. "I expect great Christmas presents, by the way."
After Alex went back to Derabend Hall, Thierry seemed restless. Jema had sent the household staff on a monthlong vacation, to give her time to adjust to her new life, but she didn't want to stay at Shaw House. She told him that later in the evening when they went for a walk by the lake.
"I want you to meet my family." Thierry said after he told her about Marcel and Liliette.
"Are you sure you want me to?" Jema stopped and looked up at him. "I feel as if I know you better than anyone in the world, but in reality we met only a few days ago." She hesitated before she added, "Your wife, Angelica, how long did you know her?"
"We grew up together."
"Maybe we should take more time to—Thierry." Her feet left the ground as he hoisted her up in his arms. "You can't carry me off like a caveman."
"It tempts me." He held her so that their faces were close. "It is true that we have shared only a few days together in this world. But think of all we shared in the dream realm. We saw the best and worst of each other, Jema, and it did not change how I felt. It made my love stronger. You made me stronger. In all the years I spent with Angelica, she never did that. She never shared herself with me as you have."