Everyone laughed.
“But, all jokes aside, I’m proud of you, Ara, and everything that you've become.” He smiled softly, his eyes locked and full of pride on mine. “I know if your mom and your dad were here today to see what you've achieved, what you've endured just for the safety and freedom of your people, they’d be so humbled by it—by how hard you fought not only for the dramatic changes in the lives of those cursed children, but also the prisoners who would otherwise still be chained and tortured, forever forgotten, irredeemable. And lastly, for the incredible and unimaginable power and strength you have inside you. You truly are an amazing queen and an even more amazing girl.” He held his glass high. “To the queen.”
“To the queen,” everyone responded.
Mike leaned over and patted my back. “Shape of things to come,” he said suggestively.
“What do you mean?”
We both looked down at David, who glanced away quickly as our eyes met.
“He means it appears as though the king has let bygones be bygones,” Jason said.
“Which bygones?”
“Walt?” David cut in loudly but spritely.
Jase, Mike and I stopped talking.
“Yes, your grace,” Walt said.
“We were hoping you could see to establishing a Reversal Clinic and drawing up draft application forms for vampires wishing to register for the process.”
Walt seemed taken aback, his fat cheeks wobbling like a turkey’s neck as he moved his head side to side in disbelief. “I … I’d be only too happy to,
your Majesty.”
“Excellent.” David sipped his blood. “You can choose a team and—” He turned to Arthur. “I wondered if you might assist Ara over the next few days once Jason and I leave town, Uncle. Performing this procedure on such young children could be a rather daunting emotional process.”
Arthur bowed his head. “It would be my pleasure.”
“Thanks, Arthur,” I said.
“Ooh, I can help too.” Emily put her hand up. “Any excuse to go play with the children.”
David looked at me to answer.
“Sure, Em,” I said. “That’d be great.”
She wriggled back in her seat, celebrating with a private fist-pump. Blade wrapped his arm around her shoulders and leaned in to talk quietly with her, and at the time my attention drifted away from them and onto Mike, I noticed the sudden change in his energy.
“Mike?”
“Mm?” He looked up from his plate.
“You okay?”
He reached across again and patted my arm. “I’m fine, kiddo.”
Rain rolled across the countryside in a fine misty ribbon, dampening Jason’s cheek and leaving watery confetti on his dark brows. He took one last look at me, then climbed the two steps back to the top of the porch and drew my hand out from the fold of my arm. “Max is fine now, Ara,” he promised. “He was still breathing this morning, and Katy says his night terrors have completely ceased—and that was with
David
erasing his mind. You need to stop worrying. I can’t leave you when you have that look on your face.”
“I can’t help it,” I said, pulling my sleeves over my cold hands then tucking them back into a fold. “It’s just too good to be true. All of it. I mean, what if they all start dying in a few days?”
“They won’t,” he said, sending that certainty through the touch of his hand. “They’re alive and healthy. There’ve been no tests to indicate any adverse reactions from the change.”
“But, you haven't even got half the results back. Those will take weeks.” I wiped my sleeve across my eyebrows, blinking the fine raindrops from my lashes. “What if we acted too hastily? Maybe we should've—”
“Stop worrying.” He came up the last step to stand closer, dropping his duffle bag by his foot. “You’ll see. Everything will be fine.”
I nodded, forcing a weak smile.
“And … one more thing.” He cupped the side of my face, setting his lips softly to my brow, whispering so quietly into my hair then that no one even a foot away would've heard. “He didn’t do it, Ara.”
“Who didn’t do what?” I asked, keeping my face against the soft, moist opening of his lips.
“David. He didn’t sleep with those humans.”
“What do you mean?” I leaned back a bit and looked down the steps at David; he was busy packing up the car, not paying any attention to what Jason and I were saying … or doing.
Jase checked over his shoulder. “He sent the girls home after you left his room that night.”
“He didn’t even kill them?”
“He, uh…” He laughed breathily. “He lost his appetite.”
I smiled under the veil of my wet, curling hair.
Jason swept it back and kissed my brow. “I gotta go, okay? Before David finishes pretending to pack the car and starts getting antsy.”
“Okay. Be safe.”
“We will.” He backed away a step, his green eyes standing out like summer to a grey sky, making me wish I’d held eye-contact before now. “And I’m just a phone call away if you need someone, okay? Don’t try to be too strong, Ara. It’s barely been two weeks since your dad died.”
“I have Mike.” I inclined my head toward the line of servants and knights standing in respectful farewell under the light rain. “He’s stayed with me a few nights this week.”
“I know.” Jase and Mike gave each other a small nod of acknowledgement.
However,
Jase added in thought,
he might need you a little more than you need him, I think.
What do you mean?
It’s not just the passing of your father. He’s had a lot go wrong in his life lately, he....
He looked at Mike again; I looked too, and I saw it then—saw that the light had almost completely faded from his eyes.
I think I know how to cheer him up,
I thought.
Jase grinned at my wavering fingers. “Have fun then, okay? Try not to focus on problems.”
“I won’t. And…” I glanced once at David, now sitting in the driver’s seat, tapping his fingers to a beat against the steering wheel. “Thanks for telling me about … you know.”
“Any time, sweet girl. I knew it was eatin’ y’up.”
“It shouldn't, though, should it? I mean…” I pictured those girls again, then pictured everything I’d
imagined
he did with them. “It’s not cheating. We’re not together.”
“It’s not about that—about cheating. It’s about him being ready to take that step. That’s why you were hurt. It signifies ultimate acceptance, and you weren't ready for that, and…” He jerked his eyes at his brother. “Neither is he.”
“He’s not?”
“Nope.”
“Why?”
Jase just took a few more steps back, shaking his head like something was amusing. “I’ll let
you
figure that one out, my pretty little queen. See you in a few days.”
“Bye.” I put my hand up to wave, and Mike stepped in to stand beside me, one hand in his pocket, the other waving too. “Do you think I should maybe say something to David before he goes?”
“Like what?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I dunno. Goodbye, maybe. Good luck?”
Mike’s head turned slowly and his eyes found mine, lit with that knowing smile of his. “How are things with you and ol’ Cranky King then?”
I watched the car take the final turn down the road leading out of the manor. “Well, we’re not really
okay
yet, but … I think—”
“You can be civil, at least?” Mike asked, hopeful.
“Yeah.” I nodded, turning back toward the manor. “I think we’ll at least be friends—eventually.”
“And what about the baby?” He reached across and patted the small mound. “Has he apologised for what he said?”
“Kinda. He did say he didn’t mean it, but he’s taken no steps to acknowledge his role in her creation.”
“Give him time,” he said softly. “I’m seeing more of my old mate in that king these last two weeks than I’ve seen in a long time.”
“Maybe that trip to Paris did him some good.”
“I think you’re right,” he said, nodding to himself. “He needed to get away.”
“Yeah.” I slinked in through the front door as Mike opened it. “I think we both needed some space.”
“Yup. But you could both still use a bloody wake-up call as well.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, shutting the door with my hip.
“You need to stop fraternising with that brother of his, and David needs to stop pretending he’s okay with it.”
I laughed to myself. “Don’t worry, Mike. David and I will sort out our issues eventually.”
“I’m sure you will but, this time, you’re not the one acting like a child.”
“That makes for a nice change, huh?” I bumped him with my elbow.
He tugged me in with the crook of his arm and kissed my wet hair. “You’ve always had a good head on your shoulders, Ar. You just lost it for a while after your mum died.”
My lips made a rather melodramatic pout. “I miss her still.”
“Me too.”
***
The evening sun set like a ball of flames on the horizon, giving the stone terrace outside the Great Hall a kind of orange tinge. I’d expected to be back from the Institute for the Damned long before now, but it somehow seemed as if the walk down there was getting longer and longer, making the walk back feel like a marathon. I contemplated the idea, as I took a seat on the steps beside Falcon, that maybe the Institute was slowly slipping down the hill or something, taking it further and further from the manor. It certainly had nothing to do with how tired I was today.
“Tired?” Falcon laughed at me, bracing his forearms on his knees.
“It’s a long walk.” I rested my palms flat on the step beside my butt and tilted my face to the dawning night air.
“The walk has nothing to do with it. You’re run down.”
“I’m trying to deny that right now,” I said, opening one eye. “I have too much work to do to admit defeat.”
“Taking an afternoon nap would not have been admitting defeat.”
“A matter of opinion.” I smiled quietly to my proud self. “If I’d gone for a lie down when you told me to, I wouldn’t have turned four more children back today.”
He looked sideways at me. “How many left to turn now?”
“Well—” I sat forward and dusted my hands off on each other. “Of the twenty-five we found in the first cell, ten have been re-humanised, so…” I counted in my head. “There’s fifteen more in the village that were adopted as vampires, and we’ve got about twenty, maybe thirty in the Black Cells.”
A clear shudder straightened his spine. “When are you cracking those open?”
I gave a casual shrug. “Arthur has some sleep toxin he reckons can be weaponised to put them all down; you know, toss a canister in the cell so we can open it without being mauled. So I think we’ll give it a go tomorrow. If he can get that canister finished tonight.”
“Do you think he can?”
“He seems to think so. He’s got a few knights working on it with him.”
Falcon moved his head in a kind of dismissive nod. “Once the Damned are done and rehomed, you’ll take a break, right? You can’t keep working this hard. You’ll run yourself down.”
“It’s only been two days—”
“Five, if you count patient zero.”
The image of Steve the Paedophile’s desecrated remains flooded my thoughts for a second, filling me with satisfaction. “Same thing.”
“No, it’s not.” He laughed. “And it’s very taxing on you, Ara. You’re not just scrubbing floors or answering phones. This kind of work uses up all your physical resources.”
“Even so, I’m not sure I can make myself stop until all the children are at peace.”
“I know.” He cupped his big hand over my knee. “But you gotta remember, there’s no room for them at the Institute. You need to rehome each group before bringing up the next.”
“I know,” I said to my feet. “But if I do half the next group, I can at least leave them in the hospital wing until the others are adopted.”
“If you can find them families that fast. But the hospital isn’t equipped for that many patients, especially not those suffering mentally from centuries of torture and neglect.”
I sat quietly for a moment. He was right. I didn’t want him to be right, but he was. “You do understand, though, right?”
“I understand perfectly how you feel, Ara. I really do. But a day or two won’t make that much difference.”
“It will to the suffering.”
“But they won’t remember that once David erases their minds.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re not suffering now.”
His teeth and lips parted for a wide smile, his warm brown eyes shrinking.
“What?” I said self-consciously.
“You just … you’re a very caring person, Ara.” He patted my knee. “I hope you never lose that.”
I leaned my cheek against his shoulder-blade and closed my eyes for a second, letting the weariness of the day expire me. When a giant yawn opened my mouth for longer than intended and warmed the hairs on the back of Falcon’s neck, he stood and offered me his hand.
“Time for a nap,” he said.
“I won’t sleep tonight if I sleep now.”
He looked off across the way, his eyes coming back to mine with an eager grin. “How ‘bout some brownies and a coffee then? I hear Chef just made a new batch—with Mike’s recipe.”
“Yes!” I took the first few steps ahead of Falcon. “Chef does them better than Mike.”
Falcon laughed, coming up behind me. “Don’t tell Mike that.”
“Too late. I already did.”
“I bet that hurt him.”
“Nah.” I waved my hand, walking slower as my eyes adjusted to the darkness inside the Great Hall. “He agreed with me—said anything he didn’t have to make himself tasted better.”
“Really?” Falcon said, but there was a deep resonating tone of thought in his voice.
“Yeah. Why?”
“You don’t find that uncharacteristic for Mike?”
I stopped walking. “Now you mention it, yeah. It is. He loves cooking.”
Falcon kept walking, hands behind his back, eyes on the place of thought. “I think we’ll be seeing a resignation letter from him pretty soon.”
“What makes you say that?” I caught up.
“He just doesn’t seem happy anymore. I get the feeling he’s thinking about moving on.”
“More like
away
?”
“Away too, maybe. Not so much from you, though, Ara, but from
everything
. Em included.”
“And her new relationship with Blade?”
Falcon nodded once, the corner of his mouth moving up on one side and making his eye crinkle. “That hit Mike pretty damn hard.”
Guilt swathed my chest, contracting it. “I never even thought to ask him how he felt. I was so caught up in this mess with David.”
He drew a hand from behind his back to pat mine. “He understands.”
“Yeah, but … still. Maybe I should talk to him.”
“I’d leave it. He’s a very private man. He’ll figure out what he wants soon enough.”
“That’s what I’m worried about.”
“Why?”
“I don’t really wanna see him go. I’ll miss him like crazy.”
“I’m sure you’ll see him again.”
“I know. But he’s always been a permanent fixture in my life, I—”
“And maybe that’s part of the problem,” he said simply, leaving silence in the wake of that idea for a moment long enough that it really sunk in. “Maybe he needs to get a life of his own.”