Her roses were so close, she thought.

John whistled, and she looked over her shoulder at the pad he was holding face-out. Do you like it here at all? he’d written. And please know you can tell me you don’t. I won’t judge.

She fingered her robe. “I feel so different from everyone. I am lost in the conversations, though I speak the language.”

There was a long silence. When she glanced back at John, he was writing, his hand pausing every once in a while, as if he were choosing a word. He crossed something out. Wrote some more. When he was finished, he gave the pad to her.

I know what that’s like. Because I’m a mute, I feel out of place a lot of the time. It’s better since my transition, but it still happens. No one judges you here, though. We all like you, and we’re glad you’re in the house.

She read the paragraph twice. She wasn’t sure how to respond to the last part. She’d assumed she was tolerated because the Primale had brought her in.

“But… your grace, I thought you had assumed the mantle of silence?” As he flushed, she said, “I’m sorry, that’s not my concern.”

He wrote and then showed her his words. I was born without a voice box. The next sentence was crossed out, but she was able to get the gist. He’d written something like, But I still fight well and I’m smart and everything.

She could understand the subterfuge. The Chosen, like the glymera, valued physical perfection as evidence of proper breeding and the strength of the race’s genes. Many would have viewed his silence as a deficiency, and even the Chosen could be cruel to those they viewed as beneath them.

Cormia reached out and put her hand on his forearm. “I think not all things have to be spoken to be understood. And it is well obvious you are fit and strong.”

His cheeks bloomed with color, his head dropping to hide his eyes.

Cormia smiled. It seemed perverse that she should relax in the face of his getting awkward, but somehow she felt as though they were on more level footing.

“How long have you been here?” she asked.

Emotion flickered across his face as he went back to the pad. Eight months or so. They took me in because I had no family. My father was killed.

“I am so sorry for your loss. Tell me… do you stay because you like it here?”

There was a long pause. Then he wrote slowly. When he flashed her the pad, it said, I like it no more or less than I would any other house.

“Which makes you displaced like me,” she murmured. “Here but not here.”

He nodded, then smiled, revealing bright white fangs.

Cormia couldn’t help but return the expression on his handsome face.

Back at the Sanctuary, everyone had been like her. Here? No one was at all. Until now.

So do you have any questions you’d like to ask about stuff? he wrote. The house? The staff? Phury said you might have some.

Questions… oh, she could think of a few. For instance, how long had the Primale been in love with Bella? Had there ever been any feelings on her side? Had the two of them ever layed together?

Her eyes focused on the books. “I don’t have any questions right now.” For no particular reason, she added, "I just finished Choderlos de Laclos’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses.”

They made that into a movie. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon.

“A movie? And who are all those people?”

He wrote for quite a while. You know television, right? That flat panel in the billiards room? Well, movies are on an even bigger screen, and the people in them are called actors. They pretend to be people. Those three are actors. Actually, they’re all actors, when they’re on TV or in the movies. Well, most of them.

“I’ve only glanced into the billiards room. I haven’t been in it.” There was a curious shame to admitting how little she’d ventured out. “Is television the glowing box with the pictures?”

That’s the one. I can show you how it works if you like?

“Please.”

They went out of the library into the magical, rainbowed foyer of the mansion, and as always, Cormia glanced up to the ceiling, which floated three stories above the mosaic floor. The scene depicted far above was of warriors mounted on great steeds, all of them going off to fight. The colors were outrageously bright, the figures majestic and strong, the background a brilliant blue with white clouds.

There was one particular fighter with blond-streaked hair that she had to measure every time she passed through. She had to make sure he was all right, even though that was ridiculous. The figures never moved. Their fight was always on the verge, never in the actuality.

Unlike the Brotherhood’s. Unlike the Primale’s.

John Matthew led the way into the dark green room that was across from where meals were taken. The Brothers spent a lot of time here; she’d often hear their voices drifting out, marked by soft cracking noises, the source of which she couldn’t identify. John solved that mystery, though. As he passed by a flat table that had a green felt covering, he took one of the many multicolored balls on its surface and sent it rolling across the way. When it ran into one of its mates, the quiet knocking explained the sound.

John stopped in front of an upright gray canvas and picked up a slim black unit. All at once an image popped up in full color and sound came from everywhere. Cormia jumped back as a roar filled the room and bulletlike objects rushed by.

John steadied her as the din gradually faded, and then he wrote on his pad. Sorry, I turned the sound down. This is NASCAR racing. There are people in the cars and they go around the track. The fastest wins.

Cormia approached the image and touched it with hesitation. All she felt was a flat, clothlike stretch. She looked behind the screen. Nothing but wall.

“Amazing.”

John nodded and put out the slim unit to her, jogging it up and down as if encouraging her to take it. After he showed her what to push among the multitude of buttons, he stepped back. Cormia pointed the thing at the moving pictures… and made the images change. Again and again. There seemed to be an endless number of them.

“No vampires, though,” she murmured, as yet another broad-daylight setting appeared. “This is just for humans.”

We watch it too, though. You get vampires in movies-just not good ones usually. The films or the vampires.

Cormia slowly sank down onto the sofa in front of the television, and John followed suit in a chair next to her. The endless variation was enthralling, and John narrated each “channel” with notes to her. She didn’t know how long they sat together, but he didn’t seem impatient.

What channels did the Primale watch, she wondered.

Eventually, John showed her how to turn the images off. Flushed from excitement, she looked toward the glass doors.

“Is it safe outdoors?” she asked.

Very. There’s a huge retaining wall surrounding the compound, plus security cameras are everywhere. Even better, we’re insulated by mhis. No lesser has ever gotten in here, and none ever will-oh, and the squirrels and deer are harmless.

“I’d like to go outside.”

And I’d be happy to take you.

John tucked the pad under his arm and went over to one of the sets of glass doors. After he unlatched the brass lock, he swung one half of the pair wide with a gallant sweep of his arm.

The warm air that rushed in smelled different from that which was in the house. This was rich. Complex. Sultry with its garden bouquet and humid warmth.

Cormia got up from the couch and approached John. Beyond the terrace, the landscaped gardens she’d stared at from afar for so long stretched out over what seemed to be a vast distance. With its colorful flowers and blooming trees, the vista was nothing like the monochromatic expanse of the Sanctuary, but it was just as perfect, just as lovely.